Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> From the Publisher: ::: Manuel Castells describes the origins, purpose and effect of proactive movements, such as feminism and environmentalism, which aim to transform human relationships at their most fundamental level; and of reactive movements that build trenches of resistance on behalf of God, nation, ethnicity, family, or locality. ::: The fundamental categories of existence, the author shows, are threatened by the combined, contradictory assault of techno-economic forces and transformative social movements, each using the new power of the media to promote their ambitions. Caught between these opposing trends, he argues, the nation-state is called into question, drawing into its crisis the very notion of political democracy. The author moves thematically between the United States, Western Europe, Russia, Mexico, Bolivia, the Islamic World, China, and Japan, seeking to understand a variety of social processes that are, he contends, closely inter-related in function and meaning. ::: This is a book of profound importance for understanding how the world will be transformed by the beginning of the next century. <s> BIB001 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> This study focuses on how Social Media Networks (SMN) have been used in recent times to champion social protests and resistance against oppression and political power abuse. Hence, ‘discourse of resistance’ takes a cue from the current waves of resistance and political revolutions in North Africa and the Arab world, which have been largely attributed to the vibrant SMN. In Nigeria, SMN have been used to mobilize support and active participation in popular efforts to achieve socio-political reforms. The corpus comprises mainly blogs and discussion forums hosted by the Biafra Online Campaign Groups (BOCG). The BOCG consist of persons and groups of the Igbo ethnic group of Nigeria, living in and outside of the country, that advocate a separate nation for the Igbos and accuse the government of Nigeria of marginalizing them. The study applies a sociolinguistic-based Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to investigate how sociolinguistic issues such as virtual community, identity, language variations and social in... <s> BIB002 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> This paper addresses social networking sites (SNSs hereafter) and their promise of deliberation. Based on a (n)ethnograpic inspired case study of middle class activists in southern Stockholm, the q ... <s> BIB003 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> This article explores the role of social media platforms in transnational activism by examining the case of Avaaz.org, an international advocacy organization aiming to bring people-powered politics to global decision-making. Focusing on the Avaaz website, its channel on YouTube, its page on Facebook and its profile page on MySpace, the article investigates the affordances of these platforms for identity-building, bonding, and engagement. The empirical data is derived from features analysis of the selected web platforms, as well as textual analysis of the comments posted by users. The findings show that while social media platforms make individual voices more visible, their design helps Avaaz to maintain a coherent collective voice. In terms of bonding, platforms allow individual activists to communicate with the organization and to spread its message to their existing social networks, but opportunities for private interpersonal communication with other Avaaz supporters are limited. <s> BIB004 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> The Arab Women’s Solidarity Association United (AWSA United) is a pluralistic, transnational, and scholastic women’s advocacy group that emerged in cyberspace in 1999. Arab women in the diaspora sought cyberspace as a safe space to connect with one another in their activism for women’s rights in the Arab world. Using an online survey and analysis of printed and electronic documents, this case study investigates Arab women’s cyberfeminism. It explores how activists utilized AWSA United to foster collective identity, strengthen solidarity, and enrich activism. <s> BIB005 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> In May of 2009, a posthumous video surfaced in which prominent lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg blamed Guatemalan president Alvaro Colom for murdering him. The accusations prompted the creation of numerous Facebook pages calling for Colom’s resignation, and for justice for Rosenberg. Using interviews and a content analysis of Facebook comments from the two most-active Facebook groups, this study found that the social network site was used to mobilize an online movement that moved offline. Users’ protest-related and motivational comments, in addition to their use of links and other interactive elements of Facebook, helped organize massive protests demanding justice and an end to violence. <s> BIB006 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> New forms of networked action and informal collaboration are challenging traditional notions of civil society. Based on the proliferation of new technologies, and spurred by the spread of trans-border delocalized communities and the increasing disillusionment with traditional forms of political organization, civic action is becoming increasingly flexible, temporary, and elusive. This type of nontraditionally organized collective action often stays below the radar of public discourse, unless it is propelled to the spotlight because of international political developments such as the WikiLeaks case (and the related actions by the cyberactivist network Anonymous) and the mass protests in Northern Africa and the Middle East (and the role of social networking tools in these uprisings). In this article, we investigate the interactions and (in)compatibilities of Internet-based networked collective action with institutionalized spaces of policy debate. We begin by characterizing online networked action as an emerging form of organized civil society, focusing on the realm of cyberactivists who are building and using cyber-infrastructure (“grassroots tech groups”). In particular, we examine their values, identity features, and organizational forms. Based on this analysis, we explore two dimensions in which cyberactivism challenges established forms of institutionalized policy debate: the structural dimension and the realm of action repertoires. We ask whether these new forms of civil society are structurally compatible with current multistakeholder governance, and we discuss their repertoires of action with regard to policy advocacy and policy interventions, and thus the level and type of their engagement with governance processes and institutions. <s> BIB007 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> ABSTRACT This article analyzes the political form of Occupy Wall Street on Twitter. Drawing on evidence contained within the profiles of over 50,000 Twitter users, political identities of participants are characterized using natural language processing. The results find evidence of a traditional oppositional social movement alongside a legitimizing countermovement, but also a new notion of political community as an ensemble of discursive practices that are endogenous to the constitution of political regimes from the “inside out.” These new political identities are bound by thin ties of political solidarity linked to the transformative capacities of the movement rather than thick ties of social solidarity. <s> BIB008 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> This work sketches out an exploration on some challenges that digital environments pose to social movements studies. While transformations in the technology available for communication among movement networks quite obviously reconfigure their organisational patterns, the current use of the notion of collective identity, less obviously, is also called into question. Drawing on a dataset of tweets collected during the early stage of the worldwide Occupy protest wave, the outcomes of different possibilities of analysis are presented. The discussion of the results challenges various aspects of recent trends in Social Movements Theory, including the persistent distinction between organisational and identitary elements. A socio–semiotic observation is then acknowledged: to a certain extent, in contemporary protests, signifiers have acquired distinctive importance with respect to signified, in mediating the assemblage of contentious networks. The notion of 'social movement brand' is consequently suggested as fitting these phenomenon's better than the classical one of collective identity. <s> BIB009 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> This study provides an empirical account of how an online community has employed social media to mobilize people for a political goal. The case explored is a Twitter-based community in South Korea that calls for the elimination of a conservative national daily newspaper and whose activism is contextualized in the political history of Korea. Based on the mixed-method approach, the research results suggest that the role of the group organizer as an information provider and coordinator contributed to the sustainability of the group, and that group members formed a collective identity through the framing process of discourse. In addition, massive “retweeting” and “culture jamming” tactics were found to be strategically employed to enhance group solidarity, to broaden the base of support, and to crystallize involvement into political acts with other offline actions. Rather than decaying to an echo chamber or “slacktivism”, the online community seemed to demonstrate a new form of collective activism through the... <s> BIB010 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> Abstract ::: To examine how social media restrict and recreate messages within current interactionist scripts in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), this study applies a framework of digital reflexivity highlighting stages of information flow. It applies the symbolic interaction concept of emotional events to analyze the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi and the role of social media in disseminating Bouazizi’s act as one catalyst of the MENA citizen uprisings. The role of social media in the “Arab Spring” merits investigation because social media provide opportunities to examine shifting identities, interactions, and actions of citizen activists in the MENA uprisings. This study is important and timely because little symbolic interactionist scholarship exists on MENA identities and social movements, or on crowd interaction and activism outside the West. The nuanced nature of MENA political activism and complex processes of the development of activists’ “mutable” selves (Zurcher, 1977) are fluid and resistant to symbolically defined social roles, interactionist scripts and reflexivity, and public communication practices in a MENA under political and social transition. <s> BIB011 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> This article reconsiders the Skirtboarders’ blog, produced by a crew of female skateboarders, as a space where crew members attempt to reflexively start a movement and, in doing so, construct and c... <s> BIB012 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> Scholarship on collective civic action helps link collective-level contentious actions and individual-level civic engagement. Using longitudinal data from a group of New Orleans residents who started blogging in the wake of hurricane Katrina, we highlight the digitally mediated social processes linking individual civic engagement with collective civic actions. Through a developmental approach, we analyze the progression from individual blogging to the creation of social networks, the formation of a community of “Katrina bloggers,” and their engagement on a range of offline collective civic actions. We argue that the Web serves as a “virtual” mobilizing structure, enabling individuals with shared concerns to organize across time and space, without the need of copresence or preexisting formal ties, networks, or organizations. Our analysis provides insights into the development of virtual communities and social movements formed around collective identities and processes of collective efficacy that highlight ... <s> BIB013 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> In contrast to the common view of blogging as a highly narcissistic activity, this study explicates how blogging is a communal activity and the emergence of a collective identity which drives collective action. 41 interviews with activist and nonactivist bloggers revealed that shared consciousness, distinctive blogging practices, and the articulation of a common adversary contribute to the development of a collective identity. Furthermore, identity multiplexity points to the emergence of "individualized collectiveness," which extends beyond networked individualism and is reinforced by offline participation in activism and pre-existing social ties with other activists. <s> BIB014 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> The internet has opened up a space for discussions of queer sexuality and the interconnectivity made possible by internet technologies enables the active exchange of queer ideologies across distant spaces that facilitate the formation of ‘queer counterpublics’. But how do cyberqueer movements form a collectivity amid the instability of individual and collective identities and the vulnerabilities and controls posed by new technology mediation? Through the case study of Ladlad, a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) political party in the Philippines, this paper examines the role of online media in the construction of a queer movement. The article argues that the process of connectivity facilitated by online spaces creates nodes of identification, belonging, and support that symbolically form a collective site of resistance to sources of oppressive power for LGBTs. <s> BIB015 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> The study of new media use by transnational social movements is central to contemporary investigations of social contention. In order to shed light on the terrain in which the most recent examples of online mobilization have grown and developed, this paper combines the interest in the transnational dynamics of social contention and the exploration of the use of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) for protest action. In specific terms, the study investigates how early twenty-first century social movement coalitions used Internet tools to build symbolically transnational collective identities. By applying a hyperlink network analysis approach, the study focuses on a website network generated by local chapters of the World Social Forum (WSF), one of the earliest social movement coalitions for global justice. The sample network, selected through snowball sampling, is composed of 222 social forum websites from around the world. The study specifically looks at hyperlinks among social forum web... <s> BIB016 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> One of the most popular forms of humour on the Internet is memes. Given the identity construction motif that is associated with memes, agents of memes select targets outside the in-group and criticise the targets’ behaviour for ideological purposes. This study examines the patterns of humour evidenced in the deployment of Internet memes (both verbal and visual) in the online campaign discourse of the 2015 presidential election in Nigeria. Data for the study consist of Internet memes produced and disseminated during the presidential election campaign between December 2014 and March 2015. Considering Archakis and Tsakona’s view that humour can be a very efficient means of identity construction, the study applies Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive model with particular reference to the theoretical concept of the ‘ideological square’, which encapsulates the twin strategies of positive ‘in-group’ description and negative ‘out-group’ description. This theoretical approach is complemented with Neuendorf et al.’s taxonom... <s> BIB017 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> Ten years ago, the task of blending work and motherhood was arduous, lonely, and painstaking. Most settled for face-to-face interactions or phone calls to friends and family for support. Sadly, frustrated conversations are still happening due to a lack of cultural acceptance, policies, and laws focused on blending work and family life. However, some women are turning to online spaces for social support. In 1991, Donna Haraway posited that online, affinity-based groups contain the potential for activism. Buoyed by digital social media possibilities for social support, we assessed feminist activism within a motherhood support group populated by women from various countries around the world. We found that consciousness-raising can further feminist activism within an online motherhood Facebook group by helping others learn to negotiate their choices, but economic stratification and educational divides still constrain social support; this suggests that digital connections influence affinity-based identities an... <s> BIB018 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> The Occupy movement made a series of local ‘sit-ins’ in cities across the world in response to financial and political injustices. Prior to the movement's emergence, the Internet provided a transnational forum for people across the world to discuss their opinions and coalesce about the financial and political contexts. Here, we analyse 5343 posts on the ‘#OccupyWallStreet’ Facebook event page to identify linguistic markers of shared social identity formation. Results suggest that discussants formed a shared identity if they agreed on both the desired change (the injunctive norm, ‘revoke corporate personhood’) and the predefined action (Occupy Wall Street). Lines of consensus and dissensus on injunctive norms and actions delineated the development of both affirmational in-group and negational out-group identities. We conclude that online discussion can create both in-groups and out-groups through (in)validating ideas about social reformation and delineating shared psychological spaces. <s> BIB019 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> Increasingly, social movement organisations (SMOs) within the immigrant rights movement mobilise online. Although this seems an unlikely tactic for a movement whose constituents are often on the wrong side of the digital divide, the increasingly frequent use of various communications technologies works to enable communication with other activists and raise awareness among the general public. Utilising a cultural sociological perspective, this article examines the ways in which the immigrant rights movement uses various symbols to perform national identity online. The goal is to put meaning and the process of meaning making squarely at the centre of analytical attention. Building on the multiple traditions perspective on American national identity, the article explores how several national-level SMOs engage symbols to perform immigrants’ belonging to the USA. <s> BIB020 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> This paper examines the process through which Occupy activists came to constitute themselves as a collective actor and the role of social media in this process. The theoretical framework combines Melucci's (1996) theory of collective identity with insights from the field of organizational communication and particularly from the ‘CCO’ strand – short for ‘Communication is Constitutive of Organizing’. This allows us to conceptualize collective identity as an open-ended and dynamic process that is constructed in conversations and codified in texts. Based on interviews with Occupy activists in New York, London and other cities, I then discuss the communication processes through which the movement was drawing the boundaries with its environment, creating codes and foundational documents, as well as speaking in a collective voice. The findings show that social media tended to blur the boundaries between the inside and the outside of the movement in a way that suited its values of inclusiveness and direct participation. Social media users could also follow remotely the meetings of the general assembly where the foundational documents were ratified, but their voices were not included in the process. The presence of the movement on social media also led to conflicts and negotiations around Occupy's collective voice as constructed on these platforms. Thus, viewing the movement as a phenomenon emerging in communication allows us an insight into the efforts of Occupy activists to create a collective that was both inclusive of the 99% and a distinctive actor with its own identity. <s> BIB021 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> This study investigates symbolic action on popular social media platforms by empirically exploring the subjective experiences and motivations of participants in an exemplary campaign. Previous debates regarding the relationship between symbolic action and more traditional forms of political participation suggest a binary between up-the-ladder �civic culture� engagement and down-the-ladder �slacktivism.� Interviews with participants in the Facebook red equal sign profile picture campaign for marriage equality provide some evidence to support the former (particularly in terms of building an identity-focused political movement), and comparatively little to support the latter. However, a third model suggests how sympathetic citizens who would not otherwise take on organizational commitments are brought into the circle of participation by contributing to aggregate projects of mediated public advocacy. <s> BIB022 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> This article starts from the recognition that digital social movements studies have progressively disregarded collective identity and the importance of internal communicative dynamics in contemporary social movements, in favour of the study of the technological affordances and the organizational capabilities of social media. Based on a two-year multimodal ethnography of the Mexican #YoSoy132 movement, the article demonstrates that the concept of collective identity is still able to yield relevant insights into the study of current movements, especially in connection with the use of social media platforms. Through the appropriations of social media, Mexican students were able to oppose the negative identification fabricated by the PRI party, reclaim their agency and their role as heirs of a long tradition of rebellion, generate collective identification processes, and find ‘comfort zones’ to lower the costs of activism, reinforcing their internal cohesion and solidarity. The article stresses the importance of the internal communicative dynamics that develop in the backstage of social media (Facebook chats and groups) and through instant messaging services (WhatsApp), thus rediscovering the pivotal linkage between collective identity and internal communication that characterized the first wave of research on digital social movements. The findings point out how that internal cohesion and collective identity are fundamentally shaped and reinforced in the social media backstage by practices of ‘ludic activism’, which indicates that social media represent not only the organizational backbone of contemporary social movements, but also multifaceted ecologies where a new, expressive and humorous ‘communicative resistance grammar’ emerges. <s> BIB023 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> Protest avatars, digital images that act as collective symbols for protest movements, have been widely used by supporters of the 2011 protest wave, from Egypt to Spain and the United States. From photos of Egyptian martyr Khaled Said, to protest posters and multiple variations of Anonymous' mask, a great variety of images have been adopted as profile pictures by Internet users to express their support for various causes and protest movements and communicate it to all their Internet peers. In this article, I explore protest avatars as forms of identification of protest movements in a digital era. I argue that protest avatars can be described as ‘memetic signifiers’ because (a) they are marked by a vagueness and inclusivity that distinguishes them from traditional protest symbols and (b) lend themselves to be used as memes for viral diffusion on social networks. In adopting these icons, participants experience a collective fusion in an online crowd, whose gathering is manifested in the very ‘masking’ of participants behind protest avatars. These forms of collective identification, while powerful in the short term, can however prove quite volatile, with Internet users often discarding avatars with relative ease, raising the question whether they can provide durable foundational elements of contemporary social movements. <s> BIB024 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> Most activism in connected societies has an online component. Social media accompany corporeal demonstrations, occupations, and protest marches. It is argued that such social media platforms play an increasingly important role when mobilizing across different political positions, coordinating and producing visibility for a political demand. In this article we will revisit 3 activist demands, all saturated by social media practices: (a) inhabitants in southern Stockholm fighting to save a local bathhouse, (b) the 2009 Austrian student protests, and (c) marches in Leipzig and Dresden to block Neo-Nazi marches. The aim is to analyze activist identity negotiations in these social media saturated cases, and contribute to the understanding of activist participation in our digital and connected age. <s> BIB025 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> ABSTRACTThis paper develops the concepts of politicization and problematization using two case studies from Spain. Politicization involves the process of interest articulation and demands for identity recognition whereas problematization concerns placing into question and taking action with respect to otherwise naturalized aspects of politics and society. These concepts are studied in the context of a demonstration by the Indignados as well as a general strike in Spain. The data analysis involves the collection and analysis of tweets produced in relation to both demonstrations using natural language processing. The results indicate a higher degree of calls for problematization during the Indiginados protest whereas there is more evidence of politicization during the general strike. These communications suggest that each movement engages politics on different terms with the Indignados embracing more of a problematization discourse centred on taking action and operating from within the political system wher... <s> BIB026 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> The emergence of network-movements since 2011 has opened the debate around the way in which social media and networked practices make possible innovative forms of collective identity. We briefly review the literature on social movements and ‘collective identity’, and show the tension between different positions stressing either organization or culture, the personal or the collective, aggregative or networking logics. We argue that the 15M (indignados) network-movement in Spain demands conceptual and methodological innovations. Its rapid emergence, endurance, diversity, multifaceted development and adaptive capacity, posit numerous theoretical and methodological challenges. We show how the use of structural and dynamic analysis of interaction networks (in combination with qualitative data) is a valuable tool to track the shape and change of what we term the ‘systemic dimension’ of collective identities in network-movements. In particular, we introduce a novel method for synchrony detection in Facebook activity to identify the distributed, yet integrated, coordinated activity behind collective identities. Applying this analytical strategy to the 15M movement, we show how it displays a specific form of systemic collective identity we call ‘multitudinous identity’, characterized by social transversality and internal heterogeneity, as well as a transient and distributed leadership driven by action initiatives. Our approach attends to the role of distributed interaction and transient leadership at a mesoscale level of organizational dynamics, which may contribute to contemporary discussions of collective identity in network-movements. <s> BIB027 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> Whereas the role of social media in political activism has received much attention in recent years, the role of social media images remains largely understudied. Given the potential of emotional and efficacy-related visual content for motivating activism, this exploratory content analysis examined the content of Twitter images of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. The analysis of 581 images revealed more efficacy-eliciting (crowds, protest activities, national and religious symbols) than emotionally arousing (violent) content, especially posted by Egyptian users. However, emotionally arousing content decreased, whereas efficacy-eliciting content increased at times of instability. Furthermore, popularity of images was more associated with user information than the content itself. Images posted by activists and users outside Egypt received the most attention. The findings are discussed in terms of possible explanations for the content patterns and their potential impact on Twitter audience, as well as their cont... <s> BIB028 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> ABSTRACTPeople changing their Facebook profile picture in support of social and political campaigns has recently become relatively common, particularly among young people. The current study presents an analysis of young people who change their profile picture and their motivations to do so. Using original data collected among less than 35 years old Facebook users (N = 267), we find that besides the intensity of Facebook use, offline engagement in protest and boycotts has a significant and positive effect on the likelihood to change one's profile picture as part of a campaign. Hence, the opportunity for Facebook users to engage in politics by changing a profile picture to support a campaign seems to be seized more often by young people who are politically engaged offline than by those who are not. Among those who change their profile picture, raising awareness seems to be the primary motivation to do so. Identity formation is also a crucial motivation, in particular for profile pictures changes to support ... <s> BIB029 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> ABSTRACT This study explores Black British women's motivations for divulging racial and ethnic identity in the blogosphere (sometimes referred to as blogging while Black) and their use of blogs for discursive activism. It builds on previous research that gives voice to Black womens marginalized experiences through powerful counter narratives. The blogosphere is often perceived as a racially neutral space where shared interests across geographical and temporal boundaries limit the significance of racial and ethnic identity. However, the constructed narratives of Black British women in this study highlight their experiences of subtle forms of prejudice and discrimination perpetuated through dominant discourses in the mainstream media. The findings demonstrate how they use blogs as a medium for discursive activism to challenge stereotypical raced and gendered representation in the mainstream media. Much of the research on the blogosphere in Britain reflects its use by the White majority population. This study therefore extends understanding of the blogosphere and highlights alternative modes of political communication. <s> BIB030 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> This is a case study of transnational activism across media genres and platforms, focusing on young Israeli adoptees from Brazil, struggling to trace their biological origins, recover (to some extent) their culture of birth and make their plight known. Theoretically speaking, this study is based on the notion of hybridity, understood as a strategy used by individuals to elaborate new social identities (Israeli adoptees organized as online support group, moving to activism, recovering their culture of origin through media and travelling), by media producers to elaborate texts relevant to complex audiences (dramatized documentary, transnational ‘docu-telenovela’, Brazilian prime-time entertainment programme used to expose social problems), and more generally, as a characteristic of the media system that constantly (re)combines technologies, genres and actors. Hybridity, however, should not be confused with equality. Relations between system components are mostly asymmetrical, but are constantly evolving, of... <s> BIB031 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> On November 30, 2014, five African American St. Louis Rams players locked hands and displayed a “hands-up” gesture during player introductions in response to racial tensions in Ferguson, Missouri, emanating from the Michael Brown case. This act generated significant media attention and prompted discussions via Facebook and Twitter. Two notable venues on social media for these conversations were the “Boycott the St. Louis Rams” Facebook page and the Twitter hashtag #BoycottRams. A thematic analysis of 1,019 user-generated Facebook comments and 452 tweets was conducted through the lens of social identity threat management. Six primary themes emerged: (a) renouncing fandom, (b) punishment commentary, (c) racial commentary, (d) general criticism, (e) attacking other group members, and (f) presenting the “facts” of the case. The results suggest that social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter serve as forums where group members discuss and debate challenges to group values and promote action steps that can... <s> BIB032 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> On 24th July 2013, feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez's petition to the Bank of England to have Elizabeth Fry's image on the UK's £5 note replaced with the image of another woman was successful. The petition challenged the Bank of England's original plan to replace Fry with Winston Churchill, which would have meant that no woman aside from the Queen would be represented on any UK banknote. Following this, Criado-Perez was subjected to ongoing misogynistic abuse on Twitter, a microblogging social network, including threats of rape and death. This paper investigates this increasingly prominent phenomenon of rape threats made via social networks. Specifically, we investigate the sustained period of abuse directed towards the Twitter account of feminist campaigner and journalist, Caroline Criado-Perez. We then turn our attention to the formation of online discourse communities as they respond to and participate in forms of extreme online misogyny on Twitter. We take a corpus of 76,275 tweets collected during a three month period in which the events occurred (July to September 2013), which comprises 912,901 words. We then employ an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of language in the context of this social network. Our approach combines quantitative approaches from the fields of corpus linguistics to detect emerging discourse communities, and then qualitative approaches from discourse analysis to analyse how these communities construct their identities. <s> BIB033 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> This research explores hacktivism as a new form of online political activism. It uses qualitative interviews with a gender-equal sample of 10 self-defined hacktivists to address issues of gender and the discursive strategies used by males and females to handle the hacktivist community’s male-only stereotype. The semi-structured interviews are analysed using Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA). The analysis indicates that male hacktivists relate to this dominant male-only representation through discursive techniques such as the suppression of gender (Male Oblivious Discourse) or mechanisms of vindication (Male Justification Discourse). Female hacktivists use the accentuation of gender and sexism to counteract male-dominant discourses and establish Female Discourses of Resistance (Emphasis Discourse; Negation Discourse). These gender-related argumentative positions and rhetorical mechanisms demonstrate how the male-only stereotype is created and maintained and how it affects not only hacktivists’ talk and sense-making but also their identity and the hacktivist actions they perform. <s> BIB034 </s> Identity and collective action via computer-mediated communication: A review and agenda for future research <s> Studies finding that CMC supports identity processes. <s> AbstractThis article analyses the role played by Spanish immigrants in the diffusion of the indignados movement in Occupy Wall Street (OWS). I argue that Spanish residents in New York City acted as brokers between the two movements, and that their behaviour had a significant impact on OWS’s understanding of itself as an expansive, inclusive and empathic phenomenon. Building on recent theoretical developments, which stress the importance of dialogue and collective learning in the transnational diffusion of historical social movements, this research produces results at different levels. At the empirical level, the problems faced by the immigrants reveal the cultural complexity of transnational diffusion within the recent wave of contention. At the analytical level, the personal contact and intergroup dialogue established between immigrants and local activists challenge accounts stressing the role of social media and the internet within the transnational diffusion of this protest. At the theoretical level, t... <s> BIB035
Scholars have identified various ways in which CMC can successfully support identity processes (T3). First, CMC provides open, free places for identity expression, formation, consolidation, maintenance and negotiation during collective action. On websites, blogs, forums and social media, identity processes are fostered through icons, symbols, images, narratives and discursive strategies that people use to construct social BIB017 BIB018  BIB028 BIB019 and collective identities BIB002 BIB010  BIB020 BIB021 BIB011 BIB012 BIB022 BIB003 BIB023 . Multiple-type studies show CMC's effectiveness at fostering the transition from individual to collective identities on blogs and social media BIB029 BIB024 BIB013 BIB014 . However, research mostly focuses on the identity process' initial stages; studies on later phases remain scant  BIB014 BIB003 BIB025 BIB023 . Second, research on social and collective identities finds that the openness of CMC gives voice to political BIB010  or ethnic groups BIB030 BIB031 BIB032 and to online communities (e.g. women: BIB033 BIB034 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender ( LGBT): Reyes BIB015 that are struggling to achieve freedom of identity expression in a context of social change. Third, studies on collective identity demonstrate the effectiveness of CMC in transnational and organisational movements BIB004 BIB035 BIB005 BIB016 . CMC offers ways to display transnational identities and fosters the creation of symbols, cross-national solidarity and network interaction used to facilitate the construction of collective identities. In addition, CMC fosters the formation of solid hyperlinks (e.g. via websites) that facilitate online identification between similar movements and organisations, digital collaboration and mobilisation BIB006  . Fourth, CMC offers opportunities to hide identity, which favours anonymity. Being anonymous in cyberspace is a powerful, effective strategy to ensure the success of activists' goals during protests and revolutions  without running the risk of being publicly identified with the movement BIB033 . A frequently cited case study on this topic is the radical tech-group Anonymous   . Anonymous demonstrates how collective identities emerge from intertwined private and subjective experiences between distinct individuals who act individually before embracing the collective identity of 'We are Anonymous' by recognising their similarity with other hacktivists BIB024 BIB007 . Finally, bridging scholars' studies on the role of CMC in identity processes show the changing nature of collective identity and the use of particular identity definitions to take such changes into account. For example, 'network identity' is used to define the identity of emergent networked social movements (e.g. World Social Forum) that have a strong network organisational structure BIB016 ; 'project identity' BIB001 is associated with activists who seek to build strong solidarity in their networked communities and connectively act together to achieve a shared project or goal BIB026 BIB008 ; 'connective identity' is used to define the identity of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which was reconceptualised by horizontal structures, networking practices, social media communication and consensual decision making BIB009 ; and 'multitudinous identity', associated with the 15M movement in Spain, combines the personal dimension, which is typical of CMC networked individualism and connective action, with collective, dynamic interactions between multiple actors engaged in the movement BIB027 .