Reporting demonstrations: The changing media politics of dissent

Abstract

In liberal democratic political theory they constitute a bridge helping to overcome possible disconnects between publics, opinion formation and policy-makers and, in more recent social theory, they perform a role in vitalizing moribund parliamentary democracies, crystallizing new collective identities and circulating cultural codes (Melucci, 1996). Mass demonstrations also remain at the forefront of struggles for citizenship rights and democracy in non-democratic regimes around the world. Today the politics that animates demonstrations are not only 'demonstrated' in public squares and on public streets but, necessarily, in and through the media. This is not new. From the chartists to the suffragettes, from Gandhi's acts of civil disobedience to Martin Luther King's civil rights marches, from the mass rallies and marches of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament to the more recent 'anti-globalization' protests and 'summit sieges' of the G8 and WTO, protesters have sought to make use of the media's disseminatory reach. This is so whether via leaflets and posters, newspapers and newsreels, radio and television or mobile telephony and the internet.What is unprecedented is the extent to which protests and demonstrations today have become reflexively conditioned by their pursuit of media attention, and need to be if they are to get their message across and mobilize wider support. It is in and through the news media especially that the politics of protest and dissent is now generally conveyed to wider audiences, and it is by this same means that wider support and legitimacy for their actions and aims

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“…Este imaginario estaría presente en los propios activistas, los que anhelan aparecer en los medios de comunicación aunque sea de este modo, para visibilizar sus demandas (Sapiezynska, 2014). Tal imaginario condicionaría a los movimiento sociales de manera reflexiva y estratégica por obtener atención mediática (Cottle, 2008).…”

The Mediation of the Brazilian V-for-Vinegar Protests: From vilification to legitimization and back? │ A mediação dos protestos brasileiros "V-de-Vinagre": da vilificação à legitimação e de volta?

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