Mette Mortensen – författare

This collection considers how digital images and social media reconfigure the way conflicts are played out, represented and perceived around the globe.

Devoted to developing original theoretical frameworks and empirical insights, the volume addresses the role of user images and social media in relation to urgent subjects such as public opinion and emotion, solidarity, evidence and verification, censorship and fake news, which are all central to the ways current conflicts are represented and unfold. Essays include a unique range of case studies from different regional and political contexts (Middle East, Europe, Asia, North America) and in connection with different conflict types (war, terror, riots, everyday resistance, etc.). They also consider performative genres such as memes, selfies and appropriations as well as images conforming to the realism and authenticity of conventional photojournalism. In this way, the collection responds to the challenges of swiftly evolving image genres as well as to the continually shifting policies and algorithms of commercial digital platforms.

Together, the essays offer innovative theories and exemplary case studies as a resource for teaching and research in media, journalism and communication programmes. It is also relevant to students, teachers and researchers within sociology, political science, anthropology and related fields.

This collection considers how digital images and social media reconfigure the way conflicts are played out, represented and perceived around the globe.

Devoted to developing original theoretical frameworks and empirical insights, the volume addresses the role of user images and social media in relation to urgent subjects such as public opinion and emotion, solidarity, evidence and verification, censorship and fake news, which are all central to the ways current conflicts are represented and unfold. Essays include a unique range of case studies from different regional and political contexts (Middle East, Europe, Asia, North America) and in connection with different conflict types (war, terror, riots, everyday resistance, etc.). They also consider performative genres such as memes, selfies and appropriations as well as images conforming to the realism and authenticity of conventional photojournalism. In this way, the collection responds to the challenges of swiftly evolving image genres as well as to the continually shifting policies and algorithms of commercial digital platforms.

Together, the essays offer innovative theories and exemplary case studies as a resource for teaching and research in media, journalism and communication programmes. It is also relevant to students, teachers and researchers within sociology, political science, anthropology and related fields.

Memes work as rhetorical weapons and discursive arguments in political conflicts. Across digital platforms, they confirm, contest and challenge political power and hierarchies. They simultaneously create social distortion, hostility, and a sense of community. Memes thus not only reflect norms but also work as a tool for negotiating them. At the same time, memes meld symbolic and cultural elements with technological functionalities, allowing for replicability and remixing.

This book studies how memes disrupt and reimagine politics in humorous ways. Memes create a playful activity that follows a shared set of rules and gives a (shared) voice, which may generate togetherness and political identities but also increase polarization. As their template travels, memes continue to appropriate new political contexts and to (re)negotiate frontiers in the political. The chapters in this book allow us to chart the playful politics of memes and how they establish or push frontiers in various political, cultural, and platform-specific contexts. Taken together, memes can challenge and regenerate populism, carve out spaces for new identity formations, and create togetherness in situations of crises. They can also, however, lead to the normalization of racist discourses.

This book will be of interest to researchers and advanced students of Media and Communication Studies, Information Studies, Politics, Sociology, and Cultural Studies. It was originally published as a special issue of the journal, Information, Communication & Society.

Memes work as rhetorical weapons and discursive arguments in political conflicts. Across digital platforms, they confirm, contest and challenge political power and hierarchies. They simultaneously create social distortion, hostility, and a sense of community. Memes thus not only reflect norms but also work as a tool for negotiating them. At the same time, memes meld symbolic and cultural elements with technological functionalities, allowing for replicability and remixing.

This book studies how memes disrupt and reimagine politics in humorous ways. Memes create a playful activity that follows a shared set of rules and gives a (shared) voice, which may generate togetherness and political identities but also increase polarization. As their template travels, memes continue to appropriate new political contexts and to (re)negotiate frontiers in the political. The chapters in this book allow us to chart the playful politics of memes and how they establish or push frontiers in various political, cultural, and platform-specific contexts. Taken together, memes can challenge and regenerate populism, carve out spaces for new identity formations, and create togetherness in situations of crises. They can also, however, lead to the normalization of racist discourses.

This book will be of interest to researchers and advanced students of Media and Communication Studies, Information Studies, Politics, Sociology, and Cultural Studies. It was originally published as a special issue of the journal, Information, Communication & Society.

Building on the vast research conducted on war and media since the 1970s, scholars are now studying the digital transformation of the production of news. Little scholarly attention has been paid, however, to non-professional, eyewitness visuals, even though this genre holds a still greater bearing on the way conflicts are fought, communicated, and covered by the news media. This volume examines the power of new technologies for creating and disseminating images in relation to conflicts. Mortensen presents a theoretical framework and uses case studies to investigate the impact of non-professional images with regard to essential issues in today’s media landscape: including new media technologies and democratic change, the political mobilization and censorship of images, the ethics of spectatorship, and the shifting role of the mainstream news media in the digital age.

Building on the vast research conducted on war and media since the 1970s, scholars are now studying the digital transformation of the production of news. Little scholarly attention has been paid, however, to non-professional, eyewitness visuals, even though this genre holds a still greater bearing on the way conflicts are fought, communicated, and covered by the news media. This volume examines the power of new technologies for creating and disseminating images in relation to conflicts. Mortensen presents a theoretical framework and uses case studies to investigate the impact of non-professional images with regard to essential issues in today’s media landscape: including new media technologies and democratic change, the political mobilization and censorship of images, the ethics of spectatorship, and the shifting role of the mainstream news media in the digital age.

News production, distribution and consumption are in rapidly changing due to the rise of new media. This book examines how these processes become more and more interrelated through logics of dissemination, sharing and co-production. These changes have the potential to affect the criteria of newsworthiness as well as existing power structures and relations within the fields of journalism and agenda setting. The book discusses changing logics of production, from citizens’ as well as journalists’ perspectives, examines distribution and sharing as a link between but also an intrinsic part of production and consumption, and addresses the changing logics of consumption. Contributors place such changes in a historical perspective and outline challenges and future research agendas.

News production, distribution and consumption are in rapidly changing due to the rise of new media. This book examines how these processes become more and more interrelated through logics of dissemination, sharing and co-production. These changes have the potential to affect the criteria of newsworthiness as well as existing power structures and relations within the fields of journalism and agenda setting. The book discusses changing logics of production, from citizens’ as well as journalists’ perspectives, examines distribution and sharing as a link between but also an intrinsic part of production and consumption, and addresses the changing logics of consumption. Contributors place such changes in a historical perspective and outline challenges and future research agendas.

Far from being neutral, social media platforms – such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and WeChat – possess their own material characteristics, which shape how people engage, protest, resist, and struggle. This innovative collection advances the notion of social media materialities to draw attention to the ways in which the wires and silicon, data streams and algorithms, user and programming interfaces, business models and terms of service steer contentious practices and, inversely, how technologies and economic models are handled and performed by users. The key question is how the tension between social media’s techno-commercial infrastructures and activist agency plays out in protest. Addressing this, the volume goes beyond singular empirical examples and focuses on the characteristics of protest and social media materialities, offering further conceptualizations and guidance for this emerging field of research. The various contributions explore a wide variety of activist projects, protests, and regions, ranging from Occupy in the USA to environmental protests in China, and from the Mexican Barrio Nómada to the Copenhagen-based activist television channel TV Stop (1987–2005).

Far from being neutral, social media platforms – such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and WeChat – possess their own material characteristics, which shape how people engage, protest, resist, and struggle. This innovative collection advances the notion of social media materialities to draw attention to the ways in which the wires and silicon, data streams and algorithms, user and programming interfaces, business models and terms of service steer contentious practices and, inversely, how technologies and economic models are handled and performed by users. The key question is how the tension between social media’s techno-commercial infrastructures and activist agency plays out in protest. Addressing this, the volume goes beyond singular empirical examples and focuses on the characteristics of protest and social media materialities, offering further conceptualizations and guidance for this emerging field of research. The various contributions explore a wide variety of activist projects, protests, and regions, ranging from Occupy in the USA to environmental protests in China, and from the Mexican Barrio Nómada to the Copenhagen-based activist television channel TV Stop (1987–2005).