This seminar looks at contemporary ‘protest cultures’ and explores the changing relationship between political participation and media technologies in the age of social media by considering three different dimensions a) organisation b) political imaginations c) lived experience. Scholars and activists will discuss this relationship by considering culturally and context specific examples.

The first seminar aims at setting the tone for the entire seminar series, addressing the following questions: What is new or old of contemporary protest cultures? How can we understand the relationship between web technologies and new forms of political imagination and organization without falling into the pitfall of techno-determinism? How can we develop a culturally sensitive approach in the study of digital activism?

Here you can find the final programme of the event and the abstracts of the papers that will be presented at the seminar.

The Social Movements and Media Technologies: Present Challenges and Future Developments Seminar Series is funded by theEconomic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and jointly organised by the Centre for Global Media and Democracy (CGMD) at Goldsmiths University of London and the Centre on Social Movement Studies (COSMOS), Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence.