Since the 1980s, political campaigning of social movement actors has become increasingly professionalised and adjusted to the selection criteria of a commercialised media environment. According to the assumption of many scholars, this trend of professionalised campaigning politics might be reversed by the internet as its technical structures offer chances of desintermediation of communication, circumventing the gatekeeper function of mass media. Online social media and social networks are perceived as enabling structures for new concepts of public spheres. Related to the latter, ICTs have been said to both empower subjects to raise their voice individually as well as collectively and to participate directly in the political arena. Corresponding to this, forms of digital ‘peer to peer campaigning’ have also been conceived to foster authenticity and as an ‘antidote’ against allegations of symbolic and performative politics.

Against the back drop of the concept of public spheres, the workshop strives for a comparative analysis and theoretical review of campaigning politics on the net: Do online communication structures actually enhance the democratic potential of campaigning practices? How and to what extent do online political campaigns contribute to the establishment of a transnational ‘public of publics’? Are these publics reconnected and embedded into an overarching institutionalised public sphere?

If you are interested in attending the workshop please write an e-mail to johanna.niesyto@uni-siegen.de before October 29, 2007. There are no workshop fees. Detail information will be provided by e-mail.

Programme

10:00am
Peter Gendolla, University of Siegen, Germany: Welcome address

10:15am
Sigrid Baringhorst, University of Siegen, Germany: Presentation of the project ‘Changing Protest and Media Cultures. Transnational Anti-Corporate Campaigns and Digital Communication’

@ Session I: Transnational Networking Public Spheres

10:45am
Johanna Niesyto, University of Siegen, Germany: Transnational Anti-Corporate Campaigns on the Net

11:30am
Rainer Winter, University of Klagenfurt, Austria: The Rise of Transnational Public Sphere through Cyberprotest?

12:15pm
Lunch

1:15pm
Alice Mattoni, European University Institute Florence, Italy: Using the Internet within Movement Campaign Networks

2:00pm
Marion Hamm, University of Luzern, Switzerland: Linking Up Online and Offline Realms of Public Spheres

@ Session II: Democratic Potentials

2:45pm
Wainer Lusoli, University of Chester, England: Internet’s Effects on Political Participation

3:30pm
Geert Lovink, Institute of Network Cultures Amsterdam, Netherlands: Internet Culture and Postdemocracy

@ Session III: Discussion

4:15pm
Sigrid Baringhorst, University of Siegen, Germany: Concluding Discussion

For more information please refer to the website of the Research Project ‘Changing Protest and Media Cultures’: www.protest-cultures.uni-siegen.de

Project Manager Prof. Dr. Sigrid Baringhorst (University of Siegen, Department of Social Sciences) and her team would be very pleased to welcome you to the workshop.

Date:
November 9, 2007

Location:
University of Siegen
Artur-Woll-Haus
Room 103
Am Eichenhang 50
D-57076 Siegen
Germany