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Towards a Theory of Media Power in a Networked Communication Environment: Case Studies of #Demo2012, Adidas, and #Asksnowden

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Towards a Theory of Media Power in a Networked Communication Environment: Case Studies of #Demo2012, Adidas, and #Asksnowden Towards a Theory of Media Power in a Networked Communication Environment: Case Studies of #Demo2012, Adidas, and #AskSnowden Simon Edward Collister Royal Holloway, University of London PhD Submission 1 Declaration of Authorship I ……………………. hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed: ______________________ Date: ________________________ 2 Abstract This thesis contributes to the debate about media power by advancing a new theoretical perspective. I critique existing theories of media power and argue that media power as it operates in today’s complex media environment can be understood as being based on interactions between the culturally and communicatively symbolic components of media communication and the material features and processes of media through which such symbolic communication occurs. I develop and apply an analytical model capable of spanning these two domains and their complex qualities. To develop the model I adopt a neo-materialist ontology based on Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of rhizomatic assemblages, Hertog and McLeod’s multi- perspectival frame analysis and DeLanda’s theory of the assemblage. I argue that this approach can capture both the symbolic and the material dimensions of media that function through networked, complex and emergent interactions. My analytical model is based on four pillars: hybridity, materiality, choreography and coding. I used the model to guide my empirical fieldwork investigation of three case studies: a public demonstration, an animal rights protest aimed at undermining a well-known brand and the high-profile leaks by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013. Ethnography, content analysis and interview data were used to assess my model’s suitability for making sense of these three cases. Finally, in the conclusion I propose four future themes that this thesis reveals are significant for research on media power: the importance of institutional adaptation, the role of emotion and affect, the significance of computation and the materiality of technology. 3 Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without support received from the following small, but significant, group of people. Firstly, thanks must go to my supervisor, Professor Andrew Chadwick. His enthusiasm for, and belief in, my initial ideas and intentions, combined with his expert guidance throughout the project, helped ensure this thesis came to fruition. Additionally, invaluable feedback on the thesis’ development was provided by other departmental members at Royal Holloway: Professor Ben O’Loughlin and Dr Cristian Vaccari. To my parents, Anne and the late Alwyn Collister, I owe an unmeasurable debt of gratitude. From my earliest memories you instilled in me, and nurtured, a life-long love of learning. Without you both this thesis would not have been possible. Finally, my deepest and most heart-felt thanks go to my family: my wife, Sarah, and three inspiring sons, Harry, Noah and Theo, whose enduring support and encouragement has been a source of constant energy driving the project forward. Thank you all. 4 Table of Contents Declaration of Authorship 2 Abstract 3 Acknowledgements 4 1. Introduction 7 1.1. Defining Media Power 9 1.2. Research Questions 14 1.3. Chapter Summary 15 2. Power and Media: Review of the Existing Literature 18 2.1. Contemporary Origins of Power: 18 2.1.1. The Conflictual Tradition 18 2.1.2. Consensual approaches: Power, duality and discursivity 22 2.1.3. Constitutive power: Networked perspectives 29 2.2. Media and Power 35 2.2.1. Liberal perspectives 36 2.2.2. Critical approaches 41 2.2.3. Networked media power 49 3. Research Context: Ontology and Analytical Model 61 3.1. Theoretical context 62 3.1.1. Ontologies of difference and multiplicity 62 3.1.2. Assemblages: from Deleuze to DeLanda 65 3.1.3. Framing theory: origins and definitions 68 3.1.4. Bridging framing and assemblage theory 71 3.2. Establishing an analytical model of contemporary media power 73 3.2.1. The ‘who, what, how, and why of contemporary media power 74 3.2.2. Conclusions: Four analytical pillars: Hybridity, Materiality, Choreography & Coding 82 4. Research Methods 85 4.1. Research design 89 4.1.1. Case study sampling 93 4.2. Data collection methods 95 4.2.1. Ethnography 95 4.2.2. Content analysis 103 4.2.3. Interviews 110 4.3. Data analysis 113 5. Empirical Case Study 1: The NUS’ #Demo2012 117 5.1. Building the pre-event narrative. 120 5 5.2. Material media objects: Images of space/place & hyperlinks 130 5.3. Demo2012 event analysis: Space and place as catalysts for coding 135 5.4. The Guardian’s #Demo2012 live-blog 143 5.5. Conclusions 147 6. Empirical Case Study 2: Animal Rights Activists 150 Versus Adidas 6.1. Algorithmic visibility and sense-making 152 6.2. Algorithmic hyperintermediation and auto- moderation as catalysts for coding 163 6.3. The Adidas “shitstorm” 169 6.4. Conclusions 173 7. Empirical Case Study: 3 The Guardian’s 175 #AskSnowden Web Chat 7.1. The Guardian, digital-networked journalism and media power 178 7.2. #AskSnowden?: ‘News values’ versus ‘network values’ 187 7.3. Celebrity whistle-blowing and soft news values: Economic influences in the #AskSnowden media assemblage 202 7.4. Conclusions 211 8. Conclusions and future directions 212 8.1. Main findings of the thesis 213 8.2. Hybridity, materiality, choreography and coding in action across the three case studies 216 8.3. Future directions for research 232 8.4. Conclusions 241 Appendix: Ethnography Research Notes 242 Bibliography 251 6 Chapter 1 Introduction 7 the question of power, as traditionally formulated, does not make sense in the network society […] new forms of domination and determination are critical in shaping people’s lives […] albeit in new forms and with new actors. (Castells, 2009: 45) The media and communication landscape has undergone a series of tectonic shifts in the past decade (González-Bailón, 2015). Established media institutions have faced several years of decline; and more recently – in some areas at least –renewal and growth (Anderson, Bell, & Shirky, 2012). In parallel with the changes occurring to the industrial media, the adoption and use of personal and social media has enabled a rapid growth in “mass self-communication” [my emphasis] (Castells, 2009) which has augmented, undermined and reinforced institutional media interests in a range of ways unforeseen even five years ago (Newman, Fletcher, Levy, & Nielsen, 2016). As a consequence of this shift in the balance of media power, technology companies, such as Google, Facebook and Twitter, their attendant software and digital infrastructure have come to play a more central role in the communication of everyday life through the control and management of data and information flows (Bell, 2014; 2016). Such developments, symptomatic of the contemporary “Network Society” (Castells, 2000) or “Networked Information Economy” (Benkler, 2006) have reinvigorated a range of issues pertinent to studies of media and communication and, perhaps more significantly, opened up new and previously largely unforeseen areas of scholarship drawn from other fields. For instance, the ability to establish and circulate representations of societal issues has been transferred in broad terms from the preserve of the media industries to constellations of digitally-networked individuals such as citizen journalists (Breindl, 2016) or digital activists (Allen, 2016). The rise in influence of digital media platforms and communication channels has meant that the algorithms and other computational processes running in the background of such platforms are increasingly playing a role in influencing and determining information flows. Moreover, the dominant commercial orientation of such technology is refocusing critical attention on the political economy of media 8 communication, rather than the more reception-based and culturally-determinist perspectives on media power prevalent in recent literature. The materiality of technology infrastructure presents itself too in the growth of mobile and wearable technologies that increasingly brings locative and other physical infrastructure of the built and ‘real world’ environment into media production processes. This evolution in the significance of the materiality of media and communication fits neatly into a much broader conceptual development: neo- materialism. Originating in sociology and philosophy neo-materialism focuses on the centrality and validity of matter and the material components – understood as “a commitment to the mind-independent existence of reality” (DeLanda, 2006: 1) - of the social realm. This approach argues for a broader interpretation of society’s material structures and forces than that offered by a Durkheimian positivism or a classical Marxist economic determinism. Rather it has sought to account for the everyday materiality of society found in previously inert or inanimate objects, such as the built environment, technological devices, computer code and physical space (Coole & Frost, 2010). Importantly, such material objects gain agency and operate in conjunction with the hitherto dominant analyses of language and symbolic representation in mediating power. It is at the intersection of these current trends and trajectories that this thesis situates itself. Specifically, the thesis is interested in the ways that theories of media power are being reshaped by both the developments in technology as well as the renewed
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