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Affective Political Activism in Participatory Online Communities Paromita Sengupta University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

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Affective Political Activism in Participatory Online Communities Paromita Sengupta University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee University of Wisconsin Milwaukee UWM Digital Commons Theses and Dissertations May 2015 "Boredom Is Always Counter-revolutionary": Affective Political Activism in Participatory Online Communities Paromita Sengupta University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.uwm.edu/etd Part of the Communication Commons Recommended Citation Sengupta, Paromita, ""Boredom Is Always Counter-revolutionary": Affective Political Activism in Participatory Online Communities" (2015). Theses and Dissertations. 923. https://dc.uwm.edu/etd/923 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by UWM Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of UWM Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “BOREDOM IS ALWAYS COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY”: AFFECTIVE POLITICAL ACTIVISM IN PARTICIPATORY ONLINE COMMUNITIES by Paromita Sengupta A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Media Studies at The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee May 2015 ABSTRACT “BOREDOM IS ALWAYS COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY”: AFFECTIVE POLITICAL ACTIVISM IN PARTICIPATORY ONLINE COMMUNITIES by Paromita Sengupta The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2015 Under the Supervision of Dr. Michael Newman My thesis examines how fan communities on Facebook can become centres of political activism, operating through members’ affective ties to the cause and community, and networked communication. I conduct an ethnographic study of two Facebook communities—the street-photography page Humans of New York, and the page of the anonymous internet comedian who calls himself the Facebook God. Through a discursive analysis of the content of these pages and socio-political issues discussed by the members, I try demonstrate that Facebook activism can serve as an important gateway to civic engagement, through affective politics and connective action. Participatory online communities allow members to reimagine political issues in deeply personal terms, through storytelling and communal solidarity. Therefore, these spaces can become virtual classrooms for potential political activists, by redefining activism as a fun communal endeavor, and lowering the boundaries of participation. ii © Copyright by Paromita Sengupta, 2015 All Rights Reserved iii INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................. 1 Fan Activism and Participatory Politics ................................................................................................ 7 Fun/Affective Politics ............................................................................................................................11 The Ethical Spectacle ............................................................................................................................13 DIY Citizenship ......................................................................................................................................14 Repertoire of Contention .......................................................................................................................15 Facebook Activism .................................................................................................................................16 Methods .................................................................................................................................................18 Chapter Division ...................................................................................................................................20 REFORM PHOTOGRAPHY AND PARTICIPATORY STORYTELLING: THE MULTIPLE DISCOURSES OF TOLERANCE ON HUMANS OF NEW YORK .....................................................................................................23 Photography as Political Activism ........................................................................................................25 Participatory Storytelling as Idioculture on HONY ..............................................................................28 From Discussion to Social Activism ......................................................................................................34 The Pedagogy of Discomfort: Regulating Communication on HONY...................................................44 The Millennium Development Project: HONY’s World Tour ................................................................51 The Meme-ification of Humans of New York .........................................................................................55 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................64 THE DIVINE COMEDY: IMPROVING AND IMPROVISING GODLINESS ON NEW MEDIA ..................................69 Performing Authenticity: “I am the realest God you’ll ever know” ......................................................73 Satire and the Comic Frame: God as a Contemporary Political Trickster ...........................................78 Performing the Carnivalesque through Tactical Frivolity ....................................................................89 Anti-Fans and the Culture of Mockery ..................................................................................................99 Conclusion ...........................................................................................................................................104 CONCLUSION: SOCIAL MEDIA AND A NEW CIVIC VERNACULAR ..............................................................109 iv Figure 1…………………………………………………………………………………...30 Figure 2…………………………………………………………………………………...30 Figure 3…………………………………………………………………………………...30 Figure 4…………………………………………………………………………………...30 Figure 5……………………………………………………………………………….…..30 v I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Dr. Michael Newman for his patience, good humour, and all the help and feedback he provided for my thesis. I would also like to thank the members of my thesis committee, Dr. Elana Levine and Dr. Richard Popp, for their advice and encouragement. Finally, I am eternally grateful to the Department of Journalism, Advertising and Media Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, for giving me the independence to discover my own academic interests, and for helping me realize that I did, in fact, want to end up studying media for a living. vi 1 “Boredom is Always Counter-Revolutionary”: As political activists and cultural scholars of the 2000s became disillusioned with the neoliberal ideals of Web 2.0, the early enthusiasm about the potential of online media for implementing tangible social change was dismissed as being naive and myopic. Current attempts to raise awareness or make political statements on social media are often dismissed as ‘slacktivism’—a derogatory term for political endeavours which cause a brief ripple of interest, but inevitably die down due to their lack of concrete agendas, or long-term goals.1 Social media movements like the viral ALS Ice Bucket Challenge of 2014 are often regarded as little more than publicity stunts. However, online communities provide spaces where a geographically-disparate group of individuals can come together by virtue of their shared appreciation for a particular cultural artefact, or a shared interest, which can lead to animated discussions and debates. These interests can be varied and culturally-diverse, but it is possible for a non-political discussion in an unregulated online forum to have unexpected political ramifications. Gary Alan Fine describes social movements as a “bundle of narratives”, which work within an interactional arena to share organizational goals and strengthen the commitment of members.2 Online communities can become interactional arenas, by encouraging political engagement through affective ties with the community and the cause, and even large-scale political activism. The strength and coherence of social 1 Malcolm Gladwell, “Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted”, The New Yorker, October 4th 2010, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-3?currentPage=all, accessed February 1st 2015. 2 Gary Alan Fine, “Public Narration and Group Culture: Discerning Discourse in Social Movements”, Social Movements and Culture, ed. Hank Johnston and Bert Klandermans (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995) p. 128 2 movements is based on what Fine calls the “idioculture” of a group—a communal political identity created through the “appropriation and personalization of established traditions and through the creation of indigenous traditions.”3 Social media scholars have also theorized that the structure and accessibility of online communication enable users to treat the space as a digital classroom, where discourses of power and hegemony are debated. Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Barry Wellman describe a virtual classroom as “both an instrumental group—in which students and instructors want to accomplish goals—and a community—in which students exchange emotional support, information, and a sense of belonging.”4 They emphasize that the true pedagogical advantage of an online classroom is its potential for participation. Instead of one-way learning through lectures and presentations, a virtual classroom facilitates active interaction, evaluation and cooperation between students and instructors. In a study on the role of discussion in an online learning
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