Free Access – Wave-Riding and Hashtag-Jumping: Twitter, Minority ‘Third Parties’ and the 2012 US Elections

My new article, “Wave-Riding and Hashtag-Jumping: Twitter, Minority ‘Third Parties’ and the 2012 US Elections,” published in Information, Communication & Society has been made open-access (free) for 6 months (until September 2013).

Abstract: With the description of the 2012 election as the ‘most tweeted’ political event in US history in mind, considering the relative media invisibility of the so-called ‘third-party’ presidential candidates in the US election process, and utilizing the understanding of retweeting as conversational practice, the purpose of this paper is to examine the use of Twitter by the four main ‘third-party’ US presidential candidates in the run-up to the 2012 presidential election in order to better understand (1) the volume of tweets produced by the candidates; (2) the level of interaction by followers in the form of retweeting candidate/party tweets; and, (3), the subject and content of the tweets most retweeted by followers of the respective parties. The ultimate goal of the paper is to generate a broader picture of how Twitter was utilized by minority party candidates, as well as identifying the issues which led followers (and their respective followers) to engage in the ‘conversational’ act of retweeting.

Two New Journal Articles on Nation-Branding & US 2012 Elections

Two articles I have written have just come out.

The first, @Sweden: Curating a Nation on Twitter is a critical analysis of the Twitter-based @Sweden nation-branding project published in Popular Communication. This paper is OPEN ACCESS UNTIL THE END OF JUNE 2013. You can access it by clicking on the link above. Here is the abstract:

On December 10, 2011, the first tweet was sent out from the @Sweden Twitter account, a nation-branding project financed by the Swedish government through the Swedish Institute and VisitSweden. Trumpeted by the media both in Sweden and internationally as an exercise in “transparent” and “democratic” nation-branding via the use of Twitter, the @Sweden account is “given” to a new Swede every week, and, supposedly, these curators are given free rein to tweet what they like, when they like. The use of a popular communication channel by the Swedish government—in this case, Twitter—provides an illuminating example of the carefully planned and managed promotion and nation-branding of Sweden, presented under the guise of a “transparent” and “democratic” selection and editorial processes. The @Sweden project will be addressed in light of “liberation technology” (Diamond, 2010) and “technology discourse” (Fisher, 2010) perspectives, within which a correlation between access to, and use of, technology and proactive change is postulated. These theoretical perspectives are particularly valuable when heeding Kaneva’s (2011) call for a more critical, communications-based understanding of nation-branding.

The second paper, Wave-Riding and Hashtag-Jumping: Twitter, Minority “Third Parties” and the 2012 US Elections is a study on the use of Twitter by smaller political parties in the run-up to the 2012 elections published in Information, Communication & Society. The abstract:

With the description of the 2012 election as the ‘most tweeted’ political event in US history in mind, considering the relative media invisibility of the so-called ‘third-party’ presidential candidates in the US election process, and utilizing the understanding of retweeting as conversational practice, the purpose of this paper is to examine the use of Twitter by the four main ‘third-party’ US presidential candidates in the run-up to the 2012 presidential election in order to better understand (1) the volume of tweets produced by the candidates; (2) the level of interaction by followers in the form of retweeting candidate/party tweets; and, (3), the subject and content of the tweets most retweeted by followers of the respective parties. The ultimate goal of the paper is to generate a broader picture of how Twitter was utilized by minority party candidates, as well as identifying the issues which led followers (and their respective followers) to engage in the ‘conversational’ act of retweeting.

 

 

 

Hacking and Whistleblowing: The New Crack Cocaine of Activism

Hacking & Whistleblowing: The New Crack Cocaine of Activism

(This article appeared in the February 2013 edition of Le Monde Diplomatique)

Christian Christensen

At the height of the purported cocaine “epidemic” in the United States in the 1980s, politicians and law enforcement officials felt something had to be done. What Congress did was to pass the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986: one of the most draconian, overtly racist pieces of legislation in US history. The law introduced mandatory minimum sentences, including an astonishing 5 years in federal prison for the possession of 5 grams of crack cocaine. What moved the law from the medieval to the outright racist, however, was the fact that in order to spend the same 5 years in prison for possession of powder cocaine, one would have to be caught with 500 grams of that substance. In other words, there was a 100:1 sentencing disparity between convictions for possession of crack versus powder cocaine. Expensive powder cocaine tended to be the drug of choice for upper-middle class suburban kids and white-collar bankers, while much cheaper crack was favored by poorer drug users. Despite such a blatant discriminatory factor, it took 26 years to pass Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 which pushed the sentencing ratio down from an outlandishly racist 100:1 to an outrageously racist 18:1.

What does this have to do with hacking and whistleblowing? A lot.

At the most basic level, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 stripped bare any pretense that justice in the United States was blind, and that the scales were calibrated so that  no preference would be given to a particular citizen on the basis of race or socio-economic status. The law sent a loud, unambiguous message that there are two sets of rules in the United States: one for those with power and social capital, and one for the rest. Thus, when it was widely reported in the wake of his suicide that the hacker and programmer Aaron Swartz was facing 35 years in prison for illegally downloading academic articles from the JSTOR system, it became clear to many previously unfamiliar with the case just how skewed the US legal system is, and the extent to which prosecutors were willing to go to “make an example” of someone whose greatest crime was downloading articles that academics provide to publishers for free, which are then re-sold to those same academics for a healthy profit. JSTOR itself did not wish to press charges, but the prosecution went ahead, with a computer hacker facing more years in prison for downloading journal articles about Emily Dickinson and film theory than any Wall Street CEO, Blackwater executive or corrupt politician.

When we speak of state violence, we tend to think of overt acts of physical violence against the body: the death penalty, police brutality or warfare being classic examples. Violence, however, is not relegated only to the application of pain, but can also include the limiting of physical and psychological freedom. As such, imprisonment is a significant act of violence, and is, along with the ability to take a life through capital punishment or warfare, a significant power afforded to states. Financial sanctions may cripple a person economically, but if they are still free to walk the streets, play with their children or engage in the many simple acts that make up the day-to-day existence of a human being, then that person still retains the core elements of dignity and humanity. I simply cannot fathom the idea that someone would be denied those elements for a quarter century for the crime of downloading academic articles; nor, for that matter, can I fathom the UK sending Anonymous hackers Christopher Weatherhead and Ashley Rhodes to prison for 18 and seven months respectively for the crime of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against PayPal, Visa and Mastercard. This, while the former head of the Royal Bank of Scotland, Sir Fred Goodwin, walks free after taking home 1.3 million pounds in salary while overseeing the biggest loss in British corporate history: 24 billion pounds.

In addition to hackers we have whistleblowers, none more famous than Bradley Manning, who also faces the possibility of spending the better part of his life behind bars. Already confined for almost 1000 days, and initially placed in solitary confinement, Manning is accused of placing the security of the United States in jeopardy by providing classified documents to WikiLeaks. A portion of the information he leaked was footage (now known as the “Collateral Murder Video”) showing the killing of civilians by a US attack helicopter in Iraq. The irony is, were Manning a Chinese, Iranian or Cuban soldier who had exposed potential war crimes committed by his government, his solitary confinement and impending life sentence would be held up as evidence of the barbarity and anti-democratic tendencies of the “regimes” in question, and calls would be made for his release on “humanitarian” grounds. As it is, Manning (like Swartz) is being given the 1986 crack cocaine treatment by the US government: the threat of a wildly excessive prison sentence, at odds with both logic and law, for the purpose of crushing the individual in question.

If the message of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 was that the poor and minorities needed learn their place in an America ruled by white elites, then what is the message being sent in relation to Manning, Swartz and the two Anonymous hackers in the UK? Much the same as in the case of crack versus powder, actually. While the US and UK make geo-political hay out of their commitment to free speech and democracy, dissenters and activists must learn their place. They are useful to the neo-liberal project in that they show that moderate dissent is tolerated; however, once that dissent crosses the line, and trespasses upon the sacred turf of corporate profits and military power, then action must be taken to rectify the situation. If that means sending a man to prison for life for exposing potential war crimes, or driving a man to suicide for downloading academic articles, so be it.

Democratic? Let’s put @Sweden Into Context

The 24-hour rise and fall (and rise again…the feed now has seen a big jump up to 57,000 followers) of the @sweden twitter account — from global PR masterpiece to international diplomatic embarrassment — is an excellent case study in the hyping of the benefits and perils of technology at the expense of contextualization. The account, which had already received a decent amount of press, achieved a global exposure breakthrough with an article in the New York Times entitled, “Swedes’ Twitter Voice: Anyone, Saying (Blush) Almost Anything.” This headline managed to crystallize everything that is misleading and shortsighted about coverage of the @sweden project: (1) the idea that the feed is the “voice” of Swedes; (2) the idea that “anyone” can take part; and (3) an obsessive, uncritical focus on the fact that the feed was/is marked by supposedly non-repressed Swedish sexuality.

I imagine that most people reading this post will by now be aware of what happened only a matter of hours after the New York Times articles came out: the @sweden “curator” sent out a number of tweets about Jews which caused a near-immediate avalanche of global media coverage containing breathless hyperbole about a failed democratic experiment where one person represents an entire country on the world stage. As a media story, of course, this had it all: modern technology, a young blonde Swede using salty language, making risque comments about sex, Jews and AIDS, all framed within a vague understanding of Sweden and Swedishness.

So, what’s the problem? Let’s start with the obvious fact that…

1. @sweden is an exercise in calculated PR and nation branding:

Sweden has been very aggressive in promoting Brand Sweden online, from the rather misguided opening of a virtual Swedish embassy on Second Life, to Foreign Minister Carl Bildt blogging and tweeting his way through international diplomacy, to the current Swedish government taking the lead on providing foreign aid to net activists. In fairness, it has been widely reported that @sweden is the brainchild of the Volontaire advertising agency (who also work for corporations such as Nestle and SonyEricsson), at the behest of the Swedish Institute (a state organization involved in public diplomacy) and Visit Sweden (the Swedish national tourism agency), as a project to increase Swedish exposure on Twitter. Deeper considerations of what this fact means for the @sweden feed, however, are rarely presented.

And, so, something that we might want to think about in relation to this might be that…

2. The selection of @sweden tweeters might be less “democratic” and representative than the rhetoric suggests:

Let’s get to the money quote from the New York Times article:

“Sweden stands for certain values — being progressive, democratic, creative,” Patrick Kampmann, Volontaire’s creative director, said in an interview. “We believed the best way to prove it was to handle the account in a progressive way and give control of it to ordinary Swedes.”

The @Swedens are nominated by others — people are not supposed to put their own name forward — and then selected by a committee of three, including Mr. Kampmann. The qualifications are that they have to be interesting, Twitter-literate and happy to post in English.

So, the @sweden curators are people who are Twitter-literate, can write in English, are nominated by others, are approved by a 3-person panel (including the creative director of the ad agency running the campaign), are deemed to be “interesting” by that panel (whatever that means), and, importantly (though not discussed in a majority of the articles on @sweden), must accept the invitation and be the type of person willing to post their identity, ideas and daily activities to a global audience of 40,000 (a number which can increase dramatically with re-tweets). We are talking a narrow selection, from a narrow selection, from a narrow selection. If we throw the fact that Sweden has a relatively low number of Twitter users per capita (somewhat going against the grain of stats showing Sweden as ultra-cutting edge in terms of tech use) into the mix, then I would suggest that we get a far less “democratic” picture than is painted by ad agencies and journalists.

This is not to say that the @sweden tweeters are dishonest or lying, but rather that the number of “provocative” tweets coming from the account (in terms of subject and language) must be seen in relation to a number of factors far more complex than simply “regular Swedes” just “being themselves.” And, by the same token, the selection process is far more complex than “Sweden” just throwing the keys to the national information car to a citizen passing by on the street. Volontaire describe @sweden as “the world’s most democratic Twitter account.” That’s a hip, sexy statement…but if your nomination has to be green-lit by three people and an ad agency who find you “interesting,” then @sweden might be many things, but democratic isn’t one of them.

Michael Anti: “Social Media and Free Speech in China: The Challenges Behind the Great Firewall”

A talk by Michael Anti (Zhao Jing), Chinese journalist, political blogger and internet freedom activist:

“Social Media & Free Speech in China: The Challenges Behind the Great Firewall”

VENUE: Uppsala University, Universitetshuset, Biskopsgatan 3, Room IV

DATE & TIME: March 13, 2012 (1315-1500)

HOST: Media & Communication Studies, Department of Informatics & Media, Uppsala University

CONTACT: Professor Christian Christensen, Media & Communication Studies, Department of Informatics & Media, email: christian.christensen@im.uu.se

Michael Anti (Twitter: @mranti) is a journalist, political blogger and internet freedom activist whose blog was famously deleted by Microsoft in 2005 following pressure from Chinese authorities, and whose Facebook account was canceled in 2011. In addition to his blogging, Michael was a researcher for both the New York Times and Washington Post, and later columnist, correspondent and reporter for a number of newspapers including the Huaxia Times, 21st Century World Herald and Southern Metropolis Daily.

Michael Anti has been a 2007 Wolfson Press Fellow at Cambridge University, a 2008 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, and the 2011 recipient of the M100 Sanssouci Media Award.

Video: The Power of the Microblogs – What is the Significance of Ai Weiwei and other Net Activists for Freedom of Speech in China?

THE VIDEO OF THE TALK DESCRIBED BELOW CAN BE SEEN BELOW AND HERE

I will take part in a panel discussion on net activism at Kulturhuset in Stockholm at 1900 on March 13, 2012. This panel is part of a series of events in connection with the Ai Weiwei exhibition at Magasin 3.

Tuesday March 13

The Power of the Microblogs – What is the Significance of Ai Weiwei and other Net Activists for Freedom of Speech in China?

Michael Anti (Zhao Jing), Chinese journalist, blogger and net acitivist currently at Harvard University.
Marina Svensson, Sinologist and China expert at Lund University with focus on human rights, justice and the Chinese media.
Christian Christensen, Professor at the Department of Media and Communication Studies at Uppsala University.
Moderator: Ulrika K. Engström, Swedish PEN and Enact consulting firm, where she works with sustainable strategies for business development with focus on China and human rights.

Venue: Kulturhuset/Hotade ord, Café Panorama, Sergels Torg, 7 pm.
In collaboration with Swedish PEN. In English.

Talk on WikiLeaks to the Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit (November 13, 2011)

I will be giving a talk on WikiLeaks (on November 13) to the Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit to be held in Gothenburg from November 11-13, 2011.

“WikiLeaks, Whistleblowing and the Mainstream Audience”

While a fractured relationship between WikiLeaks and mainstream media organizations has made for interesting debates over questions of journalistic codes of conduct, transparency and whistleblowing, it is worth considering how this change impacts the spread of information to what can loosely be called a “mainstream audience”. In this talk, Christian Christensen argues that though editors and journalists might disagree with the terminology, the newspapers previously working with Assange acted as efficient distribution arms for WikiLeaks. In exchange for access to rare, sensitive material, the papers provided research, write-ups and distribution. There were alternative venues that could have been chosen for distribution (such as progressive radical newspapers and websites), but these do not have the organizational structure and market clout to have the impact WikiLeaks (and presumably the whistleblowers) wanted. With the current acrimonious relationship between Assange and major mainstream media outlets (particularly The Guardian and New York Times), the issue now is where WikiLeaks will turn for collaboration? If collaboration is even on their agenda.

Research Grant from Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research

I am pleased to announce that the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (FAS) has awarded 2.7 million Skr  (€300,000/$425,000) in support of our project, The Social Journalist: News Work and News Organizations in an Age of Networked Sociality. The project, based at the Department of Informatics and Media Uppsala University, involving Professor Christian Christensen (Uppsala), Professor Monika Djerf-Pierre (Gothenburg University) and Professor Miyase Christensen (Karlstad University), will run from 2012 through 2014.

Project Abstract: The explosive spread of “social media” such as blogs, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook has been well-documented in popular media and academia. To date, most research has come in the form of broad, general surveys on who is using social networking sites, and what is being produced. Few studies have addressed the motivations behind the use of social media within specific work/organizational settings, and the broader professional, organizational implications of such use. This lack of concrete data has led to a great deal of theorizing about the social media and social networking phenomena that is not backed up by empirical support. The nature of social networking sites, as places where both professional products and personal information are freely and openly shared, creates new opportunities for professional networking, as well as new possibilities for the surveillance of employees and employers. The proposed project will be a study into news/journalistic work, journalism as a profession and the role of journalism in contemporary society, and the relationship between social media/social networking, individual agency and social capital , thus allowing for a re-theorization of news work and media organizations.

Communication Review special issue: “Twitter Revolutions? Addressing Social Media and Dissent”

OCTOBER 2012 UPDATE: THE FOLLOWING ISSUE HAS BEEN MADE OPEN-ACCESS BY TAYLOR & FRANCIS UNTIL THE END OF NOVEMBER 2012. ALL ARTICLES ARE AVAILABLE FOR FREE DOWNLOAD UNTIL THEN.

A special issue of the Communication Review for which I was guest editor has just been published electronically. Details below…

The Communication Review
Volume 14, Issue 3, 2011
Special Issue: Twitter Revolutions? Addressing Social Media and Dissent

Guest Editor: Christian Christensen

Introduction: Twitter Revolutions? Addressing Social Media and Dissent
Christian Christensen

The Agonistic Social Media: Cyberspace in the Formation of Dissent and Consolidation of State Power in Postelection Iran
Babak Rahimi

Alternative Media and Social Networking Sites: The Politics of Individuation and Political Participation
Natalie Fenton & Veronica Barassi

Social Media and the Organization of Collective Action: Using Twitter to Explore the Ecologies of Two Climate Change Protests
Alexandra Segerberg & W. Lance Bennett

When Do States Disconnect Their Digital Networks? Regime Responses to the Political Uses of Social Media
Philip N. Howard, Sheetal D. Agarwal & Muzammil M. Hussain

Discourses of Technology and Liberation: State Aid to Net Activists in an Era of “Twitter Revolutions”
Christian Christensen

Workshop on Digital Media and Political Change: “The Arab Spring”

Date & Time : Monday,  September 12, 2011 (10:00-­‐13:00)

Location: Ekonomikum, Room A138 (Kyrkogårdsgatan 10, Uppsala, Sweden)

Ben Ali ruled Tunisia for 20 years, Mubarak reigned in Egypt for 30 years, and Gaddafi held Libya in a tight grip for over 40 years. Yet their bravest challengers were 20- and 30-year-olds without ideological baggage, violent intentions or clear leaders. The groups that initiated and sustained protests have few meaningful experiences with public deliberation or voting, and little experience with successful protesting. However, these young activists are politically disciplined, pragmatic and collaborative. Where do young people who grow up in entrenched authoritarian regimes learn about public life and get political aspirations? Internet, mobile phones, and social networking applications have transformed politics across North Africa and the Middle East. In this workshop on digital media and the organization of social change in the Arab Spring, we examine various dimensions of emerging information infrastructure in North Africa and the Middle East.

SPEAKERS

Lance Bennett (University of Washington & Stockholm University) & Alexandra Segerberg (Stockholm University) – The Logic of Connective Action

Gail Ramsay (Uppsala University & Stockholm University) & Kristina Riegert (Stockholm University) – Activists, Individualists and Comics: The Counter-Publicness of Lebanese Blogs

Christian Christensen (Uppsala University) – Visions of Technology and Liberation: State Aid to Net Activists in a Era of “Twitter Revolutions”

Muzammil M. Hussain (University of Washington) & Philip N. Howard (University of Washington) – Al Jazeera and Citizen Journalists: The Intersection of Broadcast and Social Networks in the Arab Spring

CHAIRED BY

Christian Fuchs (Uppsala University, SE)
Organized by
Department of Informatics and Media, Media and Communication Studies

Contact for information about the event

Prof. Christian Fuchs
christian.fuchs@im.uu.se

Phone 018 471 1019

Prof. Christian Christensen

christian.christensen@im.uu.se

Phone 018 471 1027