This session focuses on global audiences in news reception/production and transnational mobilisation through activism and social movements. The spread of digital media – and of online news – has played a key role in facilitating a global mediated public sphere. Global mass activism and social movements that are transnational have also been effectively mobilised through social media and networking sites. What do these developments tell us about a global public sphere, global audiences and global activism?  

We will watch two talks to understand insider views on online activism:

1. Zeynep Tufekci discusses aspects of online activism in this TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/zeynep_tufekci_online_social_change_easy_to_organize_hard_to_win?language=en 

2. Another relevant TED talk “Let’s design social media that drives real change” is by the Egyptian activist Wael Ghonim: https://www.ted.com/talks/wael_ghonim_let_s_design_social_media_that_drives_real_change/discussion

Key readings:

Chapter 8 “A New Digital Repertoire of Contention?” In Jennifer Earl & Katrina Kimport, Digitally Enabled Social Change: Activism in the Internet Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011. 

Dencik, L. (2013) “What global citizens and whose global moral order? Defining the global at BBC World News,” Global Media and Communication, 9(2), pp. 119–134.

Recommended readings:

Milan, S. (2015) “From social movements to cloud protesting: the evolution of collective identity”, Information, Communication & Society, 1(8), pp. 887-900.

McDonald, K. (2015) “From Indymedia to Anonymous: rethinking action and identity in digital cultures”, Information, Communication & Society, 18(8), pp. 968-982.

Eichhorn, K. (2019) “Girls in the Public Sphere: Dissent, Consent, and Media Making”, Australian Feminist Studies.

Stephansen, H. C. (2019) “Conceptualizing a distributed, multi-scalar global public sphere through activist communication practices in the World Social Forum”, Global Media and Communication, 15(3), pp. 345–360. doi: 10.1177/1742766519872777.

Lee, F. (2008) “Local press meets transnational activism: news dynamics in an anti‐WTO protest,” Chinese Journal of Communication, 1(1), pp. 55-76, DOI: 10.1080/17544750701861921