[ecrea] Special Issue: Social Media and Protest Identities - Information, Communication and Society - Volume 18, Issue 8, 2015

We are delighted to announce the publication of the special issue on
Social Media and Protest Identities on the journal Information,
Communication and Society.

The special issue examines the continuing relevance and transformation
of the process of collective identity in contemporary sociall movements
and their use of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

Please find below a summary of the special issue and a list of all the
articles which can be accessed here
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rics20/18/8#.Ve3KmHvSiKx

Best,

Paolo Gerbaudo and Emiliano Treré
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SOCIAL MEDIA AND PROTEST IDENTITIES
Special Issue of Information, Communication & Society  - Volume 18,
Issue 8, 2015
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rics20/18/8#.Ve3KmHvSiKx

edited by Paolo Gerbaudo and Emiliano Treré

How does collective identity operate in social media activism across
protest movements as Occupy Wall Street, the indignados and Anonymous?
What are the different social media practices involved in the
construction of collective identity? And how do forms of collective
identity produced via social media reflect the affordances of these
communication technologies and the dilemmas of digital society?
Examining these and similar questions, this special issue sets out to
explore the changing nature of collective identity in a digital era and
to establish what opportunities and threats the new media ecology brings
to processes of identity construction in contemporary protest movements.
The contributions to the special issue recognize and problematize
collective identity as a central object of concern for digital activists
and conceive social media as platforms in which new identities are
forged and channelled. The authors demonstrate that social media has
become the key site where protest identities are created, channelled,
and contested. Far from having disappeared from the horizon of
contemporary activism, collective identity still constitutes a pivotal
question for activists and scholars alike; one which is decisive to
understand the emergence, persistence, and decline of protest movements,
and to discern their meaning and worldview.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

In search of the ‘we’ of social media activism: introduction to the
special issue on social media and protest identities
Paolo Gerbaudo, Emiliano Treré

ARTICLES

Creating the Collective: Social Media, the Occupy Movement and its
Constitution as a Collective Actor
Anastasia Kavada

 From Social Movements to Cloud Protesting: the evolution of collective
identity
Stefania Milan

Reclaiming, proclaiming, and maintaining collective identity in the
#YoSoy132 movement in Mexico: an examination of digital frontstage and
backstage activism through social media and instant messaging platforms
Emiliano Treré

Protest avatars as memetic signifiers: political profile pictures and
the construction of collective identity on social media in the 2011
protest wave
Paolo Gerbaudo

Multitudinous identities: a qualitative and network analysis of the 15M
collective identity
Arnau Monterde, Miguel Aguilera, Xabier E. Barandiaran, Antonio Calleja,
John Postill

The Rise and Fall of Collective Identity in Networked Movements:
Communication Protocols, Facebook, and the Anti-Berlusconi Protest
Lorenzo Coretti, Daniele Pica

 From Indymedia to Anonymous: rethinking action, identity and digital
communications Kevin McDonald

FINAL COMMENTARY

Do clouds have politics? Tracing the Meanders of Collective Identity
Amid Social Media
Maria Bakardjieva



http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rics20/18/8#.VeiHi7fSiKw






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