ESRC Seminar Series:

‘Exploring Civil Society Strategies for Democratic Renewal’

SEMINAR REPORT

Seminar 4: ‘Contentious Politics and Democracy in the

Digital Arena’

20 January 2017

City, University of London

Overview of seminar aimsThis seminar invited a critical dialogue and creative reflection on the past and future of digital technology as a medium for political exchange and civic learning, and as a leveller of political inequality. Generally, the social sciences have approached the emergence of the digital with enthusiasm, emphasizing the democratising and empowering qualities of social media and virtual spaces for amplifying the voice and reach of the demos, be this the discontented citizens of a particular state, the loose membership of a transnational social movement, or the fuzzy cloud of ‘slacktivists’ observing world events through their phones. This optimism is premised on the enlargement of political societies, the increasing visibility of excluded others, and the redefinition of the spaces of interaction and contestation beyond conventional cultural, scalar or temporal boundaries - developments which are suggested to have led to a widening of democratic ‘voice’. This event also aimed to explore to what extent the digital contributes to democratic ‘listening’. This requires investigation of how authorities and institutions engage with virtual movements and protests, and acknowledging that digital tools also enable counter-strategies, from the tracking of activists and cyber-trolling, to more general counter-movements. By exploring the strategic use of digital media both ‘from below’ and ‘from above’ this seminar aimed to take us beyond simplistic assumptions concerning the democratic potential of new technologies.

We brought together academics and practitioners working in the areas of digital democracy, civic participation and volunteering, community media and internet governance to address the following questions:

·   What differences have digital technologies made to strategies of civil society mobilization?

·   What is the relationship between digital activism and new forms of democratic demanding and accountability?

·   How do established political institutions adapt to digital challenges?·  How have opposing social forces made strategic use of social media and other digital

technologies?

Programme as presented

10.00 am Introduction from organizers

10.10 am Opening Keynote: Matthew Hindman (GWU): ‘The Attention Economy, Donald Trump, and Digital-Mediated Activism’

10.50 am Academic Roundtable 1Dan Mercea (City, University of London): ‘Let’s Talk First: Learning to Oppose Austerity’Anastasia Kavada (University of Westminster): ‘Reinventing democracy: From Occupy to Nuit

Debout’

11.50 am Mid-Workshop Keynote: Abu Bhuiyan (University of Dhaka): ‘New Actors, New Space, and Brutish Consequences’

12.30-1.30 Lunch

1.30 pm Practitioner RoundtableMd. Hasan Mahmud (publicity secretary of the ruling party of Bangladesh), Marc Jones (Bahrain

Watch), and Victoria Boelman (NESTA)

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2.30 pm Practitioner Keynote: Katherine Maher (Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation)

3.15 pm Academic Roundtable 2Early career researcher presentations: Adrija Dey on digital feminist activism in India, and Shola

Olabode on ICTs and Occupy Nigeria, Mend, and Boko Haram Athina Karatzogianni (University of Leicester): ‘New Civil Society Formations against National

State and Corporate Embodiment in Digital Networks’

4.15 pm Closing Keynote: Muzammil Hussain (University of Michigan): ‘High-Tech Governance through Big Data Surveillance? Tracing the Development of China and India’s Population-Data Infrastructures, 2000-Present’

5.00 pm Conclusion of seminar

Overview of discussionsThe seminar commenced with remarks by Dr Thomas Davies, who introduced the workshop’s aims and the questions to be addressed. The context of the wave of optimism in 2011 concerning digital media and democracy followed by the pessimism that has developed in the period since was outlined, and the need for more nuanced discussion was urged.

The opening keynote lecture turned attention to the US experience, which was paramount in participants’ minds given the date of the workshop. Professor Matthew Hindman highlighted the diminished dependence on regularly scheduled news in the United States, and he discussed the potential use of digital technologies to enhance communication between the public and policymakers. He explored how mobile phone apps could enhance co-ordination of activism and facilitate deeper and longer-term political engagement.

The first of the academic roundtables moved the focus to Europe, and the experience of recent anti-austerity and Occupy movements. Dr Dan Mercea discussed the results of his investigation into 200,000 Tweets in the British context and their role in developing collective agency, while Dr Anastasia Kavada explored the novel characteristics of activism in the case of Nuit Debout in France, including transformations in the use of digital media in movement decision-making.

The mid-workshop keynote was provided by Professor Abu Bhuiyan, who noted disparities of internet access in Asia and efforts that had been made to address them. He discussed the case of the Gonojagoron Moncho movement in Bangladesh, highlighting the complex interactions between the movement and other actors including the government, Islamists, and international media.

Awami League publicity secretary Md. Hasan Mahmud opened the subsequent practitioner roundtable with a presentation discussing the Digital Bangladesh project, as well as considering the case for regulation of social media. Moving on to the Bahrain context, Dr Marc Jones’ presentation explored methods of governmental use of digital technologies to monitor activism. Victoria Boelman’s presentation, by contrast, explored the role of digital technologies in the co-creation of legislation with reference to examples in France, Spain, and Taiwan.

The practitioner keynote was provided by Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Katherine Maher, who discussed the role of principles including verifiability and neutrality for Wikipedia. She emphasised how the movement operated on the basis of consensus rather than democracy and she highlighted the advantages of self- hosted infrastructure for her organization. Her presentation concluded by

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discussing editing as activism, noting examples including Black Cite Matters, AfroCROWD, and Women in Red.

The second academic roundtable began with early career researcher presentations. Dr Adrija Dey discussed how the internet provided opportunities for women in India to report abuse anonymously. Dr Shola Olabode’s presentation examined social media use by a range of contrasting non-state actors in Nigeria, highlighting their role in raising global awareness and in helping to stimulate government action on corruption in response to Occupy Nigeria’s demands. Subsequently, Dr Athina Karatzogianni’s presentation included insights on artists’ responses to government surveillance mechanisms.

The seminar concluded with Professor Muzammil Hussain’s keynote presentation in which he shed light on new high-tech mass surveillance systems in the Indian and Chinese contexts. A wide range of aspects were considered including the role of international corporations in developing these systems, and parallels with government surveillance systems in Western countries.

Background to this ESRC Seminar SeriesIn the late 20th and early 21st century, the changes brought about by technological globalization and the decentralization of governance at the national and international levels have expanded the opportunities available for expressing the voice of the demos. On the one hand this has roused much optimism for addressing existing democratic deficits within and across porous ‘spaces of political participation’. Civil society actors that are able to articulate and amplify their voices as never before, should be much better placed to help build a system in which ‘all can realize their rights and claim their citizenship’. On the other hand, challenges abound. Several scholars have pointed out that whilst technological advances have been enabling in some parts of the globe; in others, they have resulted in the shrinking of existing democratic spaces by contributing to the surveillance machinery of the state. The problem of excommunication also prevails, with many people unable to access the new digital frontiers due to socio-economic and literacy constraints. Moreover, the limited achievements of the Arab uprisings in 2011, the relative subsidence of the Occupy Movement and the institutional intractability encountered by social movement parties such as Syriza at the European level suggest that something has gone awry. Maybe, just maybe, exercising political ‘voice’ is not enough to defend and strengthen democracy today. To date, a wide variety of approaches have been developed to address the more strategic dimensions of civil society activities. These include literature on non-violent action, political process theory with its discussion of framing and, a variety of more ethnographic accounts of ‘strategies from below’. From 2011 onwards, the new wave of mass protest embodied in the ‘Arab Spring’ has prompted social movement scholars to shift their focus towards the use of social media, horizontal mobilization structures, and transnational dynamics that characterize these new movements. However, these literatures have rarely engaged with one another productively; and even less commonly have they addressed questions relating particular civil strategies to substantive democratic outcomes. This ambitious six seminar series invites academics, activists and politicians to reflect on just how civil contentious strategies of the twenty-first century – from mass assemblages and public space occupations, to art interventions and digital campaigns – can contribute to improving, strengthening or renewing democratic vitality.

Previous Seminars:Seminar 1: Contentious Politics and New Democratic Spaces, University of SheffieldSeminar 2: Art, Expression and Democracy, Bank Street Arts, SheffieldSeminar 3: Confrontation, Protest and Democratic Progress, Bilkent University

Subsequent Seminars:Seminar 5: Promoting Democracy in the Global Economy: the Roles of Civil Society, Cass, CULSeminar 6: Rethinking Democratic Renewal for the 21st Century, University of York

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