New Technologies, New Identities, and the Growth of Mass Opposition in the <scp>A</scp>rab <scp>S</scp>pring

McGarty, Craig; Thomas, Emma F.; Lala, Girish; Smith, Laura G. E.; Bliuc, Ana‐Maria

doi:10.1111/pops.12060

Cited by 165 publications

(152 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Social media are an effective action means to spread news (of meetings or emergencies) and to raise awareness about protests. While online protesting such as signing on-line petitions sometimes precludes offline protesting (Schuman & Klein, 2015), online interaction can also set the scene for offline action; and it is an action means in itself (McGarty, Thomas, Lala, Smith & Bliuc, 2014;Thomas et al, 2015). Due to the censored coverage of the Gezi park protests by traditional Turkish media, social media became all the more important.…”

Section: Political Concerns and Actionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Muslim identity: Opinion-based groups in the Gezi Park protest

Baysu

Phalet

2017

Group Processes & Intergroup Relations

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Media depicted Turkish Gezi Park protests as a clash between secularists and Islamists within a majority-Muslim country. Extending a social identity approach to protests, this study aims (a) to distinguish the protest participants in terms of their opinion-based group memberships, (b) to investigate how their religious identification and their group membership were associated with democratic attitudes. Six hundred and fifty highly educated urban young adult participants were surveyed during the protest. Latent class analysis of participants’ political concerns and online and offline actions yielded four distinct opinion-based groups labeled “liberals,” “secularists,” “moderates,” and “conservatives.” Looking at the intersection of the participants’ group identities with their Muslim identification, we observed that the higher conservatives’ and moderates’ religious identification, the less they endorsed democratic attitudes, whereas religious identification made little or no difference in liberals’ and secularists’ democratic attitudes. Our findings of distinct groups among protest participants in a majority-Muslim country challenge an essentialist understanding of religion as a homogeneous social identity.

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Section: Political Concerns and Actionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Muslim identity: Opinion-based groups in the Gezi Park protest

Baysu

Phalet

2017

Group Processes & Intergroup Relations

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“…People gather information about protests from traditional (McLeod & Detenber, 1999;Reicher & Stott, 2011) and social media (McGarty, Thomas, Lala, Smith, & Bliuc, 2014), from the opinions of others (Bäck et al, 2015;Klandermans, 1997;Zuckerman, 2005), and from our first-hand experiences (Barr & Drury, 2009;Reicher & Stott, 2011). Intriguingly, the findings here suggest that protesters need not only to contend with negative labelling and derogation from those opposed to their agenda (Einwohner, 2002;Papastamou, 1986), but also from movement sympathisers.…”

Section: Perceptions Of Protesters and Collective Actionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“I don't really want to be associated with the self-righteous left extreme”: Disincentives to participation in collective action

Stuart

Thomas

Donaghue

2018

J. Soc. Polit. Psych.

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This paper considers collective action non-participation by people sympathetic but not committed to participating in actions for social change ('sympathisers'). We conducted a thematic analysis of open-ended written accounts of the barriers to participating in sustained collective action (N = 112), finding that people can be reluctant to engage in some types of collective action. Participants wrote about the potential for detrimental consequences resulting from association with 'protesters', concern that they may be undermined by 'extreme' fringes of a movement, ambivalence about the visible performance of group normative behaviours (specifically, protesting), and trepidation about 'loss of self' within a group. We discuss the findings in relation to theory on social (dis)identification, social (dis)incentives, and identity performances, arguing that inaction does not necessarily stem from apathy. Rather, people may engage in motivated inaction -that is, active avoidance of some types of actions, or from affiliations with particular groups, as a response to negative inferences about the legitimacy or efficacy of some forms of collective action. Practical strategies are suggested for groups and individuals, including the potential for people to take actions for social change independently of a formally organised movement.Keywords: collective action, inaction, social incentives, social identity, identity performance, autonomy, participative efficacy, protest, activist stigma Non-Technical Summary BackgroundIn order to maintain a healthy democracy, people need to be invested in the functioning of their society and mindful of their impact on other people and the environment. One of the main forms of democratic participation (other than voting) is the engagement in protest -public coordinated actions that are usually organised by a group of people who share grievances. Yet most of the people who say they care about the social issues do not usually participate in these protests or take other collective actions.

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“…Events such as those unfolding during the Arab Spring of 2010 to 2012 would have been unthinkable in the absence of new communication technologies. Social media played an important role in communication between activists coordinating demonstrations and protests in the countries of the Arab League and its surroundings, leading to civil change (McGarty et al 2014). Communication can also allow the voices of the disempowered, such as marginalized communities who have felt the effects of upscaled urban demand, to be heard.…”

Section: How Did We Get Here and What Does It Mean?mentioning

confidence: 99%