media

Last month’s kidnapping of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls was met with a slow response from Nigeria’s state officials, leading activists to turn to social media in hopes of drawing international attention to the crisis. The #BringBackOurGirls hashtag campaign, started by Twitter users in Nigeria, has already been mentioned over one million times on the microblogging platform since its launch three weeks ago.

Social media presents an unparalleled opportunity to form global social movements. With geographic proximity no longer an issue, people around the world are able to have discussions that allow them organize around social issues.

• Zeynep Tufecki and Christopher Wilson. 2012. Social Media and the Decision to Participate in Political Protest: Observations From Tahrir Square. Journal of Communication 62(2): 363–379.
•  Hai Liang. 2014. Coevolution of Political Discussion and Common Ground in Web Discussion Forum. Social Science Computer Review 32(2): 155-169.

With #BringBackOurGirls, online activists have found common ground rooted in enthusiastic resistance to violence against women. However, as we learned from #KONY2012, widespread enthusiasm and awareness are not necessarily sufficient to spur change.

• Ron Krabill. 2012. American Sentimentalism and the Production of Global Citizens. Contexts 11: 52-54.

Though the campaign has garnered support from prominent activist organizations as well as the United States government, critics, namely Rush Limbaugh, have argued that this instance of “hashtag activism” merely illustrates the “powerlessness” of governments to respond to the abductions.  Nonetheless, the campaign was powerful enough to spur action from Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, who recently designated state resources to finding the girls.

Although transnational “hashtag activism” may publicly pressure officials to act, states also face policy barriers for negotiating with kidnappers which can hinder their capacity to respond to activists. Additionally, numerous factors—including the demands made by kidnappers and whether the location of the hostages is known—have significant bearing on the success of rescue.

• Khusrav Gaibulloev and Todd Sandler. 2009. Hostage Taking: Determinants of Terrorist Logistical and Negotiation Success. Journal of Peace Research 46: 739-756.

In the case of #BringBackOurGirls, hashtag activism has effectively brought international attention to the kidnappings. However, calls for awareness need be coupled with the creation of institutional structures that will help states better deal with such crises.

Beginning on April 6, 1994, the Rwandan genocide lasted nearly 100 days leaving an estimated 500,000-1,000,000 dead.  While the campaign to exterminate the Tutsi-minority was led by Hutu extremists, it would be a mistake to hold a single group responsible for this mass atrocity.  Comparative studies of other conflicts show that it would also be a mistake to consider genocide an anomaly.

While we often see the conflict as a clash of racial or ethnic groups, the cycle of violence is often part of larger structural forces that form political identities through privileged rule.

• Mahmood Mamdani.  2001.  When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda.  Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Sexual and racialized violence are some of the most well-known parts of genocide, but conflicts over property and the political construction of difference are also elements which occur earlier and may act as warning signs.

• John Hagan and Wenona Rymond-Richmond. 2009. Darfur and the Crime of Genocide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Comparative studies of atrocities in other contexts can also show how societies remember suffering.

•  Robyn Autry. 2010. “Memory, Materiality, and the Apartheid Past.” Contexts 9(3): 46-51
•  Barbara Sutton. 2010. “Situating Memory in Argentina.” Contexts 9(3): 52-57

For further reading, check out this TSP feature on The Crime of Genocide.

This season’s deluge of religious films—Noah, Son of God, and Heaven is Real—has us all on the lookout for the next Bible blockbuster and wondering if well-known productions like The Ten Commandments and The Passion of the Christ were just flashes in the pan. While the market doesn’t always sink religious films, they often face controversy while navigating complex social and religious identities.

Consumption of religious movies, television, and books isn’t just consumerism. It is a complex blend of religious identification and economic practice, which can both encourage and discourage consumption.

• Jerry Z. Park and Joseph Baker. 2007. “What Would Jesus Buy: American Consumption of Religious and Spiritual Material Goods.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 46(4): 501-517.

These films also have to nail down other identities to do well in the market. The portrayal of masculine figures like Jesus and Noah represents a key way society works through gender roles.

• Joey Eschrich. 2011. “Behold the Man!: Constructing the Masculinity of Jesus of Nazareth in Mainstream American Film, 1961-2004.” Men and Masculinities, 14(5): 520-541.

The recent collapse of Mt. Gox—a prominent exchange site for the internet currency Bitcoin—has sparked wide discussion about the future of “virtual” money and the social groups that create it. Some remain cautiously optimistic (though pointing out that Bitcoin may take itself a little too seriously), while others have said the currency amounts to a “Ponzi scheme” with “no store of value.” As a post from our friends at Cyborgology noted last year,

Calling Bitcoins “virtual currency” is nonsensical because all currencies are virtual in that they are “collective hallucinations” about measurement of worth.

Classic sociological theory investigated how society creates value, and came to similar conclusions. Gold and paper money needed a lot of collective social support to become valuable.

• Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. 1867. Capital. A Critique of Political Economy Volume One London: Penguin, 1990.
• Georg Simmel. 1900. The Philosophy of Money. New York: Routledge, 2011.

What makes one currency more “valuable” than another is institutional support, but this wasn’t always guaranteed for the U.S. dollar, either.

• Bruce G. Carruthers and Sarah Babb. 1996. “The Color of Money and the Nature of Value: Greenbacks and Gold in Postbellum America.” American Journal of Sociology 101(6): 1556–91.

Last month Comcast announced its plans to merge with Time Warner Cable, and internet subscribers may have to choose Comcast as their broadband provider even if they don’t want cable in the near future. With rising cable rates, the merger is stoking fears and outrage among the public, and politicians like Senator Al Franken. The deal has yet to be finalized and the FCC may instruct Comcast and Time-Warner to pump their brakes before merging.  If the deal succeeds, however, the nation’s two largest cable and broadband providers are sure to become a behemoth on the information superhighway.

While profit is a big motive for acquisitions and takeovers, companies also try to take over close members of their social networks to reduce competition. Monopolies and oligopolies are especially likely in industries with only a few major players and close ties.

• Donald Palmer, Xueguang Zhou, Brad M. Barber, and Yasemin Soysal. 1995. “The Friendly and Predatory Acquisition of Large U.S. Corporations in the 1960s: The Other Contested Terrain,” American Sociological Review 60(4): 469-499.
• Marshall Barron Clinard, Peter C. Yeager, and Ruth Blackburn Clinard. 1980. Corporate Crime. New York: Free Press

What does this mean for women, people of color, and low income communities? Rising prices for internet access would expand an already-large “digital divide” in who can use the web and who gets represented on it.

• Eszter Hargittai. 2004. “Internet Access and Use in Context.”  New Media Society 6(1): 137-143.

Also, check out Eszter Hargittai’s “Office Hours” interview where she discusses the expanding gaps and inequalities in the level of internet skills possessed by so-called “digital natives.”

The recent death of Philip Seymour Hoffman has highlighted the resurgence of heroin use and overdoses in the US. Heroin use doubled between 2007 and 2012. Between 2006 and 2010, there was also a 45% increase in lethal overdoses, up to more than 3,000 deaths per year. The death toll continues to grow, and includes more than 80 deaths over the past few weeks as a result of heroin laced with fentanyl.

The rise in heroin use may be linked with the prevalent use of oxycontin and other opiate-based prescription drugs. The crackdown on illicit use of prescription opiates makes them more expensive, and more users have turned to heroin.

• Pradip K. Muhuri, Joseph C. Gfroerer, and M. Christine Davies. 2013. “Associations of Nonmedical Pain Reliever Use and Initiation of Heroin Use in the United States.” Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality. Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
• April Young and Jennifer Havens. 2012. “Transition from first illicit drug use to first injection drug use among rural Appalachian drug users: a cross-sectional comparison and retrospective survival analysis.” Addiction 107(3): 587-596.

Anti-drug campaigns and moral panics in the media may actually have the unintended effect of promoting, not reducing, substance abuse. In fact, a minority of interviewed users reported seeking out the stronger batches of heroin reported in the media.

• Craig Reinarman and Harry Levine. 1997. “The Crack Attack: Politics and Media in the Crack Scare.” In Crack in America. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
• Thomas Kerr, Will Small, Elaine Hyshka, Lisa Maher, and Kate Shannon. 2013. “’It’s more about the heroin’: injection drug users’ response to an overdose warning campaign in a Canadian setting.” Addiction 108(7): 1270-1276.
• Peter Miller. 2007. “Media reports of heroin overdose spates: Public health messages, moral panics or risk advertisements?” Critical Public Health 17(2): 113-121.

Solutions to these problems often focus more on treatment and harm-reduction than tough enforcement of drug laws.

• Teresa Gowan, Sarah Whetstone, and Tanja Andic. 2012. “Addiction, agency, and the politics of self-control: Doing harm reduction in a heroin users’ group.” Social Science & Medicine. 74(8): 1251-1260.

For more on harm-reduction approaches, see this recent Public Criminology post.

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