The study examines the influence of social media during the demonstrations in Hong Kong 2019-2020, focusing on how young political activists make use of social media, what their attitudes are towards the forums and whether the increased use shows some positive and/or negative effects. The study uses a qualitative method where the empirical material is obtained through semi-structured interviews. An interview guide was created and then nine interviews were conducted, eight of which were used in the study. The results are analyzed on the basis of an analytical framework developed from previous research and theories on how media is used. The study uses Jay G. Blumler, Michael Gurevitch and Elihu Katz’s theory Uses and Gratification, as well as Jan Van Dijk’s theory of network and information societies. The results show that the political activists mainly use social media for the sake of information, as a means of communicating mobilization strategies, updating each other on events, and for encouragement and motivation around the importance of the movement. They all have great respect for what they share on social media, but the attitude is partly that they must spread political messages in order to reach a global audience. The study also shows that the increased use of social media brings both negative and positive effects.

This dissertation investigates the protest cultures of social revolutionary groups during and after the events of 1968 in France and West Germany before inquiring into how political officials and police responded to the difficulties of maintaining public order. The events of 1968 led revolutionaries in both France and West Germany to adopt new justifications for militant action based in heterodox Marxism and anti-colonial theory, and to attempt to institutionalize new, confrontational modes of public protest that borrowed ways of knowing urban space, tactics, and materials from both the working class and armed guerrilla movements. Self-identifying revolutionaries and left intellectuals also institutionalized forums for the investigation of police interventions in protests on the basis of testimonies, photography, and art. These investigative committees regularly aimed to exploit the resonance of police violence to promote further cycles of politicization. In response, political officials and police sought after 1968 to introduce and to reinforce less ostentatious, allegedly less harmful means of crowd control and dispersion that could inflict suffering without reproducing the spectacle of mass baton assaults and direct physical confrontations—means of physical constraint less susceptible to unveiling as violence. Second, police reinforced surveillance and arrest units. The new tactics of the police borrowed their principles from the struggle against subversion, criminality, and terrorism in order to neutralize the small-group tactics of militant demonstrators. Thus, 1968 served as the point of emergence of a confrontational protest culture within the New Left that in turn provoked the re-articulation of practices of the state. It was a revolution in the counter-revolution.

No description available.

No description available.

Protests constitute one of the most important means for citizens to raise key issues on the social agenda and express marginalised voices, in which an important factor to spread their message is attracting mass media coverage. However, previous research has repeatedly found that the mass media delegitimizes protests and focus on the protest event itself rather than the issues behind it. Meanwhile, the role of alternative media on digital platforms is growing stronger. Given this background, this study sets out to answer how U.S. mainstream- and alternative media depicts three protests in Latin America in 2019 and how they potentially differ in their depiction of these protests. More specifically, the study aims to find if the media portrays protests in a negative manner, and if so, how it is done. These questions are analysed through postcolonialism and the protest paradigm theory, which suggests that the media delegitimize protests through certain ways of describing the protest events. Through a critical discourse analysis of 36 articles in total, this study finds that both the mainstream- and alternative media largely adheres to the protest paradigm. It is found that violent aspects of the protests are often in focus, as well as an absence of lifting the structural issues that the protesters want to lift. However, exceptions that deviate from the theory are found as well, indicating that the protest paradigm alone may not be sufficient to explain the complexities behind the media’s coverage of protest events.

This thesis aims to outline the different dynamics of strike activity and thus understand the basic principles of industrial conflicts in France in the 90s of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century. To study this problem we decided to use a dual approach. A quantitative one, which helped us to critically evaluate the statistical resources of the Ministry of Labour and to made first assumptions about decline of strike activity in France. We used as well qualitative approach in order to understand the use of strikes in various conflict situations. We tried, based on several practical examples of protests, to identify the factors and mechanisms explaining the constraints that may prevent representatives of trade unions use strikes as mobilization agents. Last but not least, our study is realized in the context of the ongoing debate in the French academic environment regarding the conversion of the repertoire of collective action. Unlike works that try to apprehend this transformation giving emphasis on the "new" forms of protest, our goal was to answer questions leading to an understanding of the conditions of continuation of the strike as a traditional way of collective struggle.

The Dark Green World. Radical environmentalism in Czech republic after 1989 Arnošt Novák ABSTRACT Since 1970' environmental movement has been an important social actor. However it never has been an homogeneous and monolithic movement, but it has represented conglomerate of different approaches and currents, strategies and tactics which they were often in mutual contradictions too. This thesis focus on czech environmental movement after 1989 and especially on the radical ecologist activities. By using qualitative research it tries to map and to re-construct radical ecologist activites within a framework of international radical environmentalism. The thesis strives to open critical discussion about radical ecology in the czech context.

This work examines the intervention of Brazilian street artists into the public space of São Paulo metropolis. Pixadores, as they are called, are young people brought up in the poor suburbs of São Paulo. The society perceives them as "vandals" and "delinquents". However, spraying for them is an important part of their life and they do not stop spraying even after starting a family. They risk their lives and often find themselves on the brink of life and death. The aim of this work is to understand the behavior of these sprayers by using the ethnographic method and to answer the question, why is this transgressive practice important to them. Through their writings, they are highlighting their presence and are becoming a direct part of the city. On the one hand, their doing is a syndrome of social problems in the context of Brazilian society. On the other hand, these forms of conscious property damage may be associated with the idea of protest, the affirmation of their position in the margins of society or the respect earned from their peers. Although the residents of the poor suburbs are seen as being excluded from all forms of capital, Brazilian sprayers are, however, important political actors and their doing is reshaping the urban landscape. Prestige and respect which sprayers receive from each...

Studies of American Indian protest rhetoric often define American Indian opposition either by its resistance or its conformity to non-Native institutional discursive norms, suggesting that only one of the two can be considered authentic to American Indian cultures and identities. Addressing this debate, this thesis examines an instance of Native opposition which successfully blends the two approaches: Russell Means' 1989 statement to the United States Senate. Means employs the mode of story to effectively shift discursive authority from the Senate committee members to pan-Indigenous peoples. I call this shift rhetorical occupation, or the appropriation of rhetorical space. Through rhetorical occupation, Means displaces the dominant narrative of governmental power with his own story, drawing on Lakota storytelling practices and both complying with and resisting white Euro-American forms of persuasion. This analysis suggests that rather than defining a broad category of culturally authentic American Indian opposition rhetoric, scholars should consider how Native opposition rhetorics reflect distinct tribal rhetorical traditions and take unique approaches to navigating non-Native discursive norms.

Die vorliegende kumulative Dissertation untersucht Konflikte um Abschiebungen. Hierfür entwickle ich die Forschungsperspektive einer materialistischen Grenzregimeanalyse weiter, indem ich den in dieser Perspektive verwendeten Regimebegriff um hegemonietheoretische Überlegungen ergänze. Aus diesem Blickwinkel diskutiere ich zum einen, inwiefern Ausei-nandersetzungen durch hegemoniale Migrationspolitiken, Grenzziehungen und die tief veran-kerte Hegemonie der Grenze geprägt sind. Zum anderen nehme ich in den Blick, inwiefern es Akteur:innen gelingt, Verschiebungen im hegemonialen Gefüge zu erzeugen. Hierdurch lässt sich die Gleichzeitigkeit von Stabilität und Instabilität im Migrations- und Grenzregime analy-tisch fassen. Die Arbeit basiert auf vier qualitativen Fallstudien sowie einer quantitativen me-dienbasierten Protestereignisanalyse. Während die ersten drei Fallstudien lokale Auseinander-setzungen um Abschiebungen auf dem zivilgesellschaftlichen Terrain untersuchen, fokussiert die vierte Fallstudie juridische Auseinandersetzungen um subjektive Rechte nach der Dublin-Verordnung. Die Dissertation besteht aus insgesamt sechs publizierten beziehungsweise zur Publikation angenommenen Artikeln und Sammelbandbeiträgen sowie einem Rahmenpapier, in welchem ich die Beiträge zusammenhängend diskutiere. Sie erweitert bestehende For-schungen zur Umstrittenheit von Abschiebungen und zu Auseinandersetzungen im und um das Migrations- und Grenzregime, indem sie sowohl Momente der Transformation als auch der Reproduktion im hegemonialen Gefüge greifbar macht. Die Untersuchung zeigt, dass die Auseinandersetzungen um Abschiebungen im Sinne strategischer Selektivität durch das Mig-rations- und Grenzregime beeinflusst werden. Zugleich können Akteur:innen strategisch auf diese Strukturen reagieren und so Veränderungen herbeiführen.