The Fragility of Dissent!: Mediated Resistance at the Gleneagles G8 Summit and the Impact of the 7/7 London Bombings

Adoptando un método etnográfico, este artículo presenta un estudio de caso sobre las protestas realizadas por la red Dissent! durante la cumbre del G8 en Gleneagles en 2005. Es reseñable la manera en que los activistas anticipan, comprenden y negocian de forma reflexiva la oportunidad mediatizada y la dinámica cambiante de los medios de comunicación en relación con la citada cumbre. El análisis realizado se centra en las consecuencias representacionales para las protestas de Dissent!, derivadas de los ataques terroristas del 7 de julio en Londres. Los ataques terroristas refuerzan la fragilidad y temporalidad de la resistencia mediatizada al tiempo que se enfatiza la falta de control que los agentes de los movimientos sociales tienen sobre los espacios mediatizados de resistencia.Informed by ethnographic methods, this article takes a case study approach to the protests of the Dissent! network at the 2005 Gleneagles G8 Summit. Of interest is how activists anticipated, understood and reflexively navigated the ‘mediated opportunity’ and shifting media dynamics of the G8 Summit. The analysis focuses largely on the representational reverberations of the July 7th, 2005 London bombings (7/7 bombings) on Dissent! protests. It is argued that the bombings reinforced the fragility and temporality of mediated resistance, and also emphasised the lack of control social movement actors have over mediated spaces of resistance

‘I Predict a Riot’ – mediation and political contention: Dissent!’s media practices at the 2005 Gleneagles G8 Summit

International meetings such as the G8 Summit have evolved from the sequestered gatherings of the economic elite to full-scale political media events. Using the 2005 Gleneagles G8 Summit as a case study, and focusing on one specific ‘autonomous’ activist network – Dissent! – this thesis investigates how the process of mediation is articulated in activists’ practices in preparing and enacting acts of contention. Dominant approaches to such events in the field of media and communications are often text-centred, focussing on the media’s framing of protest, overlooking the actions against and interactions with the media at such sites. This oversight is significant given that contemporary political struggle occurs on the ground, as well as with and through the media. The theoretical framework applies past media/movement scholarship to emerging discourses on mediation which view media – its content, producers, users, technologies, culture and rituals – as an ongoing and reflexive process, actualised through analysing activists’ media-oriented practices (Couldry, 2004, Silverstone, 2005). The methodological approach follows Burawoy’s (1998) “extended method” drawing on a year of participant observation and 32 in-depth interviews. Analysis is undertaken on an activist, group and network level; before and at the Summit. The findings show that activists demonstrate a reflexive awareness of media, including lay theories of media which inform their actions. On a networklevel, Dissent! established a policy abstaining from media interaction. Yet, despite this, on a group-level, the CounterSpin Collective formed within Dissent! to manage media interest. The Collective’s media practices are shown to be characterised by a strategy of dual adaptation; adapting to both Dissent!’s political limitations and the media’s demands. The analysis of the site of protest in Scotland – Hori-Zone eco-village – and the protest actions undertaken from it, further demonstrates the way in which media orients and permeates activists practices. The concept of spectacular action is developed to analyse a shift in the type of protest activities conducted at a media event from direct action to the simulation of direct action, valuing symbolic over physical disruption. This thesis contributes to a growing interest in the concept of mediation through the emerging field of media practice, offering both empirical evidence and revised theory. Moreover it addresses the largely neglected role of the media in social movement literature. Research undertaken also demonstrates how the logic of media now permeates the practice of activism, marking the rise of spectacular action as a cause for concern for both activists and academics

Theorizing "Lay Theories of Media": A Case Study of the Dissent! Network at the 2005 Gleneagles G8 Summit

Drawing on "active audience studies" and recent theories of mediation, the concept of "lay theories of media" is proposed as a means to understand how social movement actors think about and interact with news media as part of the "practice" of activism. The argument is made via a case study of the Dissent! network using data gathered from participant observation in the planning and enactment of protests at the 2005 Gleneagles G8 Summit in Scotland and 30 semi-structured interviews with activists. This article argues that Dissent! activists approached Gleneagles with existing knowledge and experience about news media and demonstrates how these "lay theories" informed their activism. The conclusion stresses the util

Predictive energy optimization model for grid-interactive residential buildings

The consumption and production of energy are more dynamic as distributed energy resources (DER) such as solar photovoltaic (PV) are deployed within the electric distribution system. The traditional energy price at a predetermined rate cannot accommodate these dynamics and can lead to wasted energy and higher costs for both utility companies and consumers. Commercial building and residential energy management systems are usually on a fixed schedule and are not able to respond to changes in energy price instantaneously. There is a need for a real-time pricing structure that can accommodate the fluctuating cost of energy based on supply and demand, and a need for an energy management system that is able to respond to the dynamic utility rate. As such, there is a need for a robust energy management control strategy and methodology to validate new approaches. To address this gap, a strategy to control HVAC systems in a residential house was developed along with a validation methodology. A model of predictive control was implemented to optimize the thermostat setpoints and minimize energy cost for an individual residential house while maintaining thermal comfort of users. Using the dynamic pricing, current indoor temperature, and predicted outdoor temperature and solar radiation, the control algorithm optimizes the energy consumption by adjusting the temperature setpoint on an hourly basis. This model was integrated with EnergyPlus simulation via an open source co-simulation platform previously developed at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Total energy consumption and cost for consumers were compared between four energy control cases: fixed setpoint, fixed comfort zone with optimization, adaptive comfort zone control, and adaptive comfort zone control with optimization. Control strategies with optimization were found to reduce the total cost compared to those without optimization. Adaptive comfort zone control with optimization resulted in the most significant cost reduction. The simple dynamic pricing model used in simulations was proportional to the demand of energy at that time of day. This work will contribute to the development of utility dynamic pricing models and residential control strategies for grid-interactive buildings and homes. The simulation strategy enables the utility pricing models and control strategies to be tested independently so that a wide range of options can be considered. The outcome of this research can be expanded to different building models or locations in future work

The sound of silence: the absence of public service values in Canadian media discourse about the CBC

Public service broadcasting (PSB) across the world is in crisis. This article examines how, if at all, normative academic ideals of public service broadcasting inform discussion about the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in Canadian news media. The researchers undertook a quantitative (N = 467) and qualitative (n = 29) content analysis of five years of Canadian news media coverage about the CBC published between January 1, 2009, and April 30, 2014. Their systematic analysis of this research found little connection was made between the CBC and discussions of public service values. This study contends that the pre-eminence of neoliberal discourse represents a serious assault to broadcasters with a public service ethos

Straitjackets and flak jackets: the BBC, 'boundary work' and the failed 2009 DEC Appeal for Gaza

This article, which is part of larger research project, considers the justification discourse of BBC Executives following the public outrage over the BBC’s decision not to air the 2009 DEC Appeal for Gaza. The BBC’s justification is characterised by a recurrent conceptualisation of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as embedded in an ‘ongoing news story’. The article analyses media interviews with BBC Executives together with relevant BBC documentation is applied to consider three affordances used to justify the controversial decision. We argue that the discourse of ‘ongoing news story’ allows the BBC to situate itself as a key agent in the Middle East conflict which necessitates invoking journalistic impartiality to all BBC output; facilitates boundary work between journalism and humanitarianism and thus allowing discourses of impartiality to unfold strictly in journalistic terms. This leads, we argue to the construction of ‘journalistic inviolability’ whereby the pursuit of principled journalism is presented as a greater humanitarian achievement than airing the DEC appeal

Protest camps

Protest camps are global phenomena, occurring across a wide range of social movements and encompassing a diversity of demands for social change. They are spaces where people come together to imagine alternative worlds and articulate contentious politics, often in confrontation with the state. By taking a closer look at protest camps this book contributes two original insights. Firstly it provides a detailed investigation into the empirical history of protest camps from a global perspective, a story that has never been told before. Protest Camps will discuss a variety of examples of camps, taking the reader across different cultural, political and geographical landscapes of protest. Secondly the book will contribute to the understanding of the role of protest camps in contentious politics. This book argues that protest camps are unique spaces in which activists form collective political identities and enact experimental and experiential forms of democratic politics

Staging and engaging with media events: A study of the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest

Recent work on media events has questioned their integrative function, arguing that they operate as sites of symbolic struggle between different interest groups. However, relatively few studies have examined the experiences of those who design, organize, and attend such events. This article addresses this lacuna with reference to the biggest nonsporting live TV event in the world, the Eurovision Song Contest. Drawing on data from the 2014 competition in Copenhagen, Denmark, it examines the varying levels of commitment to the event among organizers, fans, broadcasters, and journalists and, in particular, notes how this shaped responses to a controversial incident involving the Russian entry. While those with an ongoing interest, including organizers and fans, tended to emphasize personal narratives and individual freedom of expression, mainstream media and audiences adopted a far more cynical standpoint, privileging geopolitical issues to make the event seem more relevant and compelling

A modified molecular beam instrument for the imaging of radicals interacting with surfaces during plasma processing

A new instrument employing molecular beam techniques and laser induced fluorescence(LIF) for measuring the reactivity of gas phase radicals at the surface of a depositing film has been designed and characterized. The instrument uses an inductively coupled plasma source to create a molecular beam containing essentially all plasma species. A tunable excimer pumped dye laser is used to excite a single species in this complex molecular beam.LIF signals are imaged onto a gated, intensified charge coupled device (ICCD) to provide spatial resolution. ICCD images depict the fluorescence from molecules both in the molecular beam and scattering from the surface of a depositing film. Data collected with and without a substrate in the path of the molecular beam provide information about the surface reactivity of the species of interest. Here, we report the first measurements using the third generation imaging of radicals interacting with surfaces apparatus. We have measured the surface reactivity of SiH molecules formed in a 100% SiH_4 plasma during deposition of an amorphous hydrogenated silicon film. On a 300 K Si (100) substrate, the reactivity of SiH is near unity. The substrate temperature dependence (300–673 K) of the reactivity is also reported. In addition, reactivity measurements for OH molecules formed in a water plasma are presented. In contrast to the SiH molecule, the reactivity of OH radicals is 0.55±0.05 on the surface of a Si (100) substrate

Staging and engaging with media events: A study of the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest

Recent work on media events has questioned their integrative function, arguing that they operate as sites of symbolic struggle between different interest groups. However, relatively few studies have examined the experiences of those who design, organize, and attend such events. This article addresses this lacuna with reference to the biggest nonsporting live TV event in the world, the Eurovision Song Contest. Drawing on data from the 2014 competition in Copenhagen, Denmark, it examines the varying levels of commitment to the event among organizers, fans, broadcasters, and journalists and, in particular, notes how this shaped responses to a controversial incident involving the Russian entry. While those with an ongoing interest, including organizers and fans, tended to emphasize personal narratives and individual freedom of expression, mainstream media and audiences adopted a far more cynical standpoint, privileging geopolitical issues to make the event seem more relevant and compelling