Social Media Activism at the Margins: Managing Visibility, Voice and Vitality Affects

This article is concerned with social media activism at the margins and deals with the problem of managing visibility and voice and the role of affect in the emergence of contested publics over time. While we hear a lot about social media mobilization and exchange during critical and large-scale pro...

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Main Author: Anthony McCosker
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publishing 2015-09-01
Series:Social Media + Society
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305115605860
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author Anthony McCosker
author_facet Anthony McCosker
author_sort Anthony McCosker
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description This article is concerned with social media activism at the margins and deals with the problem of managing visibility and voice and the role of affect in the emergence of contested publics over time. While we hear a lot about social media mobilization and exchange during critical and large-scale protest events, less is understood about the capacities for building and maintaining more peripheral dissident publics over longer timeframes. And while platforms such as YouTube have been celebrated (and censored) for their ability to make protest visible through dispersed affective networks, the increasingly commercialized channel structure raises questions about the sustainability of ordinary acts of protest in the long term. This article examines a case study of peripheral anarchist political activism that moves through and beyond critical events. The study applies methods of video content analysis, qualitative analysis of comments and interactions, and visual analysis of selected videos to examine emergent “affective publics,” drawing on Daniel Stern’s notion of vitality affects.
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spelling doaj.art-b71c45cefe9f4eb48f78b551177727e92022-12-21T19:44:00ZengSAGE PublishingSocial Media + Society2056-30512015-09-01110.1177/205630511560586010.1177_2056305115605860Social Media Activism at the Margins: Managing Visibility, Voice and Vitality AffectsAnthony McCoskerThis article is concerned with social media activism at the margins and deals with the problem of managing visibility and voice and the role of affect in the emergence of contested publics over time. While we hear a lot about social media mobilization and exchange during critical and large-scale protest events, less is understood about the capacities for building and maintaining more peripheral dissident publics over longer timeframes. And while platforms such as YouTube have been celebrated (and censored) for their ability to make protest visible through dispersed affective networks, the increasingly commercialized channel structure raises questions about the sustainability of ordinary acts of protest in the long term. This article examines a case study of peripheral anarchist political activism that moves through and beyond critical events. The study applies methods of video content analysis, qualitative analysis of comments and interactions, and visual analysis of selected videos to examine emergent “affective publics,” drawing on Daniel Stern’s notion of vitality affects.https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305115605860
spellingShingle Anthony McCosker
Social Media Activism at the Margins: Managing Visibility, Voice and Vitality Affects
Social Media + Society
title Social Media Activism at the Margins: Managing Visibility, Voice and Vitality Affects
title_full Social Media Activism at the Margins: Managing Visibility, Voice and Vitality Affects
title_fullStr Social Media Activism at the Margins: Managing Visibility, Voice and Vitality Affects
title_full_unstemmed Social Media Activism at the Margins: Managing Visibility, Voice and Vitality Affects
title_short Social Media Activism at the Margins: Managing Visibility, Voice and Vitality Affects
title_sort social media activism at the margins managing visibility voice and vitality affects
url https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305115605860
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