The mechanisms of transition from on-line public to the off-line public, as well as from local to global level - Дипломная работа

Table of contents Introduction Chapter 1. The concept of public: from ancient times to era of Web 2.0 1.1 Classical theories 1.2 Rethinking Public23 1.3 Web 2.0. and public engagement Chapter 2. Transition of public: from local to global level. Charlie Hebdo case 2.1 Global public communication 2.2 Chalie Hebdo case-study 2.3 “Charlie Public”: features and mechanisms of transition Chapter 3. Transition of public from on-line to off-line. Five Star Movement 3.1 Case study. From blog to political party 3.2 “M5S Public”: features and mechanisms of transition Bibliography Annexes Introduction The new reality: the spread of Web 2.0., new state of World Wide Web characterized by more interactive and collaborative approach to content, as well as introduction and expansion of social media, totally transform the features of communication in the modern society - the quality, quantity and speed of information flows, as well as its impact on political and social processes. People have obtained not only the access to the massive volume of information and an opportunity to get news in a timely manner, learn the diversity of viewpoints on particular topic and to discover the issues of importance in a greater depth but also an easier way to express themselves, to coordinate their activity, to summon and participate, for instance, in the sphere of public policy. The Internet brings new forms of collective action or reinforces the existing ones. Reducing the differences between those of high socioeconomic status versus those of low socioeconomic status, men versus women, youth versus adults and many other groups (Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996) along with removing the distance barriers, Web 2.0. facilitates public interaction and expands civic engagement across diverse populations. Thanks to these features, the public formed in digital space does not stay constant, it has an opportunity to grow, transform and influence other publics. Virtual publics have a potential to evolve into offline publics or fuel already existing ones. In other words, on-line publics might further offline publics, but do not necessarily represent them. On-line publics can have influence over off-line and vice versa. Furthermore, this phenomenon of virtual engagement can start on the local scope, but then disperse globally. The Internet ruining traditional hierarchical structures, gives the voice to different social groups, which can be caught up by global chorus. Besides, the local issue can become a catalyst for global public mobilization. These public transitions are resulting not only from technological features of Internet but also are determined by some social mechanisms which we will try to elicit in the following research called “Emergence of Virtual Publics in Social Media: from on-line to off-line, from local to global participation”. Research Problem and Goals Being analyzed in media communications’ study and sociology, the topic of virtual public is rather new to political studies. Hence, there is the following research problem - lack of adequate analytical framework for reconstruction of emerging on-line publics and their correlation with off-line ones, as well as the transformation of local virtual public into global. Thus, the research question we want to answer within this research - what are the mechanisms of transition from on-line public that is not coming out in the streets but using social networks, expressing their attitudes, calling for action and organizing it to the off-line public, as well as from local to global level. The main goal of this work is to figure out the forms of transition from on-line to off-line and from local to global. Obtaining this goal, we will fulfill the following tasks: 1) to analyze the concept of “public”; 2) to examine the process of formation of publics and their types, 3) to check if the concept of public has changed through time; 4) to research the role of the Internet and social media in the public summoning; 5) to study the case of Charlie Hebdo and analyze the expansion of public from local to global level; 6) to scrutinize Charlie public and trace reasons, issues, motives, tools and principles of transformation into global entity; 7) to study the case of Five Star Movement to analyze the interconnection between on-line and off-line publics; 8) to conduct a survey with Five Star Movement supporters to understand the mechanisms of public transition. The relevance of the research problem can be explained by the fact that though there have already been conducted some researches to prove the possibility of the transformation of public from local to global and from online to offline, none of them haven’t explored in details the mechanisms which make this transition possible. Major attention was paid to the features of the Internet itself and interactivity of social media disregarding some other social constructs, which we try to evolve in this research. The paper investigates two cases: Charlie H