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Media practices and the challenge of political asymmetries

Authors:
Geoffrey Pleyers at Catholic University of Louvain
Geoffrey Pleyers
Ana Cristina Suzina at Loughborough University London
Ana Cristina Suzina
  • Loughborough University London
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Abstract

In contemporary democracies, the establishment of a public space which is more open and accessible to disadvantaged groups, popular movements and communities is a major challenge. The media are both part of the problem and the solution. On the one hand, they strengthen or even produce divisions and the fragmentation of the public space. On the other, their use by social movements and civil society can establish connections between different social groups, include marginalized populations and regain the public nature of certain issues. Similarly, even if the use of digital resources overcomes obstacles that complicate participation in public debate, all the asymmetries do not disappear with the use of Internet, for instance.
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 
             

              
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                
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   
       
               

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              
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               
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    
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        
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     
     
             

               

      
 
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  
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          
            

              
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  
              
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             
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


               

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   

        
             
              
              


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              
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          
            

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              
   
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   
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             
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        
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       
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               
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                
               
                
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   
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             
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
   



 
   
                

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

              
   
     

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 
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   
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            
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
             
              

            

              
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
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
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              
               
     
  

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      
         

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              
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   
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               
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              
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     
         

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         
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             
            
         
               
                
  
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               
               
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         
            

 
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            

          
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         
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     
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     
                
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       
     
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          
  
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    
         
  
  
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
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                
        
     
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

        
   


   



  




... Particularly, a great number of studies have revealed how contestant and marginalized actors are placed in two problematic positions in relation to this frontier. Either they are in the side of nonexistent, being completely neglected by the media covering, or they exist, although marked by negative associations such as crime and disorder (Miguel, Biroli, & Duailibe, 2013;Rovira, 2013;Suzina & Pleyers, 2016). Todd Gitlin argues that the power of media professionals consists of attributing meaning to social movements actions without no voice back about the frames produced (Gitlin, 1980). ...
Media practices in the Brazilian mobilizations of 2013
Article
Full-text available
  • Jun 2019
This article discusses how a series of national mobilizations in Brazil, in 2013, embedded a relevant debate around the social judgment regarding journalistic practices and a consequential “desire of reform” towards an “ideal journalism”. I will also discuss the assumption that community and alternative media help, on a regular basis, to develop journalism and improve democracy. The reflection is based on a two-step approach. The first step consists in the observation of the evolution of mainstream media covering during the protests, through the analysis of the front pages of the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. The second refers to the inclusion of claims related to media in the demonstrations and its roots in the struggles for media democratization in the country, and counts on interviews with 11 Brazilian media activists.
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Global South: ¿una agenda política para pensar la comunicación?
Article
Full-text available
  • Apr 2024
RESUMEN El concepto Sur global, en los últimos años, se hizo visible en publicaciones académicas de comunicación, en especial, en el contexto del norte global. A partir de esta premisa, este artículo propone, por un lado, presentar las principales líneas empleadas bajo el concepto global south y, por otro, discutir su apropiación en el campo de la comunicación, poniendo en perspectiva dicho empleo a la luz de las corrientes y tradiciones de la comunicología iberoamericana. Se discute en qué medida global south representa una agenda política capaz de articular un diálogo entre la producción comunicacional iberoamericana ante las agendas-epistémicas y metodológicas-del norte global, sus limitaciones y potencialidades desde la experiencia de un investigador sometido a ambas lógicas. Palabras clave: Sur global, epistemología del sur, comunicación, escuela latinoame-ricana, decolonialidad ABSTRACT In recent years, the idea of the Global South has become more visible in many media and communication publications, especially in the context of the Global North. Based on this premise, this study proposes to describe the main lines employed under the idea of the Global South and therefore discuss its appropriation by the field of communication in the light of Ibero-American communicology. Finally, it is stressed the extent to which the Global South represents a political agenda able to articulate dialogues between the Ibero-American epistemic and methodological traditions of communicational production and the agenda of the global north, its limitations, and potentialities from the experience of a researcher subjected to both logics.
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Popular media and political asymmetries in the Brazilian democracy in times of digital disruption
Thesis
Full-text available
  • Jun 2018
Popular media are means of communication such as radio stations, print newspapers and television channels, digital or analog, created and animated by social movements, community associations and civil society organizations. In this work, based on a field research involving 29 initiatives located in different regions of Brazil, they illustrate in a forceful way the asymmetries of power that characterize Brazilian democracy. Asymmetries are deeper issues than inequalities. They survive even if all or part of the inequalities are suppressed. The incorporation of digital resources into popular media initiatives demonstrates this by revealing that, even though digital platforms are widely used, the capacity to intervene in the construction or transformation of the collective world view remains restricted to only a few social groups. It is important to recognize that digital resources expand the capacity of expression and reach of social actors, including the marginalized. This advance allows them to produce more dissonance, which is a central element for social change. However, it should be noted that in highly mediatized societies the concentration of media ownership and use, often exacerbated by policies and practices that organize the digital environment following capitalist principles, hinders the effective realization of participation and dialogue in public debate. Popular media represent, in this sense, a doubly relevant field of struggle. On the one hand, they play a fundamental role as platforms for the construction and affirmation of identities and narratives of marginalized social groups. On the other hand, they constitute a space of struggle in itself, associated with the organization and democratization of the public sphere.
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Estética de la imaginación: Activismo y expresión pública en internet
Article
Full-text available
  • Sep 2019
En nuestros días es muy común que los activistas usen los medios digitales en sus asuntos cotidianos, especialmente en aquellos que requieren presencia pública. Este artículo contribuye a los debates sobre el vínculo entre activismo y medios digitales, mediante el abordaje de la estética de la imaginación en la expresión pública en línea. El marco teórico discute la participación de los activistas en el espacio público, como una lucha por el reconocimiento, a través de sus prácticas de comunicación, especialmente las de los medios digitales. La metodología articula etnografía digital y etnografías de participación, para analizar tres espacios de comunicación de activismo: la red, la calle y los medios. El trabajo de campo se llevó a cabo en Aguascalientes, México, con dos grupos activistas locales. Los principales hallazgos se orientan a la comprensión de la expresión pública en línea como una configuración de identidades, estética y relaciones. La estética de la imaginación es un elemento clave en su producción de contenido en línea. Tiene tres elementos principales —visualidad, emociones y razón— y presenta tres patrones —la crítica, el trabajo en proceso y la imaginación De hecho, la imaginación es un elemento clave tanto en el trabajo activista cotidiano como en las prácticas de expresión pública en línea. En internet, los activistas se representan a sí mismos y aprovechan la oportunidad de reimaginar, renombrar y reconstruir el mundo. A través de estas acciones, los activistas disputan el poder de producir significado.
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The technopolitical possibility. Contemporary activism and dispositives for action. The cases of the feminist networks and Rexiste
Article
Full-text available
  • Jul 2019
This article analyzes the political production of young activists, recognizable in contemporary and technopolitical codes. It approaches to the activism that uses communicative technologies that make possible the hegemony dispute through which young activists project their codes and values around disputes and conflicts. The analysis draws from two youth experiences of political activism that took place after the YoSoy132 movement.
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Alive when taken; alive we want them back! Global actions for Ayotzinapa and political activism among youth in Guadalajara
Article
Full-text available
  • Jan 2017
This paper analyzes the constitution and development of collective actions calling for justice and solidarity with Ayotzinapa that took place in Mexico City and Guadalajara in 2014 and 2015; actions characterized by the protagonist role of the political activism of young people. Data for the study were gathered through participant observation of several protests and via interaction on such social media platforms as Facebook and Twitter. The study focuses specifically on global actions that occurred on November 20 and December 1. Some results indicate that citizens’ resistance in relation to the events in Ayotzinapa was configured by the articulation of diverse networks of activism that determined the course of collective actions in which Young activists succeeded in potentiating actions through the strategic use of communications technologies that allowed them to challenge cultural meanings and interpellate some political actors related to the forced disappearance of those 43 students.
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Networked life world: four dimensions of the cultures of networked belonging
Article
Full-text available
  • Jan 2012
This paper discusses the possible building of a networked life world, using the power of sharing with others values and practices. It is argued that mediation practices are not just giving rise to networked communication, changing our media culture and our values and beliefs as citizens of a global network society. It is argued in this paper that changes in mediation are also creating the conditions to foster the creation of a networked life world. When we change the symbolic meaning of possession of property, production and distribution, while disseminating such practises and values through social mediated networks it is, at least, conceivable that we will face a growing disruption of old narratives ability to sustain lifeword collective identity and its challenge through the adoption of new ones capable of reconstructing such identity.
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The Logic of Connective Action
Article
Full-text available
  • Jun 2012
From the Arab Spring and los indignados in Spain, to Occupy Wall Street (and beyond), large-scale, sustained protests are using digital media in ways that go beyond sending and receiving messages. Some of these action formations contain relatively small roles for formal brick and mortar organizations. Others involve well-established advocacy organizations, in hybrid relations with other organizations, using technologies that enable personalized public engagement. Both stand in contrast to the more familiar organizationally managed and brokered action conventionally associated with social movement and issue advocacy. This article examines the organizational dynamics that emerge when communication becomes a prominent part of organizational structure. It argues that understanding such variations in large-scale action networks requires distinguishing between at least two logics that may be in play: The familiar logic of collective action associated with high levels of organizational resources and the formation of collective identities, and the less familiar logic of connective action based on personalized content sharing across media networks. In the former, introducing digital media do not change the core dynamics of the action. In the case of the latter, they do. Building on these distinctions, the article presents three ideal types of large-scale action networks that are becoming prominent in the contentious politics of the contemporary era.
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Respect, réciprocité et relations asymétriques. Quelques figures de la relation de soin
Article
  • Jan 2006
Comment assurer le respect de personnes qui se trouvent dans des situations de dependance ? Un echange, une reciprocite sont possibles, meme dans des situations ou les competences et les capacites sont disproportionnees. Mais il faut faire l’apprentissage d’une relation dont le soin donne le modele.
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The Internet, Public Spheres, and Political Communication: Dispersion and Deliberation
Article
  • Apr 2005
  • POLIT COMMUN
The theme of the Internet and the public sphere now has a permanent place on research agendas and in intellectual inquiry; it is entering the mainstream of Political communication studies. The first part of this presentation briefly pulls together key elements in the public sphere perspective, underscoring three main analytic dimensions: the structural, the representational, and the interactional. Then the discussion addresses some central themes in the current difficulties facing democracy, refracted through the lens of the public sphere perspective. In particular, the destabilization of political communication systems is seen as a context for understanding the role of the Internet: It enters into, as well as contributes to, this destabilization. At the same time, the notion of destabilization can also embody a positive sense, pointing to dispersions of older patterns that may have outlived their utility. Further, the discussion takes up obvious positive consequences that follow from the Internet, for example that it extends and pluralizes the public sphere in a number of ways. Thereafter the focus moves on to the interactional dimension of the public sphere, specifically in regard to recent research on how deliberation proceeds in the online public sphere in the contemporary environment of political communication. Finally, the analytic category of deliberative democracy is critically examined; while useful, some of its rationalist biases, particularly in the context of extra-parliamentarian politics, limit its utility. It is suggested that the concept of civic cultures offers an alternative way to understand the significance of online political discussion.
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