{"id":16024,"date":"2014-03-21T15:35:34","date_gmt":"2014-03-21T04:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nofibs.com.au\/?p=16024"},"modified":"2019-04-13T23:58:12","modified_gmt":"2019-04-13T13:58:12","slug":"sssshhhh-dont-tell-the-media-but-politics-is-changing-from-the-ground-up-by-ariadne_syd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/sssshhhh-dont-tell-the-media-but-politics-is-changing-from-the-ground-up-by-ariadne_syd\/","title":{"rendered":"Sssshhhh, don’t tell the media, but politics is changing from the ground-up, by @ariadne_syd"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"PeoplePower\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ariadne Vromen<\/a>,\u00a0@ariadne_syd<\/a>
\nSource: The Conversation\u00a0University of Sydney<\/em>
\n<\/a> 21st March 2014<\/p>\n

Political participation in Australia will soon be about hope \u2013 and the transformation of citizenship engagement in this country.<\/p>\n

Here is why.<\/p>\n

Traditionally, Australian political participation was centred on, and supported by, the electoral system, political parties and major political organisations.<\/p>\n

Most media commentators tend to focus on the electoral system as the main way of consolidating political support and bringing about change. They assume citizens make political choices to participate and\/or express themselves based on rational, self-interested, often economic, calculations.<\/p>\n

When citizens have been mobilised it has usually been done by unions, political parties and environmental organisations. These have the resources, skills and experience to undertake mass protests.<\/p>\n

The Your Rights at Work<\/a> campaign undertaken by Australian unions in 2006-07 is an example. Yet this was an expensive campaign<\/a>, centred on television advertising that cost about A$20 million.<\/p>\n

Over the past decade, new kinds of political organisation have emerged. Enabled by the internet, movements such as GetUp!<\/a> and new forms of citizen mobilisation don\u2019t require formal organisations.<\/p>\n

Many causes come together<\/strong><\/p>\n

March in March<\/a> was different. It revealed itself to be organised by grassroots campaigners with few or no organisational affiliations. More importantly, it used social media, mainly Facebook, to organise people to attend protests.<\/p>\n

The March in March campaigners claimed<\/a> in very general terms that it was:<\/p>\n

\u2026to protest against government decisions that are against the common good of our nation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the event in Sydney last weekend, I observed a range of issues \u2013 from shark culling to refugees to public service job cuts \u2013 on mostly handmade signs. While several flags were flown representing unions and small political parties, I was struck by the lack of co-ordinated political messaging in the signs or even among the rally speakers, compared to past rallies with higher profiles.<\/p>\n

The largest rallies in Australia have tended to be on single issues; they focused on distinct political outcomes. For example, the goal was to \u201cstop the war\u201d and bring Australian soldiers home, in either Vietnam<\/a> or Iraq<\/a>, or to defeat government legislation, such as WorkChoices<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Other interest organisations have also used large rallies and protest marches to seek specific political outcomes. The Iraq war rallies in February 2003, however, were the biggest ever: protesters numbered 500,000 nationwide.<\/p>\n

Mainstream media reported accurately on the high numbers of Iraq war protesters. Many also highlighted the diversity of participants. But it was easy for media and government to discount citizen protest as an expression of political will, especially when the protest failed to achieve its desired outcome.<\/p>\n

Defying conventional understanding<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now it has become more difficult for mainstream media to understand a protest that does not focus on a distinct political outcome and a single issue. Many have found it difficult to sum up what March in March was about. What was the issue? What (political outcome) did protesters want? Who was even there?<\/p>\n

The answer is that March in March has much in common with protests such as Occupy<\/a>, which emerged in the United States, the Indignados<\/a> in Spain and the Gezi protests<\/a> in Istanbul. All these popular protests were harder to pin down using traditional lenses for understanding interest group and political mobilisations.<\/p>\n

We need to turn to new theoretical ideas that try to explain contemporary forms of mobilisation. Political scientists Lance Bennett and Alexandra Segerberg suggest that \u201cconnective action\u201d<\/a> is steadily replacing traditional, organisation-led collective action. The two forms of connective action are:<\/p>\n