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Cosmos

The Centre on Social Movement Studies

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Publications

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Playing “Italianness” in popular music: National populism and music in contemporary Italy

Chapter in edited book - 2024

Author: Manuela Caiani, Enrico Padoan

The chapter discusses popular music and cultural practices as vectors for the articulation of national populism in the contemporary Italian context. After examining the Multiple Opportunity Structures (MOS) within which the nexus between music and politics is located in the country, it explores the ways in which popular music functions as a medium for the… more
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Social Movements Prefiguring Political Theory

Chapter in edited book - 2022

Author: Sophia Wathne

Adding to the growing literature on social movements as knowledge and theory creators, this chapter wants more social movement research to focus on the content of the political theories created by social movements, as an outcome of their morality. This chapter argues that prefigurative social movements create political theory through the interplay of their internal… more
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Contentious subjects: Spatial and relational perspectives on refugee mobilizations in Europe

Chapter in edited book - 2019

Author: Elias Steinhilper and Ilker Ataç

Political protest by ‘refugees’ has proliferated worldwide, yet has only received marginal attention in social movement studies. According to dominant movement theories, migrants are unlikely subjects of mobilization due to legal obstacles (including ‘deportability’), limited economic and social capital and closed political and discursive opportunities. Building upon recent innovations in contentious politics, which stress the… more

A situated understanding of digital technologies in social movements: Media ecology and media practice approaches

Chapter in edited book - 2018

Author: Alice Mattoni

The chapter tackles two main aspects related to the interaction between social movements and digital technologies. First, it reflects on the need to include and combine different theoretical approaches in social movement studies so as to construct more meaningful understanding of how social movement actors deals with digital technologies and with what outcomes in societies.… more
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I post, you rally, she tweets…and we all occupy. The challenges of hybrid spatiality in the Occupy Wall Street mobilizations

Chapter in edited book - 2018

Author: Alice Mattoni

After the Occupy Wall Street mobilizations in the USA and other countries across the world, many scholars emphasized the importance of protest camps and social media platforms for these protests. However, what has not been systematically explored is how the two are intertwined. Exploring the interconnections between camps and platforms, this chapter shows how a… more

A Global Movement for Real Democracy? The Resonance of Anti-Austerity Protest from Spain and Greece to Occupy Wall Street

Chapter in edited book - 2016

Author: Leonidas Oikonomakis and Jerome Roos

How do instances of popular protest spread across borders? This question, which has eluded social scientists for decades, appears to have become more salient than ever in the wake of the seemingly unprecedented transnational cycle of struggles that began in 2010-'11. In this chapter, we look at the diffusion of anti-austerity protest between Spain, Greece… more

Alternative Media

Chapter in edited book - 2016

Author: Alice Mattoni

Del levantamiento zapatista al escándalo NSA: Lecciones aprendidas, debates actuales y futuros desafíos de la resistencia digital

Chapter in edited book - 2016

Author: Emiliano Treré

The chapter scrutinizes the lessons, the current debates and the future challenges of digital resistance from a critical standpoint, emphasizing both continuities and discontinuities from the Zapatista uprising to the NSA scandal

Involving Communities as Skilled Learners: The STRAP Framework

Chapter in edited book - 2016

Author: Chiara Milan and Stefania Milan

Conducting research in the field of communication for social change typically entails working closely with communities and grassroots groups. Whereas substantial scholarly attention has been given to the various methodologies and to the researcher’s self-reflexive practices, little has been said on the involvement in the research process of communities as skilled learners. This chapter offers… more

Protest in Social Movements

Chapter in edited book - 2016

Author: Donatella della Porta

News

Publications

Edited Volume - 2026

Conspiracism and Political Conflict

Manuela Caiani, Marco Solinas, Hans-Jorg Trenz

Monograph - 2025

Free download for "Contentious Politics of Global Health Movements"

Donatella Della Porta, Stella Christou

Journal Article - 2025

Communication creates partial organization: A comparative analysis of the organizing practices of two climate action movements, Youth for Climate and Fridays for Future Italy

Marco Deseriis, Lorenzo Zamponi, Diego Ceccobelli
This article focuses on a neglected aspect of the climate action movement Fridays for Future, namely, the relationship between its mediated communication practices and its early organizational processes. Drawing from a strand of organizational communication that underscores the constitutive dimension of communication to organizing processes, we analyze the significance of mediatized leadership and networked communication for the foundation and early development of two national chapters of Fridays for Future: Youth for Climate (YFC) Belgium and Fridays for Future Italy (FFFI).

Journal Article - 2025

Power resources, territory and labour conflicts in the logistic sector

Donatella Della Porta, Marco Antonelli