Towards a conceptualization of casual protest participation: Parsing a case from the Save Roşia Montană campaign

There is currently an empirical gap in the literature on protest participation in liberal democracies which has overwhelmingly focused on Western Europe and North America at the expense of Eastern Europe. To contribute to closing that gap, this article reviews findings from a multi-method field study conducted at FânFest, the environmental protest festival designed to boost participation in Save Roşia Montană, the most prominent environmental campaign in Romania. By contrast to its Western counterparts, Romania has seen markedly lower levels of involvement in voluntary organizations that are a key setting for mobilization into collective action. Concurrently, experience with participation in physical protests is limited amongst Romanians. Specifically, the article probes recent indications that social network sites provide new impetus to protest participation as an instrumental means of mobilization. Dwelling on a distinction between experienced and newcomers to protest, results indicate that social network site usage may make possible the casual participation of individuals with prior protest experience who are not activists in a voluntary organization. Whilst this finding may signal a new participatory mode hinging on digitally networked communication which is beginning to be theorized, it confounds expectations pertaining to a net contribution of social network site usage to the participation of newcomers to protest

Exploding iconography: The Mindbomb Project

The Mindbomb project was started by a group of young artists, journalists and writers, rich in creative resources. Together they created the social poster. It became a means to hack into the dominant discourse of mainstream politics, the mass media and the advertising industry. This paper will attempt to give an answer to the question: how to localize this critique in a non-differentiated global consumer culture? The argument in this paper centers around the idea that the Mindbomb project started as a challenge to the consumer culture. However, it later developed into a broader critique of contemporary Romanian society. A set of theoretical filters in the literature on aesthetic movements and culture jamming were used to map out the Mindbomb project. The present discussion of a single case may be a relevant addition to existing theoretical debates

Social representations of social media at romanian teenagers. European integration through the internet

Social media and European Union are two realities of the present that have undoubtedly brought major changes in society in terms of communication, intergroup relations and identity negotiation. The power relations between social media and European Union have become so great that a change from one side is immediately felt on the other side, and more important is that the two together define the present and build the future. It is a complex process, especially since European integration is resisting nationalist politics, and the Internet is drastically regulated even by the European Union, as it has never been before. Thus, inevitably, new aspects of social life arise, with which people need to get familiarized in order to shape a common sense. Therefore, we investigated the social representation of social media at Romanian teenagers, demonstrating through this research that it has mostly positive elements, but which are under the threat of new Internet regulations. If we also consider the process of European integration, social media can represent a strong link between the European Union and Romania, helping create a good European identity, despite the national sovereignty that has been promoted. The research was based on a structured questionnaire, Associative Network Technique with four stimuli (“Me”, “Social Media”, “European Union”, “Romania”), YouTube video analysis, and text mining on Facebook

Decisions regarding infringements of sponsoring provisions

status: publishe

Five broadcasters warned for non-compliance with rules on commercial communication on sugary confectionery

status: publishe