Workshop: Everyday Politics and Social Media
Thursday 21 April 9:30
UCL Department of Anthropology (Daryll Forde Seminar Room)
__________________________________________________
Convenors:
Dr. Elisabetta Costa, British Institute at Ankara (BIAA)
Dr. Razvan Nicolescu, UCL Anthropology
INTRODUCTION
Debates about the impact of social media on politics are now well established. It is
acknowledged that social media are involved in different levels of political participation,
from local campaigns and engagement with regional elections, up to more visible
national uprisings, transnational protests and forms of solidarity. But almost all this work
derives from studies where the academic focus is political action, or what can be called
‘formal politics’. By contrast, this workshop interrogates different forms
of everyday politics on social media, and their social and political consequences. It
introduces the results of the Why We Post project (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/why-we-post)
whose broad based ethnographic studies suggest that in small communities, political
participation on social media is influenced by local norms, social relations,
and media usage patterns. Scholars from different disciplines, including anthropology,
sociology, political science, and media and communication studies will present their
research on the role of social media in shaping political engagement in everyday life, and
in transforming local political practices and meanings.
PROGRAMME
Registration, coffee and tea 9:30 – 10:00
Session 1 – Chair: Sandrine Roginsky
10:00 – 11:30
Antonia Gama
Right to remain: favela-activism and the role of social media within the context of the
Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro
Yenn Lee
Online misogyny as a spectator sport and 'mirroring' as a feminist device: A case study of
the Megalia phenomenon in South Korea
Murali Shanmugavelan
Anti-caste internet memes: a study of production, circulation and political conversations
online in India
Coffee and tea 11:30-11:45
Session 2 – Chair: Razvan Nicolescu
11:45 – 13:15
Paolo Gerbaudo
Unfriending Mubarak: Trolling as everyday practice on Facebook pages in Egypt
Nael Jebril and Matthew Loveless
The Role of Generational Predictors in Shaping. Political Engagement through Social
Media
Elisabetta Costa
Social Media, the visible and the invisible in Southeast Turkey
Lunch 13:15 – 14:15
Session 3 – Chair: Elisabetta Costa
14:15 – 15:45
Sandrine Roginsky
Social media and European Parliament
Razvan Nicolescu
Networking Everyday Politics. How Social Media talks Politics in Southeast Italy.
Liana Chua
Cute chains and ethical claims: quotidian politics in the social media-scape of orangutan
conservation
Coffee and tea 15:45 – 16:00
Roundtable – Concluding Remarks, Chaired by Daniel Miller
Wine reception 17:00-18:00
16:00 – 17:00