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This research project aims at exploring the role and potential of digital media in the current democratization process in Myanmar. Understanding democratization as a process of social change that implies empowering civil society and ensuring equality, the question is how digital media contribute to building a participatory democracy in Myanmar after a five decades long military regime. The fast chain of events that led to the recent gradual opening of Myanmar raises doubts and expectations colliding with the vibrant reality of the country. In order to analyse the role of digital media within such a fast-changing scenario, this research intends to answer the following questions: a) How do digital media portray Myanmar? This question will be analysed in relation to the media discourse of the official visit paid by Myanmar’s President Thein Sein to US President Barack Obama in Washington on 20 May 2013. b) How do stakeholders in Myanmar use digital media for democratization? To what extent can digital media become a tool for democratization within a very limited connectivity context? What challenges may the digital media imply in the democratization of Myanmar? Semi-structured interviews with stakeholders were conducted in Yangon to gather up-to-date and first-hand insights. The combination of two qualitative research methods, discourse analysis and semistructured qualitative interviews, aims at building a deeper understanding of the role and potential of digital media in Myanmar. This research pays attention to specificities of Myanmar’s cultural, political and economic context, with a focus on technology and Internet. Field research showed the importance of taking into account the role of social media. A brief theoretical discussion of key concepts such as ‘digital media’, ‘social change’ and ‘democratization’ is provided to build a solid basis for analysis.

The creation and rapid growth of the Spanish political party Podemos has created high expectations among citizens who want to participate in politics beyond voting. With a strategy that combines analogue and digital media, the party has emerged as the third biggest party in the last general elections, June 2016. Podemos has been conceived as a hybrid between a political party and a social movement, striving for wining the elections while relaying on grassroots activism through decentralised groups called “circles”, which operate locally and interact with the party via digital media. Although the potential of digital media for participation has been many times stressed, how the circles use these media depends highly on ongoing power relations and struggles within the party. Through semi-structured interviews and participant observation, this research analyses the perceptions of seven participants in two Podemos circles from the perspective of media practices, and looks into the potential of digital tools for political participation and the way ongoing power relations affect this participation. The results show that media practices within the circles are limited by the position of power of the leaders, who make use of analogue media to convey unidirectional messages that can hardly be countered via digital media. Furthermore, the research analyses the existence of relevant tensions in Podemos as a party that promotes citizen participation within a hierarchical, top-down organisation.

This dissertation examines the cultural and lived experiences of economic abandonment in deindustrialized zones by exploring how residents of a former single-industry economy negotiate this process via communicative constructions of identity, class, and social memory. As this work examines the conflicts about economic decline, class, and memory that inform the predicament of the residents of small towns within Appalachia and beyond, it contributes to ethnographies of deindustrialization in advanced capitalist societies, in zones of mass mineral extraction, as well as to other work on the Appalachian Region. The analysis of these constructions is based on three sets of data: material gathered during two years of offline ethnographic fieldwork in the Anthracite Coal Region of Northeastern Pennsylvania, autoethnography, and the collaboration with local participants vis-à-vis a multi-modal and multi-sited "public digital humanities collaboratory" called “the Anthracite Coal Region of Northeastern Pennsylvania Digital Project” (the latter, a term I develop to expand the methodological vocabulary), to which community members contributed through communication forums about the history, culture, and media representations of the Coal Region. Three narrative chapters analyze a series of lived experiences and theoretical concerns. The first of these chapters, chapter four, analyzes how place, identity, and memory link with past and present class, labor, and industrial dynamics, as well as landscapes left to ruin to demonstrate how, in the Anthracite Region “King Coal” maintains hegemony. Although the mining industry no longer exists as a viable form of employment, inhabitants still consider themselves residents of “The Coal Region,” and dialogue with modes of identification that evolved in the Anthracite Coal Region. These identifications unite earlier diverse, pan-ethnic identities tied to Europe and are at the basis of the emergence of a new subjectivity—a "coalcracker"—one with family who worked in the mines literally “cracking the coal.” As the landscapes are left to ruin, I develop the term "environmental classism" to conceptualize the impact of the fallout from King Coal. Chapter five examines dominant mediated imaginaries of Centralia, Pennsylvania, which have become cultural tropes for a modern ghost town. In these dominant narratives, the obliteration of Centralia, subject to an underground mine fire for 57 years, has been largely produced for the consumption, commodification, commercialization, and the aesthetic experience of either tourists or horror genre fans. I term this production "cultural extractivism" or the expropriation of cultural resources, memory artifacts, images, narratives, or stories extracted from a marginalized or forgotten community or culture for use by a dominant community or culture. The chapter shows local residents challenging such "cultural extractivisms." Chapter six examines the demolition of the Saint Nicholas Coal Breaker, the last anthracite coal breaker and the largest one in the world, a topic that surfaced on the "public digital humanities collaboratory" and compelled considerable discussion. Research on this discussion demonstrates that this structure served as a coping mechanism for community members. Local residents constructed labor-related identities tied to social memory around it. These analyses of how Coal Region residents used their agency to create artifacts suggest that media can be a site of resistance. In addition to the artifacts presented on the "public digital humanities collaboratory," community members submitted and curated their own (unsolicited) artifacts. Theoretical flashpoints emerged, often resulting in local residents issuing challenges to dominant narratives and politics about the Coal Region. This ethnographic research involves offline immersive contact with informants extending to online interactions that resulted in methodological and theoretical expansions which provide the basis for communication scholars and ethnographers 1. to rethink ideas about how they conceive online and offline spaces previously thought of in binary terms; and, 2. likewise to reconsider ethnographic research on economic abandonment in marginalized communities beyond urban and rural binaries. / Media & Communication

Youth wings exist worldwide, connect youths with political parties, and mobilize youth to political engagement. Youth wings engagement often entails offline political engagement such as debates and demonstrations. However, during the two-year pandemic, youth wings and their members had to move their political engagement mostly online since they and the rest of the world needed to conduct social distancing to stop the spread of the coronavirus. The pandemic ended this year, 2022, and studies have been conducted around political engagement during social distancing. However, no study has researched how the digitalization effect of the pandemic has affected youths' wings and its member's online mobilization and engagement. This study intends, therefore, to study how the eight Swedish youth wing and their members view how their online mobilization and political engagement during the pandemic has changed. Therefore, to understand the youth wings and its members' political mobilization and engagement does the study use semi-structured interviews to gain a subjective understanding of their perspectives. The data was then analyzed through thematic analysis and later theoretical examined through the dimensions of political engagement and mobilization and the private sphere. Finally, these theories were applied to the data to understand what actions can be viewed as political mobilization and engagement and how digital media affect political actions. Youth wings exist worldwide and connect youths with political parties and mobilize youth to political engagement. Youth wings engagement often entails offline political engagement such as debates and demonstrations. However, during the two-year pandemic, youth wings and their members had to move their political engagement mostly online since they and the rest of the world needed to conduct social distancing to stop the spread of the coronavirus. The pandemic ended this year, 2022, and studies have been conducted around political engagement during social distancing. However, no study has researched how the digitalization effect of the pandemic has affected youths' wings and its member's online mobilization and engagement. This study intends, therefore, to study how the eight Swedish youth wing and their members view how their online mobilization and political engagement during the pandemic has changed. Therefore, to understand the youth wings and its members' political mobilization and engagement does the study use semi-structured interviews to gain a subjective understanding of their perspectives. The data was then analyzed through thematic analysis and later theoretical examined through the dimensions of political engagement and mobilization and the private sphere. Finally, these theories were applied to the data to understand what actions can be viewed as political mobilization and engagement and how digital media affect political actions.