{"id":73073,"date":"2020-06-10T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-10T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=73073"},"modified":"2020-06-10T00:21:54","modified_gmt":"2020-06-10T05:21:54","slug":"viral-votes-activism-in-the-new-public-sphere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2020\/06\/10\/viral-votes-activism-in-the-new-public-sphere\/","title":{"rendered":"Viral Votes &#038; Activism in the New Public Sphere"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>It is a strange sight to watch politicians working to go viral. Check out this video from the political nonprofit ACRONYM, where Alexis Magnan-Callaway \u2014 the Digital Mobilization Director of Kirsten Gillibrand&#8217;s presidential campaign \u2014 talks us through some key moments on social media.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Kirsten Gillibrand Arm Wrestled And It Blew Up | Internet Moments\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mcb6dQXfriM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Social media content has changed the rules of the game for getting attention in the political world. An entire industry has sprung up around going viral professionally, and politicians are putting these new rules to use for everything from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=UnW3xkHxIEQ\" data-rel=\"lightbox-video-0\">promoting the Affordable Care Act<\/a>\u00a0to breaking\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketwatch.com\/story\/hes-not-president-trump-but-he-tweets-like-him-and-twitter-isnt-having-it-2020-06-03\">Twitter&#8217;s use policy<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/full\/10.1177\/0735275120926205\">a new paper out at\u00a0<em>Sociological Theory<\/em><\/a>\u00a0with Doug Hartmann, I (Evan) argue that part of the reason this is happening is due to new structural transformations in the public sphere. Recent changes in communication technology have created a situation where the social fields for media, politics, academia, and the economy are now much closer together. It is much easier for people who are skilled in any one of these fields to get more public attention by mixing up norms and behaviors from the other three.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/press.uchicago.edu\/ucp\/books\/book\/chicago\/T\/bo13181062.html\">Thomas Medvetz<\/a>\u00a0called people who do this in the policy world &#8220;jugglers,&#8221; and we argue that many more people have started juggling as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Arm-wrestling a constituent is a long way from the <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/constitutioncenter.org\/blog\/the-debate-that-changed-the-world-of-politics\" target=\"_blank\">Nixon-Kennedy debates<\/a>, but there are institutional reasons why this shouldn&#8217;t surprise us.\u00a0Juggling social capital from many fields means that social changes start to accelerate, as people can suddenly be much more successful by breaking the norms in their home fields. Politicians can get electoral gains by going viral, podcasts take off by talking to academics, and ex-policy wonks suddenly land coveted academic positions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"492\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2020\/06\/SI-NST-feature-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-73078\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2020\/06\/SI-NST-feature-1.png 630w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2020\/06\/SI-NST-feature-1-500x390.png 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Another good example of this new structural transformation in action is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ziadahmed.me\/\">Ziad Ahmed<\/a>, a Yale undergraduate, business leader, and activist. At the core of his public persona is an interesting mix of both norm-breaking behavior and carefully curated status markers for many different social fields.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2017, Ahmed was accepted to Yale after writing \u201c#BlackLivesMatter\u201d 100 times; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/teen-accepted-stanford-after-writing-blacklivesmatter-100-times-application-n742586\">this was contemporaneously reported<\/a> by outlets such as\u00a0<em>NBC News<\/em>,\u00a0<em>CNN<\/em>,\u00a0<em>Time<\/em>,\u00a0<em>The Washington Post<\/em>,\u00a0<em>Business Insider<\/em>,\u00a0<em>HuffPost<\/em>, and\u00a0<em>Mashable<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2020\/06\/SI-Bio.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-73076\" width=\"317\" height=\"278\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2020\/06\/SI-Bio.png 984w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2020\/06\/SI-Bio-500x438.png 500w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2020\/06\/SI-Bio-768x673.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 317px) 100vw, 317px\" \/><figcaption>A screenshot excerpt of Ahmed&#8217;s bio statement from his personal website<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Since then, Ahmed has cultivated a long biography featuring many different meaningful status markers: his educational institution; work as the CEO of a consulting firm; founding of a diversity and inclusion organization; a Forbes \u201c30 Under 30\u201d recognition; Ted Talks; and more. The combination of these symbols paints a complex picture of an elite student, activist,  business leader, and everyday person on social media.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/spectator.us\/fall-line-ziad-activist\/\">Critics have called this mixture<\/a>\u00a0\u201ca super-engineered avatar of corporate progressivism that would make even Mayor Pete blush.\u201d We would say that, for better or worse, this is a new way of doing activism and advocacy that comes out of different institutional conditions in the public sphere. As different media, political, and academic fields move closer together, activists like Ahmed and viral moments like those in the Gillibrand campaign show how a much more complicated set of social institutions and practices are shaping the way we wield public influence today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Bob Rice<\/strong> is a PhD student in sociology at UMass Boston. They&#8217;re interested in perceptions of authority, social movements, culture, stratification, mental health, and digital methods.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n<span class=\"ft_signature\"><i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.evan-stewart.com\/\">Evan Stewart<\/a> is an assistant professor of sociology at University of Massachusetts Boston. You can follow his work at <a href=\"https:\/\/evan-stewart.com\">his website<\/a>, or on <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/evanstewart.bsky.social\">BlueSky<\/a>.<\/i>  <\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is a strange sight to watch politicians working to go viral. Check out this video from the political nonprofit ACRONYM, where Alexis Magnan-Callaway \u2014 the Digital Mobilization Director of Kirsten Gillibrand&#8217;s presidential campaign \u2014 talks us through some key moments on social media.\u00a0 Social media content has changed the rules of the game for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1893,"featured_media":73077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12508,15,20059,85],"class_list":["post-73073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-activismsocial-movements","tag-culture","tag-media-social-media","tag-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2020\/06\/SI-NST-feature.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73073"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73081,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73073\/revisions\/73081"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}