Topic 8

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the concepts, theories, and empirical cases related to social movements, media framing, strategic choice models across global contexts, and alternative media mobilization.

Framing

A way of highlighting a particular claim to mobilise supporters, demobilise antagonists, and convince observers of the worthiness of a cause.

Culture Jamming

The disruption of the dominant discourse using subversion and creativity to reframe an issue by challenging dominant narratives and assumptions.

Non-Violent Direct Action (NVDA)

Protest tactics that disrupt normal activity without physical force—such as sit-ins, strikes, blockades, and hacktivism—frequently used by movements to capture mainstream media attention.

Violent Direct Action (VDA)

Any direct protest action that utilises physical violence against a person or property to attract news coverage.

Protest Theatre

Performance-based, dramatic activist tactics—such as street theatre, clowning, or flash mobs—designed to create compelling visual spectacles for media exposure.

News Values

The operational criteria and priorities employed by commercial news media to select stories, within which sex and violent crime rank as the most salient.

Media Embedding

The institutional practice of placing journalists directly within police or military units, which facilitates press access while enabling authorities to manage and shape narrative coverage.

Open Media System

A media environment where the state exercises limited direct control over news circulation, providing challengers access to diverse channels while presenting obstacles such as journalistic routines, bias, and commercial priorities.

Closed Media System

A media environment where the state owns, heavily monitors, or censors communication channels, forcing challengers to operate below the radar or deliberately provoke repression to gain international visibility.

Illusion of Homogeneity

A media framing effect where news outlets disproportionately highlight the most emotive, violent, and extreme elements of an event, falsely portraying a diverse social movement as uniform and radical.

Polite Protest

The tactical use of coded language, subtext, and cautious online inquiries to question state policies and actions without crossing thresholds that trigger government censorship or overt repression.

Collective Identity

A shared sense of 'we-ness' and solidarity cultivated among individuals with shared grievances, critical for member retention, commitment, and sustained movement continuity.

Indignation Mobilization Mechanisms

Web-based alternative news media that combine partisan commentary with active political organizing, fueling public moral outrage while coordinating petitions and offline street protests.

Indignation

An emotional dynamic defined by anger that adopts a moral basis and is directed toward an identifiable target held blameworthy.

Sovereignism

A far-right political ideology defined by anti-migrant nativism, defense of unyielding national borders, and the rejection of multilateral agreements and international governance institutions.

Deplatforming

The punitive action of banning, evicting, or suspending controversial political outlets, accounts, or actors from commercial hosting services and digital social networks.

Why do social movements depend on mainstream media

1. to mobilise support

2. to reach out to potential supporters

3. to increase the legitimacy of their claims

Constraints of mainstream media

1. sensationalist news values - news outlets place priority on conflict, violence and novelty

2. institutional bias - journalists can privilege certain sources, police can shape the narrative through pre-emptive framing

Core dimensions of the strategic choice model?

1. communication target: external broad publics: targeted to recruit participants and shape policy agendas, internal audiences: engaged to nurture collective identity

2. system openness the degree of state regulation, surveillance and control over media infrastructure