From Digital Visual Activism to Mass Public Protest: The Role of Social Media Images and Videos in the 2022 Iranian Movement

BY Parichehr Kazemi 

Since the Iranian protests began on September 16, 2022, social media has been inundated with images and videos of women bravely confronting over four decades of authoritarian control over their bodies by cutting their hair, burning their mandatory hijabs, and remaining steadfast in the face of batons and bullets attempting to force them into submission. For people outside this context, digital visual content has been their first point of contact with this movement. They see and learn about the grievances of Iranian people and the government’s continued violence upon its own citizens – in a sense, processing the meanings of dissent, repression, and resistance – as they play out in the images. But outside of their symbolic functions as movement “memorabilia,” social media visuals also play an important role for protestors and affect the evolution of activism itself. Images and videos of the Iranian movement build on over nine years of prior digital visual activism. Past content both formed a script for future instantiations of protest – the likes of which we have seen over the past few weeks – and helped create a foundation for women’s grievances against the regime to take shape. Social movement scholars need to take this content seriously in light of such developments, especially as they relate to the dynamics of on and offline activism that remain of special interest to the literature.

The Digital Repression of Social Movements, Protest, and Activism

There is a growing interest in the growth and impact of digital repression on protest and civic engagement globally. Yet this interest has been diffused across Communication, Political Science, Media Studies, Science and Technology Studies, and Sociology creating challenges for generative conversations and building a community of scholars studying the topic. Earl, Maher, and Pan’s recent article “The Digital Repression of Social Movements, Protest, and Activism: a synthetic review” attempts to synthesize these literatures by using a framework that distinguishes between who is responsible, whether it is overt or covert, and whether acts as a carrot (channeling) or a stick (coercion). The essays in this Dialogue are intended to continue this work of building a cross-disciplinary community of scholars interested in questions of digital repression, and to open a conversation about other ways to build this cross-disciplinary community and/or what we still need to build this community. We ask authors to reflect on their own work and their views on community building and/or reflect on what aspects of the framework are helpful, what it misses, and what we still have to learn about how digital repression operates globally.   

We have four outstanding contributors. Many thanks for their contributions on this topic:

• Emily Hencken Ritter, (essay).
• Jessica Beyer, (essay).
• Marcus Michaelsen, (essay).
• Steven Feldstein, (essay).

We would also like to give special thanks to Thomas V. Maher and Jennifer Earl, who proposed and organized this wonderful dialogue.

Current Editors in Chief,

Rory McVeigh, Chang Liu and Natalie Bourman-Karns

Strategic Digital Repression and the Consequences for Dissent Activities

BY Emily Hencken Ritter

Earl, Maher, and Pan (2022) present a fascinating synthesis of existing knowledge of digital repression across scholarly disciplines. The typology they apply and extend to frame digital repression highlights who uses digital repression and how it depresses and structures mobilization and dissent actions. In so doing, they center digital repression on existing understandings of how repression attempts to constrain dissent and illuminate what repression studies do not yet know about digital repression and how it functions.

International Cybersecurity Norms and Dissent

BY Jessica L. Beyer

Earl, Maher, and Pan’s recent article (2022), “The Digital Repression of Social Movements, Protest, and Activism: a synthetic review,” captures digital repression across states and presents invaluable conceptualizations of difficult concepts and clear typologies. The article illuminates many threads that need further development and study. Among them are the role of private industry in digital repression, along with the tie between cybersecurity laws in non-democratic contexts and the struggle over questions of international cybersecurity norms and international internet governance.

Digital Repression: Transnational Reach, Psychosocial Effects, and Political Consequences

BY Marcus Michaelsen

What is new about digital repression? This is what I have been asked frequently ever since presenting the first findings of my research on digital threats against exiled activists from authoritarian countries. Prompting further reflection on this question, Jennifer Earl, Thomas V. Maher and Jennifer Pan, in their synthetic review, organize the different strands of scholarship on the repressive use of digital tools and connect them to research on more traditional forms of repression.

Internet Platforms Find Themselves at a Crossroads

BY Steven Feldstein

Global norms are shifting as governments demonstrate an increased willingness to exert control over platforms. This generally represents a troubling development; states are aggressively pressing for content takedowns, pushing platforms to provide access to user data, enacting enhanced surveillance, and filtering content. But there are some auspicious signs as well. In Europe, for example, regulators are nearing passage of the Digital Services Act (DSA) to rein in big internet tech companies and allow for greater user control and privacy. This essay highlights three specific areas of contestation. First, trends of internet fragmentation are expanding quickly – in both authoritarian states and democratic countries – challenging global norms and human rights principles. Second, regulatory action stemming from Europe may offset certain harms, particularly in relation to platforms, but the consequences remain unclear. Third, platforms exist in a complicated landscape. They are facing increased pressure from governments to control how they operate, yet they remain deeply reluctant to reform.

Routines, Beliefs and Mobilization: Lessons from a Grassroots Movement in Argentina

BY Marcos Emilio Pérez

Over the past few decades, the combination of economic and political liberalization in many areas of the developing world has promoted the emergence of various forms of collective organizing. This dynamic has been particularly pronounced in Latin America, where drastic neoliberal reforms coincided with an unprecedented period of democratic expansion. One of the most visible examples took place in Argentina, where rising unemployment in the 1990s led community leaders to organize laid-off workers in poor neighborhoods across the nation. Despite their diverse origins, these groups rapidly developed similar repertoires that helped them recruit members and gain influence, giving birth to what came to be known as the Unemployed Workers’ Movement, or piqueteros (Spanish for “roadblockers”). Since their emergence, these organizations have functioned as networks of local groups that use demonstrations to demand the distribution of social assistance, usually in the form of foodstuffs and positions in workfare programs. If successful, they allocate part of these resources among participants and use the rest to develop an extensive array of social services in underprivileged areas.

Video Interview with Naomi Williams

Mobilizing Ideas is introducing an exciting change in the way that we will be providing content. Although we will continue featuring essays written by social movement scholars on various themes, we will be focusing more of our attention on developing and sharing videos featuring a broad range of social movement scholars. This is an ideal way to allow our viewers to get to know scholars in the field and their work. Videos will provide scholars with opportunities to talk about their ongoing work, but also to provide insightful commentary on contemporary issues that are of interest to activists and social movement scholars. 

Check out our second video featuring Naomi R Williams (Rutgers University) interviewed by Jaylexia Clark (Notre Dame). Stay tuned for more exciting videos in the months ahead.

If you are interested in the full version of this interview, please check our youtube account. This is the second video of our interview project, check out the first one from last month.

Current Editors in Chief,

Rory McVeigh, Chang Liu and Natalie Bourman-Karns

Video Interview with Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick

Mobilizing Ideas is introducing an exciting change in the way that we will be providing content. Although we will continue featuring essays written by social movement scholars on various themes, we will be focusing more of our attention on developing and sharing videos featuring a broad range of social movement scholars. This is an ideal way to allow our viewers to get to know scholars in the field and their work. Videos will provide scholars with opportunities to talk about their ongoing work, but also to provide insightful commentary on contemporary issues that are of interest to activists and social movement scholars. 

Check out our first video featuring Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick (University of San Diego) interviewed by Emmanuel Cannady (Notre Dame).  Stay tuned for more exciting videos in the months ahead.

Current Editors in Chief,

Rory McVeigh, Chang Liu and Natalie Bourman-Karns

Interview Timeline:

00:50 – Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick’s research agenda 
05:30 – Advice for younger scholars
09:15 – Unique role at University of San Diego

An Earth Constitution? Building a Global Movement

BY Ben Manski

This article was originally published on the Great Transition Initiative as part of the Forum “An Earth Constitution: Has Its Time Come?”

Does the process of constitution-making matter more than the particularities of constitutional design? Recently published research by a growing range of social scientists and legal scholars indicates yes. For instance, in their book Constituents Before Assembly, Todd Eisenstadt, A. Carl LeVan, and Tofigh Maboudi provide their findings from a sweeping empirical analysis of the effects of popular participation in constitutionalization.¹ The takeaway? As noted in my Law & Society Review review, “participatory constitution-making…has a lasting and systematic effect on subsequent democratization.”²