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Class In-Formation: The Intersection Of Old And New Media In Contemporary Urban Social Movements, Peter N. Funke, Todd Wolfson
Class In-Formation: The Intersection Of Old And New Media In Contemporary Urban Social Movements, Peter N. Funke, Todd Wolfson
Government and International Affairs Faculty Publications
This starts out by distinguishing between communication and communication mediums when examining social movement-powered formations of collective identity and collective action. We then focus on communication mediums to examine the different ways that old and new media are utilized in urban social movements under neoliberal capitalism. Based on shifts in the political economy and correspondingly in the contemporary composition of the working class, we focus on the Media Mobilizing Project in Philadelphia to argue that contemporary urban social movements and networks utilize a multi-media platform to further class-based politics. The respective use of old or new media depends on important …
Building Rhizomatic Social Movements? Movement-Building Relays During The Current Epoch Of Contention, Peter N. Funke
Building Rhizomatic Social Movements? Movement-Building Relays During The Current Epoch Of Contention, Peter N. Funke
Government and International Affairs Faculty Publications
This article investigates the movement building dynamics of contemporary social movement milieus (such as particular protests, social forums or occupations). It develops the concept of the “relay” to introduce four ideal-type movement building relays understood as distinct movement milieus: clustering relay, networking relay, organizing relay, and transforming relay. Each ideal-type captures different points on a continuum of increasing movement building and thus for generating commonalities, shared understandings and identities, mobilizations and strategies. Focusing on what I call the current “rhizomatic movement epoch,” which ranges from roughly the Zapatistas to the recent occupy-type protests, the relay framework can provide a larger …