The Mediation of Dissensus

Dr. Bart CammaertsLondon School of Economics and Political Science

Opportunity Structures

Social Movement Theory:

the agentic opportunities as well as structural constraints that impact on the success or failure of social movements

fits with structuration theory (Giddens), but also with the idea that resistance is integral to understand the dynamic between generative and restrictive power (Foucault)

Mediation

Media and Communication Studies:

dialectic concept as well:Production/ReceptionAlternative/MainstreamPublic/PrivateTraditional Media/New MediaSymbolic/Material

also implicates the (active) audiences and the user of technology in the mediation process

Mediation Opportunity

Structure

Made up of four inter-connected components:

Performance of resistanceSelf-mediation practices

Mainstream media representationsResonance and public opinion

Performance of ResistanceThe Spectacle of Protest in the Society of the Spectacle (Guy Debord)

Disruption of elite-organised media eventsCreation of DIY-Spectacles

Resistance and the Carnivalesque (Mikhail Bakhtin)

Temporary transgressionsworld upside-downMockery

Performance of Resistance

Performing Dissensus

Insurrectionary Symbolic Violence

Antithesis of Bourdieu’s Symbolic ViolenceIsolated, Targetted and insignificant without its mediationOccupations of elite spaces, damage of property, disruption and seeking confrontations with police

Self-Mediation Practices

Technologies of Self (Foucault, 1997: 234-47)

Disclosure of Self: : ‘the cultivation of the self’

Examination of Self: ‘taking stock’ and self-reflexivity

Remembrance of Self: ‘memorizations of deeds’

Technologies of Self-Mediation

Logics of Self-Mediation

Disseminate movement framesMobilise for direct actions

Organise the movementCoordinate direct actions

Record protest eventsArchive protest artefacts

Disclosure

Examination

Remembrance

Media Center - Occupy Wall Street (US)

Twitter-Graffiti - Gezi (Turkey)

Technologies of Self-Mediation

Mainstream Media Representation

Mainstream media remains important (cf. Rucht, 2013)

To reach beyond the like-mindedTo increase the scope of conflictTo legitimise a struggle

Processes of adaptation to the media logic

Mainstream Media Representation

Negative Bias?Usually yes, but…mainstream media is not a unified actorConstruction of dichotomy of the good - peaceful - protester and the bad - violent - protesterAlso a focus on police violenceActivists increasingly develop strategies to manage the media

Reception and Audiences as Publics

Mediation is not merely constituted in the production of frames in text and images, but crucially also in the way in which these are received.

Those in whose name protests are organised and democratic decisions takenBlack-boxedOften represented as passive actors, juxtaposed by the active audience and the user of technologyThe Spivakean Subaltern which is heterogeneous, disparate; ceases to be subaltern when they speak

The Mediation Opportunity

Structure

• Should be seen as semi-independent from other opportunity structures

• Relates to discursive struggles (war of position)

• Includes the production, dissemination, and reception of movement frames

• Is dialectic and has a spatial as well as temporal dimension