Evolution of Online User Behavior During a Social Upheaval

Social media represent powerful tools of mass communication and information diffusion. They played a pivotal role during recent social uprisings and political mobilizations across the world. Here we present a study of the Gezi Park movement in Turkey through the lens of Twitter. We analyze over 2.3 million tweets produced during the 25 days of protest occurred between May and June 2013. We first characterize the spatio-temporal nature of the conversation about the Gezi Park demonstrations, showing that similarity in trends of discussion mirrors geographic cues. We then describe the characteristics of the users involved in this conversation and what roles they played. We study how roles and individual influence evolved during the period of the upheaval. This analysis reveals that the conversation becomes more democratic as events unfold, with a redistribution of influence over time in the user population. We conclude by observing how the online and offline worlds are tightly intertwined, showing that exogenous events, such as political speeches or police actions, affect social media conversations and trigger changes in individual behavior.Comment: Best Paper Award at ACM Web Science 201

Inequality as Policy: The United States Since 1979

Since the end of the 1970s, the United States has seen a dramatic increase in economic inequality.While the United States has long been among the most unequal of the world's rich economies, the economic and social upheaval that began in the 1970s was a striking departure from the movement toward greater equality that began in the Great Depression, continued through World War II, and was a central feature of the first 30 years of the postwar period. This is not due to chance circumstances but is the direct result of a set of policies designed first and foremost to increase inequality

Access to Justice For Women: India's Response to Sexual Violence in Conflict and Social Upheaval

A 2014 report by the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women on gender-based crimes describes the female experience in India as consisting of a "continuum of violence...from the 'womb to the tomb.'" According to Indian government data, a woman is raped in the country approximately every twenty minutes. Women and girls are especially vulnerable to sexual violence during armed conflict and mass violence. Indeed, gender-based crime is a common feature of the armed conflict and mass violence that has marred India since independence.This report examines emblematic case examples from conflict zones and incidents of mass violence to understand how the Indian State responds to sexual violence against women and girls in these contexts. The goal of this report is to analyze the efforts of women victims of sexual violence and their allies to access justice in these contexts and to identify emblematic ways the Indian legal system succeeded or failed to provide effective redress

Hyphy Sparked a Social Movement

“Hyphy,” a genre of rap and lifestyle associated with Bay Area hip hop evolved into a counter-cultural social movement for marginalized youth in early 2000. Hyphy originated from Black youth as a musical protest in response to their historical lack of social power, economic resources and systematic institutional oppression. Hyphy provided a space to release tension, celebrate life and freedom of expression, primarily as a means of resisting hegemonic perceptions of Black youth and their cultural productions. Applying a cultural studies theoretical approach, this ethnographic research examines literature and media coverage pre and post Hyphy highlighting the ways in which it fostered a personal and political agenda, attracting organizations that employed hip hop to provide direct services to youth as a means of advocating for social justice. This article argues that the Hyphy Movement although dated, supported the foundation of the Black Lives Matter movement in the Bay Area by playing a pivotal role in shifting the revolutionary consciousness of young people when addressing police violence during a pivotal social upheaval in 2009, the unjust murder of Oscar Grant III

Editorial for the Special Issue on Cyberbullying

This Special Edition of the Journal of Social Sciences deals with a rare but monumental social change-the profound impact of electronic communications on the development of children. Prior to the twentieth century, most people would be born, live and die without ever witnessing first-hand a significant social upheaval. During the las

Inequality as Policy: The United States Since 1979

Since the end of the 1970s, the United States has seen a dramatic increase in economic inequality. While the United States has long been among the most unequal of the world’s rich economies, the economic and social upheaval that began in the 1970s was a striking departure from the movement toward greater equality that began in the Great Depression, continued through World War II, and was a central feature of the first 30 years of the postwar period. This is not due to chance circumstances but is the direct result of a set of policies designed first and foremost to increase inequality.inequality

Social inclusion through ageing-in-place with care?

The onset of ill-health and frailty in later life, within the context of the policy of ageing-in-place, is increasingly being responded to through the provision of home care. In the philosophy of ageing-in-place, the home provides for continuity of living environment, maintenance of independence in the community and social inclusion. The provision of assistance to remain at home assumes continuity in the living environment and independence in the organisation of daily life and social contact. This paper explores the changes that occur as a result of becoming a care recipient within the home and concludes that the transition into receiving care is characterised by discontinuity and upheaval which tends to reinforce social exclusion. We draw on the rites of passage framework, which highlights social processes of separation, liminality and reconnection, in analysing this transition to enhance understanding of the experience and gain insights to improve the policy and practice of home care. Separation from independent living leads to a state of liminality. The final stage in the rites of passage framework draws attention to reconnections, but reconnection is not inevitable. Reconnection is, however, an appropriate goal for the care sector when supporting frail or disabled older people through the transition into becoming a home-care recipient

1. Prelude to Reform

The more immediate background for the Age of Reformation includes factors which precede Luther by a Century and more. While the reformers themselves felt that these factors had roots in first century Christian history and literature, more directly relevant to the movement were political, social, and economic changes which produced severe tensions in the late medieval world. Some of these contributed significantly to the Protestant upheaval. Still more important, however, were diverse streams of religious ferment, such as late medieval scholasticism, mysticism, humanism, heretical propaganda , and anti-clericalism, which flowed toward a junction in the Reformation. While it must be insisted that it took dynamic personalities to trigger this movement, we must remember that these great figures were influenced by the ideas of their environment. These earlier streams of ferment may properly be called the prelude to reform. [excerpt

Autonomia in the 1970s: The Refusal of Work, the Party and Power

One of my aims is to unpack the myths and conspiracy theories surrounding Italian Autonomia and the 1970s to clarify better its role as a movement involved in the conflicts of a period of almost continuous political and economic upheaval and of profound cultural and social change

Concertation sociale et transformations socio-économiques en Belgique, de 1944 à nos jours

The socioeconomic development of most European countries has been largely shaped by social dialogue, by negotiations between employers and workers representatives. To that respect, Belgium has played a pivotal role. The Belgian post-WW2 institutions, aimed at fostering social dialogue, are often alluded to as a reference. In sixty years, these institutions have changed, along with the transformations of the economic, social and political context. We study here the dynamical movement that simultaneously transforms the social dialogue, on the one hand, and the historical context in which it is anchored, on the other. We contrast two thirty-year periods: the golden age, followed by an age of upheaval. The former is characterized by the setting up and the extension of a coherent model while the latter rather appears as a defensive withdrawal in a context of crisis and of socioeconomic upheaval. In the midst of the turmoil, the social partners uneasily seek for meaningful responses.