Campaigning - a passion for effectiveness

Campaigning - a passion for effectiveness

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  • Johanna Niesyto
    Johanna Niesyto
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    Small Conference on Webcampaigning at 9/11/2007 in Siegen (Germany)
    *Webcampaigning @ public sphere(s)*


    Workshop of the Research Project ‘Changing Protest and Media Cultures’

    Siegen, November 9th

    Location: Artur-Woll-Haus, Am Eichenhang 50, D-57076 Siegen


    Since the 1980s we can identify a professionalization of campaigning within the social movement sector which is characterised by strategic mediated communication adjusted to selection criteria of commercialised mass media. According to the assumption of many scholars this trend of professionalized campaign politics might be reversed by the Internet as here technical structures offer chances of desintermediation of communication circumventing the gatekeeper function of mass media. Currently, interactivity and decentralised online structures are spelled as the magic formula for an autonomous, self-determined media activism and for new concepts of alternative public spheres. Related to the latter ICTs have been said both to enable subjects to raise their voice individually and collectively, and to participate directly in the political arena. Corresponding to this, digital media have also been conceived as fostering the development of alternative and creative political repertoires of political campaigning focusing around ‘life-style politics’ (Bennett) such as culture jamming, adbusting, new consumerism, and the like. Are the Internet and other digital media actually contributing to processes of power redistribution in mediated societies and unfolding their attributed democratic potentials?

    In the context of a globalizing political arena other scholars see the net as a chance of reintermediation. Here, civil society actors – seen as associative actors – creating their own web spaces might function as selective filters of unlimited online information and therefore as information providers of single issues for special publics while at the same time compensating democratic deficits of transnational politics. In this concept the Internet is seen as a ‘public of publics’ serving predominantly a networking function. Hence, further questions arise: If and how are these publics connected and re-embedded into a more institutionalised public sphere? Are we witnessing the rise of transnational networking public spheres?

    Many of these issues are largely unexplored and still lack empirical evidence as current research is mainly focussed on case studies such as the Anti-MAI-campaign. This small workshop aims at shedding some light onto the interrelations between campaigning politics and the internet. Major questions that will be addressed are: How do civil society actors produce and design new forms of campaign politics on the net? How can the online-/offline link of campaigns be analysed and described? To what extent might webcampaigning of protest actors contribute to forms of transnational public spheres?

    If you are interested in attending the workshop please write an e-mail to johanna.niesyto@uni-siegen.de before October, 22. There are no workshop fees. Detail information will be provided by e-mail.







    *Programme*
    Friday, November 9th

    10:00am Prof. Peter Gendolla, University of Siegen, Germany: Welcome address
    10:15am Prof. Sigrid Baringhorst, University of Siegen, Germany: Presentation of the project ‘Changing Protest and Media Cultures. Transnational Anti-Corporate Campaigns and Digital Communication’

    @ Session I: Transnational Networking Public Spheres
    10:45am Johanna Niesyto, University of Siegen, Germany: Transnational Anti-Corporate Campaigns on the Net
    11:30am Prof. Rainer Winter, University of Klagenfurt, Austria: The Rise of Transnational Public Sphere through Cyberprotest?
    12:15pm Lunch
    1:15pm Alice Mattoni, European University Institute Florence, Italy: Using the Internet within Movement Campaign Networks
    2:00pm Marion Hamm, University of Luzern, Switzerland: Linking Up Online and Offline Realms of Public Spheres

    @ Session II: Democratic potentials
    2:45pm Wainer Lusoli, University of Chester, England: Internet's Effects on Political Participation
    3:30pm Geert Lovink, Institute of Network Cultures Amsterdam, Netherlands: Internet Culture and Postdemocracy

    @ Session III: Discussion
    4:15pm Prof. Sigrid Baringhorst, University of Siegen, Germany: Concluding Discussion

    *Background information*

    Prof. Sigrid Baringhorst, University of Siegen, Germany
    Sigrid Baringhorst is working at the Department Social Sciences in the field of comparative political studies and political sociology. Her research interests are politics and policies of migration and political communication. Currently, in the context of her project “Changing Protest and Media Cultures” she concentrates on digital communication and political consumerism. She is co-editor and author of numerous publications such as ‘Politik mit dem Einkaufswagen’ (politics with the shopping trolley; forthcoming) and ‘Politik als Kampagne’ (politics as campaign).
    E-mail: baringhorst@politikwissenschaft.uni-siegen.de
    For more information: http://www.fb1.uni-siegen.de/politik/mitarbeiter/baringhorst
    http://www.protest-cultures.uni-siegen.de

    Marion Hamm, University of Luzern, Switzerland
    Marion Hamm deals with Internet and public sphere, and analyses the use of the Internet by social movement actors such as Indymedia, the Zapatistas and the G8 protests. She has coined the term of ‘hybrid communication space’ in order to catch the concatenation of real and virtual spaces.
    E-mail: Marion.Hamm@unilu.ch
    For more information: http://www.unilu.ch/deu/marion_hamm_m.a._78934.aspx

    Geert Lovink, Institute of Network Cultures Amsterdam, Netherlands
    Geert Lovink is a media theorist. Since January 2004, he is appointed as associated professor at Amsterdam University. He is also the organiser of several conferences, festivals and publications and the founder of numerous Internet projects, such as http://www.nettime.org and http://www.fibreculture.org. He published the books Dark Fiber (2002), Uncanny Networks (2002) and My First Recession (2003). In 2005/6 he was a fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study (WZB), where he finished his third volume on critical Internet culture, Zero Comments.
    E-Mail: geert@xs4all.nl
    For more information: http://www.laudanum.net/geert
    Weblog: http://www.networkcultures.org/geert

    Wainer Lusoli, University of Chester, England
    Wainer Lusoli is lecturer at the Department of Social and Communication Studies at the University of Chester. His current research interests are ‘new media and citizen participation’ and ‘political organisations - pressure groups, networks, trade unions, movements - and the Internet’. In his PhD he analyzed the electronic democracy discourse. From 2001 to 2003 he worked as research officer for the IPOP Project (Internet, political organisation and participation) at the University of Salford. Furthermore, he is designer and webmaster of various academic and research websites such as http://www.ipol.org.uk.
    E-mail: w.lusoli@chester.ac.uk
    For more information: http://www.lusoli.info
    Weblog: http://reslog.blogspot.com

    Alice Mattoni, European University Institute Florence, Italy
    Alice Mattoni graduated in Media and Communication Sciences at the University of Padua, Italy. Since September 2004, she is PhD student at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the European University Institute. Currently, she works qualitatively on the relationship between social movements and the media from a micro perspective. In her research project, she deals with activists’ multiple media practices in highly media saturated societies, taking into account national and transnational mobilizations against precarity of work. In particular, media practices oriented to the Internet are considered in relation to continuous transformation within the mediascape as a whole.
    E-mail: alice.mattoni@eui.eu

    Johanna Niesyto, University of Siegen, Germany
    Johanna Niesyto is PhD student at Department of Social Sciences and is working as a research fellow at the project “Changing Protest and Media Cultures.” Her field of research comprises questions of networks and transnational public spheres particularly with regard to the European public sphere. She is also co-editor and co-author of the book ‘Politik mit dem Einkaufswagen’ (politics with the shopping trolley; forthcoming).
    E-mail: johanna.niesyto@uni-siegen.de
    For more information: http://www.fk615.uni-siegen.de, http://www.protest-cultures.uni-siegen.de

    Prof. Rainer Winter, University of Klagenfurt, Austria
    Rainer Winter is working at the Institute of Media and Communication Sciences of the University of Klagenfurt with focus on cultural studies. For the office of technical research of the German parliament (Büro für Technikforschung des Deutschen Bundestages) he conducted the study ‘Netbased communication and transnational public spheres’ in 2003/4. He is also (co-)author of numerous publications such as ‘Die Werkzeugkiste der Cultural Studies’ (toolbox of cultural studies) and ‘Kritische Theorie heute’ (critical theory today).
    E-mail: rainer.winter@uni-klu.ac.at
    For more information:
    http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/uniklu/org/visitenkarte?personalnr=...
    • 07 Sep 2007, 2:37 pm