Let’s discuss a contemporary story about one family’s struggle:
At age 10, Mohammed Bouazizi became the sole provider for his family. His father died when Bouazizi was 3-years-old. Although his mother remarried, his stepfather was unable to find consistent work due to ill health. To support his mother, stepfather, and five younger siblings, Bouzazi sold fresh produce in the local souk [market] in the southern provincial town of Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia.
The story continues for 16 years of bullying, inequities of power, irksome bureaucracies. Nearly each day, local police officers aggressively targeted the young boy. The harassment continued as Bouazizi matured to a young man. Officers repeatedly confiscated his scales and the produce he attempted to sell from his humble market cart because he lacked what they claimed was a necessary permit. He refused to participate in necessary to bribery of city officials for said permit and lacked the funds necessary to pay a recent city fine of 400 dinars ($280 US; equivalent to two months of his wages).
The “real” story begins on December 17, 2010, with a slap to Bouazizi’s face by a local policewoman, an act of public humiliation and demoralization had reached a peak. The 26-year-old Bouazizi went to the Sidi Bouzid municipality building to register a complaint, and was turned away. Perhaps sensing he had no other options to support his family in dignity, he returned to the municipality building, doused himself with a can of paint thinner, and lit himself on fire in an act of public, non-violent protest. Witnesses used their mobile devices to capture Bouazizi’s act and share the story and video via Facebook. And a revolution began.
Note the characteristic tone of this narrative, compiled from a variety of online sources. The narrative could be paired with stories of oppression and resistance familiar to many Westerners, including the story of Rodney King or the more recent story of Trayvon Martin. Bouazizi’s story, this narrative, is one that would be told time and time again as voices in various areas across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region were raised in protest of totalitarian regimes, wealthy dictators, and gross inequities. And this story would inspire many of the following uprisings we have come to identify as part of what is widely known as the Arab Spring. This story would also remain at the center of international political consciousness because it was reiterated time and time again through social media. As stated in the BBC documentary, How Facebook Changed the World, the story became as much about the framing process used to transmit the story through social media as it was a story of Bouazizi’s actions and the protests that followed. Because now citizens could tell their stories and get them heard on a global stage.
Lengel & Newsom, 2014, pp. 86-87
When we talk about communication in today’s world we cannot ignore the impact of digital communication technologies. The story discussed above resonates as a success story to audiences from around the world, and is stylistically told for U.S. audiences. Yet, the story itself is distinctly Tunisian. The mediation through which the story progressed changed the story to better suit an audience removed from the activity discussed itself. And it is a meaningful story for us in the West, framed against a background of economic recession and utilizing a familiar a communication tool: social media.
Narrative Architecture: The Medium and the Message
Take a look at this quote from the BBC Documentary (Pollack, 2011):
But something of worldwide importance was about to happen. Disenfranchised people everywhere were about to discover that the internet revolution had tipped the balance of power in their favor.
Did Facebook change the world? Could the Arab Spring have occurred without Facebook and other forms of social media as a platform for sharing messages? Are the messages being spoken by activists in the Middle East the same as those we receive here in the West?
The story of the Arab Spring was told as a success story for a media form, as the voices of concerned citizens are now reaching the attention of those with enough power to enact social change. Because we receive messages through social media, which is perceived by audiences as being created by real people as opposed to corporate media structures changes the way we pay attention to the story. But this raises a number of new questions that need to be investigated. Just what is the impact of digital communication technologies in our word? Did Al Jazeera have as much impact as Twitter and Facebook? Is this something exciting and new, or is it an echo of earlier processes and older forms of communication technologies?
Marshal McLuhan’s (1964) argument regarding the media form as the message is revisited when we begin to investigate digital communication. Social media and other forms of digital communication carry the characteristics of both media communication and relational communication within them. Understanding the impact of social media in our lives has resulted in a challenging new field of investigation within communication studies. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter are, by nature, intertextual, narrative, and self-reflexive; they refer to and cite each other and themselves constantly. This results in what Henry Jenkins (2004) calls narrative architecture that redefines norms for digital message consumption. When users script their lives on Facebook they are following the narrative structures prescribed by the architecture of that social network. The resulting personalized space functions as a type of performative digital reflexivity, structuring and making sense of identity through the understood social script utilized within the narrative architecture.
Citizen journalism, the reporting of newsworthy events and arguments by individuals rather than professional journalists (Goode, 2009; Robinson, 2009), is a form of digital communication heavily impacted by narrative architecture. Citizen journalists use online media concurrently with news organizations, telling news stories from different points of view, including as eyewitness accounts. The implication in this case is that the boundaries between producer and consumer are dissolved...which can therefore lead to questions of whether authenticity exists in news. However, while social media are tools for promoting citizen journalism and activist-led change, they are still used by existent power structures with authoritative, translation, and gatekeeping power in the narrative architecture (Lengel & Newsom, 2014).
The narrative structures of the media forms, advertising mechanisms, newsfeeds, social bots, targeted marketing, and technology access factors all play a role in how easily accessible and relatable information actually is for individual users. (Bakir & McStay, 2018; Lengel & Newsom, 2014). Similarly, narrative precedents influence how information is spread, as Facebook pages, Tweets, viral videos, and news stories are passed from user to user through established patterns of symbolic convergence and meaning making. These patterns include “authorities” noted for expertise in particular topic areas, regardless of offline-understandings of expertise; or popular celebrities including figures like Hollywood and political celebrities who are viewed as leaders on topic of social interest.
New Media Propaganda Machines: The War of Narratives
Propaganda narratives have altered in the past decade, dominantly influenced by social media. In particular, even as “Arab Spring” narratives were being promoted from within the MENA, and adapted to meet Western ideological goals promoting “democracies” and “freedoms,” Western propaganda narratives linked to international terrorism were designed by populist and right-leaning organizations and promulgated within Western news and alternative-news media highlighting populist, nationalist, and other Orientalist norms. While Left-leaning and mainstream or centrist news organizations often took up the “Arab Spring” narrative and focus on how Islamic extremism is disregarded and disliked even within most Muslim communities, Right-leaning media have constructed a master-narrative of Islam as a danger to Western ideologies and freedoms. This is dramatically illustrated by Islamic-extremist arguments that that Muslims are intentionally constructing narratives to win supporters, as evidenced by words from American jihadist Omar Hammami, purportedly in his memoirs, “The war of narratives has become even more important than the war of navies, napalm, and knives” (Cottee, 2015).
Political figures seeking to promote a shared ideology or shape public attitudes often utilize strategic narratives. Strategic narratives are a type of metanarrative aimed at driving public opinion and garnering support for political institution, action, and policy (Archetti, 2013; Hellman & Wagnsson, 2015; Roselle, Miskimmon, & O’Loughlin, 2014; Schmid, 2014). Strategic narratives are often carefully planned stories constructed to generate a belief in and support of specific institutional powers, or a specific audience reaction (Archetti, 2013; Roselle et al., 2014). The construction of strategic narratives is reflected in Fisher’s (1984), belief that narratives are more persuasive than arguments. It is also not limited to existing institutional power as activists and propagandists utilize their own strategic narratives in order to increase their visibility (Roselle et al., 2014). These groups also often aim their strategic narratives at specific audience consumers.
Consumer awareness of and participation in civic process has also been greatly impacted by social media narratives. Producers of mass communication have always relied on narratives that are layered with subtextual messages to reach the largest possible audience groups. Recent shifts of populations into consumer groups associated with ideological and political silos (Pew Research Center, 2014a, 2014b) have driven producers toward narrowcasting and direct media marketing with a focus on strengthening narratives to appeals to specified, siloed audiences (de Zuniga, Correa, & Valenzuela, 2012; Pew Research Center, 2014a, 2014b). This has led to reinforcing the ideological segregation between the resultant consumer groups (Balmas, 2012; de Zuniga et al., 2012; Hicks & Turner, 2013; Mihailidis & Viotty, 2017; Pew Research Center, 2014b). The spread of manipulative and biased information has therefore become common, both through social media and through inherent confirmation biases in consumer choices.
News sources appealing to these segregated groups are then questioned in terms of their veracity by those in other groups, leading to accusations of mis-information and “fake news.” This has resulted in the development of post-truth ("Post-Truth," 2017) news consumption centered in emotion and ideology than rather than forensic evidence and data. Producers are therefore able to advance particular interests without relying on traditional measures of authenticity, reliability, validity, bias reduction, and verisimilitude that could present counter-arguments to their promoted claims. The resulting decline in consumer critical thinking, digital literacy, and fact-checking has become alarming enough for some nations to articulate legislation to fine producers and hosting services for disseminating fake news (Chrisafis, 2018; Faiola & Kirchner, 2017; McAuley, 2018; Schiffrin, 2017) , and some US states to generate laws requiring educators to enhance digital and information literacy education to fight “fake news” (AP, 2017; Bever, 2017; Cafazzo, 2017; Zubrzycki, 2017).
For activists seeking to change regional, national, and international narratives promoted in promoted to specific audiences, digital media can be an effective organizing tool. Online activism differs from conventional activism in several key ways: it affords opportunities for issue-focused efforts; it promotes goals and activities that can reach further and more quickly than is the case with traditional activism; and it occurs in a liminal (Turner, ) space where traditional rules governing society can be set aside (Shuter, 2012; Graham, Jackson, & Wright, 2016). Issue narratives can be disruptive, especially when promoted via digital media (Roselle et al., 2014). The digital format allows interest groups to set up counter arguments, present new data and facts regardless of verification (de Zuniga et al., 2012; Pew Research Center, 2014b), and reach targeted audience members without adherence to traditional narrative dissemination factors (Roselle et al., 2014).
Archetti, C. (2013). Understanding terrorism in the age of global media: A communication approach. New York: Palgrave Macmillan
Bakir, V., & McStay, A. (2018). Fake news and the economy of emotions: Problems, causes, solutions. Digital Journalism, 6(2), 154-175.
Balmas, M. (2012). When fake news becomes real: Combined exposure to multiple news sources and political attitudes of inefficacy, alienation, and cycicism. Communication Research, 41(3), 430-454. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650212453600
Bever, L. (2017, January 12). If state lawmakers have their way, California schoolchildren may be taught how to spot ‘fake news’. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.0ea0fe5114f2
de Zuniga, H. G., Correa, T., & Valenzuela, S. (2012). Selective exposure to cable news and immigration in the U.S.: The relationship between Fox News, CNN, and attitudes toward Mexican immigrants. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 56(4), 597-615. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2012.732138
Graham, T., Jackson, D., & Wright, S. (2016). ‘We need to get together and make ourselves heard’: Everyday online spaces as incubators of political action. Information, Communication & Society, 19(10), 1373-1389.
Hellman, M., & Wagnsson, C. (2015). New media and the war in Afghanistan: The significance of blogging for the Swedish strategic narrative. New Media & Society, 17(1), 6-23. Jenkins, H. (2004) Game design as narrative architecture. Retrieved from http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3...narrative.html
Hicks, T., & Turner, K. H. (2013). No longer a luxury: Digital literacy can’t wait. English Journal, 102(6), 58-65.
Lengel, L. & Newsom, V. (2014). Mutable selves and digital reflexivities: Social media for social change in the Middle East and North Africa. Symbolic Interaction and New Social Media: Studies in Symbolic Interaction, 43. 85-119.
Mihailidis, P., & Viotty, S. (2017). Spreadable spectacle in digital culture: Civic expression, fake news, and the role of media literacies in “Post-Fact” society. American Behavioral Scientist, 61(4), 441-454. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764217701217
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media: The extensions of man. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Pew Research Center. (2014a). Political polarization in the American public: How increasing ideological uniformity and partisan antipathy affect politics, compromise, and everyday life. Pew Research Center U.S. Politics & Policy. Retrieved from http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/...erican-public/
Robinson, S. (2009). 'If you had been with us': mainstream press and citizen journalists jockey for authority over the collective memory of Hurricane Katrina. New Media & Society, 11(5), 795-814.
Roselle, L., Miskimmon, A., & O’Loughlin, B. (2014). Strategic narrative: A new means to understand soft power. Media, War, & Conflict, 7(1), 70-84.
Schmid, A. P. (2014). Al-Qaeda’s “single narrative” and attempts to develop counter-narratives: The state of knowledge. Retrieved from The Hague, The Netherlands: www.icct.nl
Shuter, R. (2012). Intercultural new media studies: The next frontier in intercultural communication. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 41(3), 219-237.
