Media Practices of Civil Society Organisations: Emerging Paths to Legitimation and Long-Term Engagement
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Media practices of civil society organisations: Emerging paths to legitimation and long-term engagement Sebastian Kubitschko Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Goldsmiths, University of London, Department of Media and Communications 2014. declaration of authorship In accordance with University of London regulations for the submission of a PhD thesis, I herewith declare that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where other sources of information have been used, they have all been acknowledged. This thesis or parts of it cannot be copied or reproduced without permission. Sebastian Kubitschko Date: 23 February 2015 2 acknowledgments Writing a thesis and doing research in an emerging – and in fact constantly changing – area of research is both a challenging and exciting process that would have been impossible without the help of a group of wonderful people. Let me start by thanking Nick Couldry for accepting me as a PhD student, for believing in my project and for widening my horizon over the past four years. Nick’s ongoing, pervading critical feedback introduced me to a clearer and more articulated way of writing. I do not only highly value his mode of contemplation but also his overall approach to what academia should look like in a turbulent world. I am also greatly indebted to Natalie Fenton for her co-supervision, stimulation and patience. Without her continuous incentive and her stimulating input I might still be doing fieldwork. Aeron Davis has given me valuable feedback and recommendations throughout the process and I want to thank him for that. Veronica Barassi was the most talented and inspiring person to introduce me to teaching in higher education. In a similar way, Zehra Arabadji was a priceless support to deal with all the bureaucratic and administrative tasks. Les Back put an amazing effort into postgraduate studies at and inspired me to think outside the box. The PhD colleagues at Goldsmiths – an open-minded cohort of inspirational thinkers, observers and critics – made my time in London a splendid stage of my life. Above all I want to thank Daniel Knapp for enriching my life with ideas and thoughts beyond the academia, Eleftheria Lekakis for showing me how things are done and for her passionate approach to academia, Corey Schultz for laughs and companionship in the common room. I want to thank the Media and Communications Department at Goldsmiths for providing me with a generous scholarship that made this research possible after all. The NYLON network participants were a critical and constructive source of feedback and inspiration for how to handle qualitative research. In the same way participants of the BRESTOLON network helped me to focus my line of reasoning and showed me how important collaborative thinking is for developing (more or less) coherent ideas. Thank you to Biella Coleman for feedback on my writing and presentations at various points during my research. Coming closer to the here and now, I want to thank Andreas Hepp for encouraging and promoting my transition into German academia. Likewise, I want to thank my new colleagues at the ZeMKI for making the first year at the University of Bremen a great experience. I also want to warmly thank Ingrid Volkmer, my MA thesis advisor at the University of Melbourne, for encouraging me to pursue the road of PhD student. Thanks to 3 Donatella Della Porta for her hospitality and input during my stay at the EUI during a beautiful Florentine autumn. Many thanks to Alison Caddick for letting my thoughts become a part of the encouraging environment of Arena Magazine and for putting things in order. Finally, heartfelt thanks to my family and friends – in particular Anne, Gé, Katharina, Conni, Marianne und Hans-Friedrich – for their indubitable love and backing. All mistakes and inconsistency are, of course, my sole responsibility. This thesis is dedicated to Lisa & Oskar – enriching and intensifying my life in the most magnificent way. 4 abstract In this thesis I wish to analyse the complex relationship between actors’ media- related practices, legitimacy and long-term engagement. Based on a qualitative approach my research investigates two cases –Citizens for Europe, a civil society organisations involved in issues relating to European citizenship, and the Chaos Computer Club, one of the world’s oldest and largest hacker organisations. More concretely, through face-to-face interviews, participant observation and media analysis I analyse the role media practices play for the two organisations to establish legitimation and to sustain their political engagement over time. Accordingly, my thesis seeks to provide an empirically informed interpretive account of the meaning media-related practices have for actors’ political endeavours. From a more operationalised perspective, I am trying to make a convincing argument that practices circulating around and oriented towards media technologies and infrastructures play a configurative role for actors’ ability to co-determine democratic constellations. Instead of suggesting a straightforward causal chain my thesis conceptualises the entanglements between media practices, legitimation and long-term engagement as interlocking arrangements grounded in relational dynamics. Overall, my thesis aims to compliment existing research on the role media technologies and infrastructures play for the formation of political arrangements by looking at organisation-based engagement. In doing so, my research partially bridges a current research gap concerning the relationship between organisational actors’ media-related practices and their ability to establish legitimacy and to perpetuate political engagement over time. 4 table of contents Acknowledgements – 3 Abstract – 4 Abbreviations–8 Chapter One Introduction and Thesis Outline – 10 Chapter Two Literature Review (part one) –21 2.1 The state of democracy – 21 2.2 Media practices in everyday life – 28 2.3 From sceptics to optimists – 33 2.4 Steering a middle ground – 40 Chapter Three Literature Review (part two)–43 3.1 A pluralisation of actors – 43 3.2 From visibility to legitimation – 50 3.3 A long-term perspective – 57 3.4 Broad considerations and three research questions – 62 Chapter Four Methodology: Contextuality as a Method–65 4.1 Case study research – 65 4.2 Three complementary research methods – 70 4.3 The case studies – 76 4.4 Conclusion – 84 Chapter Five Citizens for Europe – 85 5.1 Internal communication and organisational formations – 85 5.2 Outward-oriented communication – 91 5.3 Face-to-face and mediated communication – 99 5.4 Every Vote as a trans-media campaign – 105 5.5 Conclusion – 111 5 Chapter Six Intermediary Politics – 113 6.1Publishing a print journal – 113 6.2 Producing, documenting and curating – 119 6.3 A democratic community of practice – 124 6.4 Living your own aim and how to sustain it – 129 6.5 Conclusion – 134 Chapter Seven The Chaos Computer Club – 136 7.1 Hacking as direct digital action – 136 7.2 Alternative communication infrastructures – 142 7.3 Boundaries of internal communication – 148 7.4 Collaborating in exclusive circles – 153 7.5 Conclusion – 160 Chapter Eight Hackers in Media Environments – 162 8.1 Mediated visibility and the emergence of the CCC – 162 8.2 Articulation across media environments – 167 8.3 Multi-layered media practices – 171 8.4 Making a complex world comprehensible – 177 8.5 Conclusion – 185 Chapter Nine A Concrete Multiplicity – 187 9.1 The hackers and institutional politics – 187 9.2 Circuits of legitimation – 194 9.3 A heterogeneous organisation with a coherent voice – 200 9.4 How to practice coherence – 207 9.5 Conclusion – 213 Chapter Ten Conclusion – 215 10.1 Putting the findings into dialogue – 215 10.2 Literature reconsidered – 222 10.3 General remarks and links to possible future research – 227 Bibliography–231 6 Appendices Appendix 1: Webliography – 242 Appendix 2: Short CCC participant biographies – 246 Appendix 3: CFE April newsletter – 249 Appendix 4: CFE political parties – 250 Appendix 5: CFE January newsletter – 251 Appendix 6: CFE Pinterest – 252 Appendix 7: CFE collaborations – 253 Appendix 8: CFE Vote Exchange – 254 Appendix 9: CCC Btx terminal – 255 Appendix 10: CCC post logo – 257 Appendix 11: CCC TUWAT – 258 Appendix 12: CCC Computer Guerrilla – 259 Appendix 13: CCC taz hacker – 261 Appendix 14: CCC taz Datenschleuder – 262 Appendix 15: CCC iPhone Hack – 263 Appendix 16: CCC Frank Rieger DLD – 264 Appendix 17: CCC Malte Spitz Zeit Online – 265 Appendix 18: CCC Federal Trojan FAZ – 266 Appendix 19: CCC Federal Trojan Aram Bartholl – 273 7 abbreviations ARD Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Consortium of public broadcasters in Germany) CCC Chaos Computer Club CDU Christian Democratic Party CFE Citizens for Europe CSO Civil Society Organisation EDP Electronic Data Processing EU European Union FDP Free Democratic Party GJM Global Justice Movement GPN Gulaschprogrammiernacht (Goulash Programming Night) ICANN Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ICT Information and communications technologies ILMR International League for Human Rights IRC Internet Relay Chat KGB Committee for State Security NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration NGO Non-governmental organisation OC Open Citizenship RAF Red Army Fraction SIGINT Signals Intelligence SPD Social Democratic Party Tor The Onion Router ZDF Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (Second German Television) 8 But Count Leinsdorf was in favor of organizations. “Remember,” he said, “that no good has ever come of ideological politics; we must go in for practical politics.” […] “You can put a people on its feet, but it must do its own walking. Do you see what I mean? Put it on its feet – that’s what we must do. But a people’s feet are its firm institutions, its political parties, its organizations, and so on, and not a lot of talk.” “Your Grace! Even if it doesn’t exactly sound like it, you have just uttered a truly democratic ideal!”. Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities, 1930–43: 376–7.