We discussed the privacy concerns raised in relation to Threads, whether it can replace the immediacy and news of Twitter, and what politicians hope to gain from setting up accounts on the new platform.
A few selected quotes are below:
On the future for Twitter if Threads continues to grow in popularity:
“I do wonder if it doesn’t have the key functionality of Twitter, which is to break news and tofollow things, and that’s hashtag focused. To me, it probably has a limit in terms of how manypeople will give up on Twitter completely and move there. Unless Twitter does collapse and maybe that does happen“.
On whether people will migrate from Twitter to Threads in large numbers:
“I think it’s harder to pack up and move an entire group of people there [..] Particularly when they’re used to the kind of rhythms of Twitter and whether it’s following events or following things which are breaking“.
On why politicians might sign up to Threads:
“But there is a question mark there about these platforms, it’s as if almost every politician or party has to be on them because they think that’s where they’re going to reach younger people“
Last week I attended an event in Glasgow marking twenty five years of the Good Friday Agreement. There were vivid recollections from former Ulster Unionist Party leader Mike Nesbitt about his experiences as a journalist reporting on the talks at Castle Buildings from the car park outside. Professor Monica McWilliamsrecounted the sexism and misogyny experienced by members of the NI Women’s Coalition both during and after the negotiations. However, it was former SDLP leader and Deputy First Minister Mark Durkan’s reflections on how social media creates a cycle of ‘reacting to reactions’ that particularly resonated. He suggested that it would have been much harder to achieve the Good Friday Agreement in the context of the polarised political debates on social media today.
Yet it would be premature to suggest that online platforms have no potential to promote reconciliation in societies transitioning out of conflict. I found that the most significant peacebuilding contribution of social media was its empowerment of citizens to correct misinformation and disinformation that had the potential to generate sectarian violence. Such false information appeared to have a relatively short lifespan, due in no small part to the fact that tweeters had corrected them and professional journalists had chosen not to share these social media posts in their coverage of these events. Furthermore, it was apparent that much of the social media activity followed contentious parades and protests with little evidence it was directly influencing events on the ground. While it might be convenient to blame platforms like Facebook and Twitter for intercommunal violence, it was the context in which they were used that shaped the interactions between members of rival communities. During periods of political instability the publics mobilised on social media can both help and hinder efforts to moderate sectarian tensions in these contexts.
Would the peace process of the mid-nineties have been possible in the social media era? Certainly it would appear more difficult to keep negotiations private. Journalists like Nesbitt are no longer left outside in the car park looking in. Those within Castle Buildings would also have been subject to much online hate speech, misinformation and trolling by those who opposed the peace process. Yet, it does a disservice to those who negotiated the Agreement to believe that it would have been derailed by such online chatter and noise. While acknowledging the imperfect nature of the Agreement, Monica McWilliams suggested that the leaders of the main parties had the courage not only to compromise but also to explain why they had done so to their respective communities. Fast forward to 2023 and relations between the two largest parties, the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein, remain fractious. Both have collapsed the powersharing institutions at various points in the past decade; most recently, the DUP have refused to take their seats in the Executive unless the Northern Ireland Protocol and the so-called ‘Irish Sea Border’ created by the UK’s EU Withdrawal Agreement are removed. The politicisation of issues such as a proposed Irish language act has reverberated online as supporters of these parties engage in whataboutery and accuse each other of bad faith. Perhaps the current generation of political leaders need to heed the words of Nobel Peace Prize winner John Hume:
Media and Conflict Memory: an Interdisciplinary Workshop
University of Glasgow, 22-23 November 2023.
Media are integral to how we both remember and forget conflict. While individuals refer to the family photo album, the collective memories of communities are often shaped by iconic photographs of traumatic events such as popular uprisings, terrorist attacks, and wars. This memory work was traditionally confined to repositories such as historical archives, museums and institutions. In recent years the ‘connective turn’ has ‘unmoored’ memory from these institutions, replacing traditional notions of collective memory with the searchable ‘memory of the multitude’ online (Hoskins, 2017). The automated systems of online platforms like Facebook ‘dig’ for memories on behalf of their users, including those of (Jacobsen and Beer, 2021). Historical photographs shared on photo sharing sites like Instagram facilitate informal learning about events such as the Holocaust among younger generations (Commane and Potton, 2019). This has empowered a new generation of memory activists who leverage the affordances of online platforms for commemoration rituals (Fridman, 2022). More recently, apps like Telegram have made it easier to document human rights violations during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, whilst simultaneously creating a curated, unsanitized ‘war feed’ for global audiences (Hoskins and Shchelin, 2023).
This hybrid workshop seeks to advance the discussion about the role of media in conflict memory work. We adopt a purposefully broad definition of conflict which includes (but is not limited to) armed insurrections, civil disorder, geopolitical interstate conflict, political violence in divided societies, terrorist attacks, and wars.
We are looking for original and creative contributions that demonstrate the broad range of methodologies (e.g. qualitative, quantitative, digital) in this emergent field. Abstract submissions should explicitly address the role of media (e.g. newspapers, social media, television) in conflict memory. We will accept both theoretical and empirical studies provided they are relevant to the workshop’s key themes.
Possible topics for the workshop include:
Conflict memory, media and education
Mediatization of war, terrorism, armed conflict and civil disorder
Journalistic practice and collective memories of conflict
Media and conflict memory in post and neo-authoritarian societies
Memory activism after conflict
Radio, memory and conflict
Social media and conflict memory
Television news and audience understanding of conflict
We especially encourage submissions from early career researchers and those based in Global South countries. There will be a limited number of travel bursaries available for those traveling to Glasgow to attend in-person.
Abstracts of 300-500 words, excluding references, should be sent to paul.reilly@glasgow.ac.uk and virpi.salojarvi@helsinki.fi. Please indicate on your submission whether you will attend in-person or online, and if you wish to be considered for a travel bursary should your abstract be accepted. There will be no registration fee for participants accepted for the workshop. Workshop participants will be invited to submit an abstract for a co-edited volume based on the workshop.
For further information on the study, please feel free to contact us.
The abstract can be read below:
Where exactly is the Global South? Exploring Northern visibilities in digital activism research
The seemingly global nature of hashtag activism makes it difficult to assess what regions are being studied in digital activism research and the extent to which this scholarship is subject to ‘digital bias’ (Marres, 2017). This is of particular concern to scholars who have problematised the dominance of ‘Western’, Global North actors in digital media research whilst also calling for internet research methods to become de-westernised, internationalised, or decolonised (e.g. Badr & Ganter, 2021; Bosch, 2022; Milan & Treré, 2019; Karam & Mutsvairo, 2022; Mutsvairo, 2019; Schoon et al., 2020). While some argue that a ‘decolonial turn’ in digital media research is belatedly occurring (Couldry and Mejia, 2021), questions remain about whether similar trends are evident in digital activism research.
In response to this issue, this paper explores geographic representation in digital activism research. The corpus for the systematic review was created by running queries spanning 21 relevant keywords describing digitally enabled activism on the Scopus database. The final corpus consisted of 315 articles published between 2011 and 2018, which was tested on a range of attributes including methodological approaches and factors for evaluating regionality with a focus on regionally disadvantaged communities (towards capturing “Global South” and semi-periphery regions), incl.: case study origin and location, author affiliation, regional foci of the publishing journals, and researched digital/ social media platform (as tied to specific user demographics).
Results indicate that Global North and non-region specific campaigns dominated digital activism research during this period, particularly in articles featuring digital data. As such, extant research in the field has disproportionately produced what we term Northern Visibilities – privileged demographics & popular platforms of the “Global Majority” (i.e. Global North and privileged economies), above all in research applying software-based approaches.
The paper concludes by outlining a number of epistemological provocations around the extent to which the methods and methodological instruments researchers choose affect which social groups they capture or potentially omit as demographics may become diffused over multiple spaces and language contexts. Challenges in capturing Global South and semi-periphery communities apply, above all, in computational approaches as these are often based on high visibility as well as the API access options platforms provide. This means that researchers may need to rethink (a) where (e.g. which platform spaces) and how disadvantaged and less visible social groups are represented online, (b) which precise social groups digital social research is meant to capture, (c) gaps in digital activism research, above all in relation to “unheard” groups, as well as (d) what these skewed representations mean for inclusive research practice.
Bosch, T. (2022). Decolonizing Digital Methods. Communication Theory, 32(2), 298-302.
Couldry, N., & Mejias, U. A. (2021). The decolonial turn in data and technology research: what is at stake and where is it heading?. Information, Communication & Society, 1-17.
Karam, B., & Mutsvairo, B. (2022). Decolonising Political Communication in Africa: Reframing Ontologies (p. 254). Taylor & Francis.
Marres, N. (2017). Digital sociology: The Reinvention of Social Research. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Milan, S., & Treré, E. (2019). Big data from the South (s): Beyond data universalism. Television & New Media, 20(4), 319-335.
Mutsvairo, B. (2019). Challenges facing development of data journalism in non-western societies. Digital Journalism, 7(9), 1289-1294.
Schoon, A., Mabweazara, H. M., Bosch, T., & Dugmore, H. (2020). Decolonising digital media research methods: Positioning African digital experiences as epistemic sites of knowledge production. African Journalism Studies, 41(4), 1-15.
I am sure I was not the only one to find this scene (from Channel 4 sitcom Derry Girls) to be particularly poignant. This week marks 25 years since the Good Friday Agreement was signed. I was a student living in Scotland at the time. My memories of April 1998 primarily revolve around the television coverage of the negotiations at Castle Buildings in Belfast. There are too many to mention here but a few stand out. UK Prime Minister’s (in)famous ‘hand of history’ comment after he earnestly told reporters that this was no time for soundbites. Cameras capturing Brid Rodgers hugging SDLP colleagues in the party’s offices in the early hours of the 10 April, signalling that an Agreement had been reached. And of course there was the televised plenary session on 10 April when US Senator George Mitchell announced an agreement had been reached. The rectangular table with the leaders of the main political parties sitting side-by-side (each with their own name card, as if we needed reminding who they were).
The conversation between Erin and Granda Joe captures the optimism and fear of those who voted in the Good Friday Agreement referendum in May 1998. Like many others, I voted via post and my knowledge of the deal was based entirely on information made available to the public via traditional media. There were no ‘hot takes’ on sites like Twitter informing voters about its contents (perhaps a good thing!). Dial-up internet meant that copies of the text could not be circulated freely online. My dad ended up photocopying the entire document and sending it to me in the post (writing on the first page “some light reading for you”, which still makes me laugh when I see it). In the end, it was an easy decision to vote ‘Yes’. The commitment of paramilitaries to abandon their campaigns of political violence in favour of exclusively peaceful means would mean that future generations would not have to experience the trauma and losses of the past.
Fast forward 25 years and the anniversary of the GFA sees Northern Ireland very much at a crossroads. Admittedly ambitious targets to remove all peace walls by 2023 have not been met, albeit they are dwindling slowly. Paramilitary-style attacks continue to blight what remains a deeply divided society. The continued threat from violent dissident republican groups was illustrated by the attempted murder of PSNI Detective John Caldwell last month. Democratic dysfunction remains a defining feature of the powersharing institutions created under the Agreement. The consociationalist framework of governance means that either of the two largest political parties have the ability to collapse the institutions when it is politically expedient for them to do so. Most recently, the Democratic Unionist Party has boycotted Stormont in protest at the ‘Irish Sea Border’ created by the UK’s EU Withdrawal Agreement. Despite claims from UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that the Windsor Framework will make the region the “world’s most exciting economic zone”, it remains to be seen whether it will be enough to convince the DUP to go back into government. SDLP leader Colum Eastwood has argued that the real issue is that they do not want to serve under a nationalist First Minister, a likely scenario given that Sinn Féin are now the largest party in the Assembly.
While it may be imperfect, perhaps even unpalatable for some, these are grounds for optimism. The structures that kept the main communities apart are slowly being dismantled. Research shows an increase in the number of mixed relationships and people who self-identify as neither unionist or nationalist. Activism in areas such as women’s reproductive rights continues to transcend sectarian boundaries. A clear majority of Catholic and Protestant residents living in the vicinity of peace walls want them to come down. Moreover, there are the number of lives saved due to the end of the conflict. Former Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams recently argued there are thousands of people alive today because of the GFA. Now, more than ever, we need political leaders with the bravery of the class of 1998 to protect their hard-won peace.
Semra Demirdis, Stefania Vicari and I have had an article published on how Twitter was used to mobilise hashtag publics during the July 2016 ‘coup’ in Turkey. Based on Serra’s recently completed PhD, we found that the microblogging site was used to promote government propaganda during these events, with frequent calls being made for citizens to protect Turkish democracy or side with the ‘enemies of the nation’. Many thanks to First Monday for publishing this piece and congratulations to Semra on her first publication!
I have written a piece for VIEWdigital on the online abuse experienced by public figures in Northern Ireland. I argue that we need to hold social media users accountable for their actions rather than focus on ending online anonymity. Interventions such as counter-speech campaigns can be effective tools for creating a more civil online discourse.
Many thanks to Brian Pelan and Una Murphy for the opportunity to write about this issue. The piece can be read here.
Please do consider supporting VIEWdigital (print subscriptions cost as little as £40 per year).Further details on how to subscribe can be found here.
I have written a piece for VIEWdigital on the issue of regulating online hate speech. I argue that the publish then filter model of platforms like Facebook and Twitter is partially responsible for the growth in hate speech online. I discuss how national governments and the EU have used fines in an effort to compel these platforms to remove such harmful content. However, if we want to take online harms more seriously we need to treat online platforms like publishers.
Many thanks to Brian Pelan and Una Murphy for the opportunity to write about this issue. The piece can be read here.
Please do consider supporting VIEWdigital (print subscriptions cost as little as £40 per year).Further details on how to subscribe can be found here.
In the submission, we discussed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on independent news outlets such as ViewDIGITAL. Our recommendations include making interest free loans available to local news organisations, and the creation of a public media trust to support the hyperlocal sector in the future. The submission can be viewed here
My chapter is entitled ‘Watching the Watchers: Sousveillance as a political response to surveillance society’.
The Introduction to the chapter can be read below.
Scholars such as Thompson (2018) have argued that the growth of digital technologies have led to a new era of ‘mediated visibility’ in which virtually every bystander has the means to provide audio-visual evidence of what they have witnessed. This raises important questions about whether mediated witnessing has the potential to destablise power relations within contemporary societies given that the ‘field of vision’ is no longer limited to specific locales. Put simply, elites are more likely have their actions scrutinised in media environments where they are no longer able to control the images of them that circulate online (Thompson, 2005). This chapter explores this visibility through the politics of sousveillance, a form of ‘inverse surveillance’ said to empower citizens to “access and collect data about their surveillance” through the use of information and communication technologies (Mann et al, 2003: 333). This is a concept developed by engineer Steve Mann, who encouraged citizens to wear cameras in order to counteract the pervasive organisational surveillance synonymous with contemporary societies. The rationale for this ‘undersight’ was that the data generated by corporate and police surveillance of private citizens lacked integrity and was “less than the full truth” (Mann 2017:3). Reductive analyses of sousveillance as a panacea to surveillance have gradually been replaced by more contextualised studies recognising their coexistence within contemporary societies. Both have been conceptualised as orthogonal vectors in the Veillance Plane, an eight-point compass showing how levels of oversight and undersight can be altered by the number of people recording footage on their smartphones within physical locations.
The chapter is structured as follows. First, the concept of sousveillance will be introduced and the Veillance Plane defined. Second, prominent examples of sousveillant practices will be discussed in order to explore the motivations underpinning the use of technology to record the actions of authority figures, the type of imagery being shared, and the impact of such activity. These will include the Black Lives Matter campaign to focus attention on violent police attacks on African-Americans since 2014 (Freelon et al, 2016a) and loyalist protesters use of social media to highlight police brutality in Northern Ireland (Reilly, 2020a; 2021). Both constitute contexts in which public confidence in policing is traditionally low and marginalised citizens are motivated to engage in ‘inverse surveillance’ due to their prior negative interactions with individual police officers. The chapter will consider how audience responses to these acts of sousveillance are influenced by news media coverage of these incidents. It concludes by considering whether sousveillant practices facilitated via social media actually constitute a shift in informational power from elites to marginalised groups. A future research agenda for exploring the communicative power of sousveillance is elucidated.
The book can be purchased online and you can read a preprint of my chapter here.
