The Appeal of Protest Rhetoric: How Moral Entrepreneurs Recruit the Media into Moral Struggles

Whenever the news media feature brand-related moral struggles over issues such as ethicality, fairness, or sustainability, brands often find themselves in the position of the culprit. However, brands may also take the opposite position, that of a moral entrepreneur that proactively raises and addresses moral issues that matter to society. In this chapter, we present a case study of the Austrian shoe manufacturer Waldviertler, which staged a protest campaign against Austria’s financial market authorities (FMA) in the wake of the authorities demanding that the company closes its alternative (and illegal) consumer investment model after 10 years of operation. In response to this demand, the company organized protest marches, online petitions, and press conferences to reclaim the moral high ground for its financing model as a way out of the crunch following the global credit crisis and as a way to fight unfair administrative burdens. We present an interpretive analysis of brand communication material and media coverage that reveals how this brand used protest rhetoric on three levels – logos, ethos, and pathos – to reverse moral standards, to embody a rebel ethos, and to cultivate moral indignation. We also show how the media responded to protest rhetoric both with thematic coverage of context, trends, and general evidence, and with episodic coverage focusing on dramatic actions and the company owner’s charisma. We close with a discussion of how protestainment, the stylization of a leader figure, and marketplace sentiments can ensure sustained media coverage of moral struggles

Ending Civil War through Nonviolent Resistance: The Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace Movement

In 2003, Liberia’s President Charles Taylor signed an agreement with two rebel parties to bring an end to the country’s fourteen-year civil war. Prior to that, the war had resulted in the death of 250,000 people and the displacement of more than a million. While the signing of the agreement and the subsequent resignation of Mr. Taylor received much of the attention in the local and international media, it is the extremely successful nonviolent campaign by the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace (WLMAP) that deserves critical attention and analysis. So far, not much has been done in terms of research to analyze WLMAP’s campaign within a nonviolent action framework. Generally, researchers have sought to highlight the contributions WLMAP made to the Liberian peace process by focusing primarily on their role in peacebuilding[1]. Consequently, an important and specific aspect of WLMAP’s activities—their strategic nonviolent struggle—tends to be overlooked in the discussions. To address this limitation, this paper applies Ackerman and Kruegler’s (1994) twelve principles of strategic nonviolent conflict as a conceptual framework to analyze WLMAP’s strategic nonviolent campaign. The paper also draws attention to some of the unique and important contributions women make to nonviolent movements. [1] While peacebuilding and nonviolent action are similar and share a common goal of pursuing ‘just peace’ through peaceful means, there are some notable differences between their approaches—and areas of emphasis—when it comes to conflict transformation. For instance, while peacebuilding may prioritize the use of conventional methods such as dialogue and negotiations to mitigate tensions and/or conflicts between adversaries with unequal power relations, nonviolent action may draw on nonconventional methods such as protests and strikes to seek balance in the power relations between such adversaries before any negotiations begin (Dudouet, 2017; Schock, 2005). In focusing on their nonviolent struggle, this paper pays particular attention to the WLMAP’s effective use of non-routine and extra-institutional strategies to empower a marginalized group of women to spearhead political change in their country

Blueprints for survival: Artists construct The Civil Defense Information Centre

Vancouver's status as a major target area has led to an increasing need for information facilities to provide the public with blueprints for survival from nuclear attack. Current data forecast two to three megaton warheads targeted at the VancouverVictoria area. (Civil Defense Information Centre, Press Release, Jan. 1982). When the Vancouver Sun printed this statement verbatim they believed that they were excerpting from a press release by the federal government. In fact, they were providing an advertising channel for a multi-media anti-nuke exhibition created by three Vancouver artists, Laura Hackett, Dean Mitchell and Daniel Werger. The three recent graduates of Emily Carr College of Art, working in collaboration, sought to create a show which would grasp at the growing public fear of nuclear annihilation. Their two week presentation (Feb. 1-14, 1982, Unit Pitt Gallery, Vancouver) combined performance, video, sculpture, architectural media, slides and blueprints within the gallery space and a media and leafletting assault without. They were unusually successful in their ability to educate a mass audience, rupture traditional gallery space and in their generation of mass media coverage. In this interview, FUSE talks to Laura Hackett and Dean Mitchell

Convincing the crowd: entrepreneurial storytelling in crowdfunding campaigns

This study examines the structure of entrepreneurial stories in pursuit of mobilizing resources from crowds. Based on a comparative analysis of Kickstarter crowdfunding campaigns, we examine in particular how, across different project types, project histories and potential futures are framed and interlinked in narratives to appeal to funders. We find that projects are narrated in different styles—as ongoing journeys” or “results-inprogress”— to convey project value. The former style narrates projects as longer-term endeavors powered by creative initial ideas and a bold vision, inviting audiences to “join the journey”; the latter narrates projects more narrowly as a progression of accomplishments, engaging the audience instrumentally to support next steps. We find that styles are used and combined in different ways, reflecting the tangibility of project outcomes, the sophistication of technology, and the social orientation of projects. Also, successful differ from unsuccessful campaigns in using narratives more coherently. Findings inform research on narrative processes in entrepreneurship and innovation, and research on the mobilization of crowds

Selling pain to the saturated self

How can we comprehend people who pay for an experience marketed as painful? On one hand consumers spend billions of dollars every year to alleviate different kinds of pain. On the other hand, millions of individuals participate in extremely painful leisure pursuits. In trying to understand this conundrum, we ethnographically study a popular adventure challenge where participants subject themselves to electric shocks, fire and freezing water. Through sensory intensification, pain brings the body into sharp focus, allowing individuals to rediscover their corporeality. In addition, painful extraordinary experiences operate as regenerative escapes from the self. By flooding the consciousness with gnawing unpleasantness, pain provides a temporary relief from the burdens of self-awareness. Finally, when leaving marks and wounds, pain helps consumers create the story of a fulfilled life. In a context of decreased physicality, market operators play a major role in selling pain to the saturated selves of knowledge workers, who use pain as a way to simultaneously escape reflexivity and craft their life narrative

“More than just Space” : Designing to Support Assemblage in Virtual Creative Hubs

This paper aims to understand interactions at creative hubs, and how this understanding can be used to inform the design of virtual creative hubs – i.e., social-technical infrastructures that support hub-like interactions amongst people who aren’t spatially or temporally co-located. We present findings from a qualitative field study in UK creative hubs, in which we conducted seventeen observations and ten interviews in three sites. Our findings reveal a range of key themes that define interactions within creative hubs: smallness of teams; neutrality of the hubs; value of the infrastructure; activities and events; experience sharing; and community values and rules. These interactions together form a network and elements that influence one another to make a creative hub more than just physical space. We employ the concept of Assemblage introduced by Deleuze and Guattari to explore this network of interactions and, in doing so, reveal implications for the design of virtual creative hubs that seek to replicate them

Women\u27s Mobilization in Latin America: A Case Study of Venezuela

Abstract I examine the following elements in regards to women’s mobilization in Latin America and Venezuela from the late 1950s to the present: (a) the influence of the state and economy on times when women mobilized (b) class division within the movement (c) women’s demands during different time periods (d) the ways in which women were successful in working towards gender equality. This thesis reviews the literature on women’s mobilization in Latin America during the second half of the twentieth century. I find that women mobilized across class lines with the masses to end dictatorships. Women demobilized during transitions to democracy due to partisan rivalry. During the neoliberal era women in Latin America mobilized across middle and lower classes for social services, economic stability, and employment opportunities. They were successful in receiving social welfare programs funded by the state. In some cases in Latin America, women across middle and lower classes mobilized with men for a socialist state that would include gender equality initiatives in its transformation. Countries that underwent the transition to socialism contributed to women’s mobilization efforts by including women in leadership roles and the armed forces. At this time, women were successful in receiving a broader range of social services funded by the state, political inclusion, and economic opportunity. I then examine in-depth women’s mobilization in Venezuela with an emphasis on the past fifteen years under the government of Hugo Chávez. Women’s mobilization from the 1950s to the 1990s took similar forms in relation to the rest of the region. However, Venezuela is a unique case because of what women were able to accomplish with support from the state from 1999 to today. Venezuela was the first to create a gender inclusive constitution with social security benefits for homemakers. Additionally, Venezuela was able to maintain a state of democracy over the last fifty-four years since the removal of dictatorship in 1958. Venezuela has also invested one of the largest amounts of revenue in its social welfare missions that have predominantly assisted poor women. The Chávez government has included feminist ideology in its socialist rhetoric that has opened up the opportunity for further accomplishments in the struggle for gender equality. The analysis of the Venezuelan case nuances our understanding of how politics and economics shape women’s mobilization in Latin America because of its success in maintaining an environment conducive towards gender equality