par Lits, Brieuc
Référence LSE Media and Communications PhD Symposium (19-06-2015: London)
Publication Non publié, 2015-06-19
Communication à un colloque
Résumé : All over the world, social movements appear and disappear but crystalize the resistance against hegemonic powers (Pleyers, 2010). Be it the Occupy movement in the United States, Los Indignados in Spain or the Arab Spring, many scholars and journalists were eager to link their success with new technologies (Huang, 2011). Even though the impact of social media in these movements is being relativized nowadays, an emerging phenomenon is appearing in Europe and consists in the creation of fake grassroots movements by public and private actors (McNutt, 2008). Whilst keeping their identity secret, these actors aim at simulating a citizen support in order to influence policy-makers or sway public opinion regarding an issue (Boulay, 2013). In this regard, the Internet and the anonymity it provides make it the perfect platform for this phenomenon called “Astroturfing” (Zhang et al., 2013). There is a growing interest by communication scholars to study social movements as symptoms of resistance to a hegemonic power (Castells, 2011). But attention must be paid to who is really behind grassroots movement because it might be the elite in power trying to manufacture citizen support (Beder, 1998) and frame the debate in order to set the agenda in their direction (Benford & Snow, 2000).