Mainstreaming the alternative: Changing Media Strategies of Protest Movements
Author
Summary, in English
Combining a theoretical discussion of the inherent paradoxes in the celebration of new media technology as
a source of democratisation and empowerment of civic cultures with an empirical focus aimed at the
changing communicative manifests of mediated political protest, this paper analyses two cases of media
strategies in protest movements:
1) A series of civil disobedience actions and mobilisations of mass demonstrations before and after the
eviction and destruction of the Youth House in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2007-8.
2) The European Social Forum in Malmö, Sweden, September 2008.
The paper argues that contemporary protest movements are facing a convergence of what has traditionally
been coined as mainstream and alternative media.
Traditionally, the broad term ‘alternative media’ has been employed to embrace a wide range of oppositional
media channels that can be considered to carry on the tradition of the early radical and party press: micro
media operating at grass root level, discontinuous, non-professional, persecuted or illegal. Today, heavily
commercialised media and web-based social communities such as Facebook, YouTube and MySpace
constitute a common part of the repertoire of communication channels of alternative protest movements. Are
these new media channels a necessary mean in order to reach beyond the circles of the likeminded? Or, do
the use of these media point towards a mainstreaming process of protest-cultures of resistance to the
establishment eroding their very raison d’être?
a source of democratisation and empowerment of civic cultures with an empirical focus aimed at the
changing communicative manifests of mediated political protest, this paper analyses two cases of media
strategies in protest movements:
1) A series of civil disobedience actions and mobilisations of mass demonstrations before and after the
eviction and destruction of the Youth House in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2007-8.
2) The European Social Forum in Malmö, Sweden, September 2008.
The paper argues that contemporary protest movements are facing a convergence of what has traditionally
been coined as mainstream and alternative media.
Traditionally, the broad term ‘alternative media’ has been employed to embrace a wide range of oppositional
media channels that can be considered to carry on the tradition of the early radical and party press: micro
media operating at grass root level, discontinuous, non-professional, persecuted or illegal. Today, heavily
commercialised media and web-based social communities such as Facebook, YouTube and MySpace
constitute a common part of the repertoire of communication channels of alternative protest movements. Are
these new media channels a necessary mean in order to reach beyond the circles of the likeminded? Or, do
the use of these media point towards a mainstreaming process of protest-cultures of resistance to the
establishment eroding their very raison d’être?
Publishing year
2009
Language
English
Document type
Conference paper
Topic
- Political Science
Keywords
- internet politics
- social network sites
- social media
- Ungdomshuset
- European Social Forum
- social movements
- protest movements
Conference name
II Global Conference “Shaping Europe in a Globalized World? Protest Movements and the Rise of a Transnational Civil Society"
Conference date
2009-06-23 - 2009-06-26
Conference place
Zurich, Switzerland
Status
Unpublished
Project
- Viral politik. Politisk mobilisering i sociala medier