Reconfiguring community : an analysis of ‘Black Lives Matter’

Abstract

This dissertation questions how social media reconfigures the ways in which people form communities. Taking Black Lives Matter as an example of a hybrid contemporary social movement, this work adopts Paolo Gerbaudo’s conceptualisation of social media as ‘crucial emotional conduits’ through which ‘individual sentiments of indignation and anger’ are condensed into an emotional narration. The first chapter looks at the construction of emotional narration by analysing the narrative that the movement constructs. It also explores how collective identity is reconfigured through the use of technological platforms by bringing in Stefania Milan’s concept of the ‘cloud’ as well as W. Lance Bennett and Alexandra Segerberg’s ‘connective action’. This drives protestors to the streets, generating new forms of physical proximity fuelled by social media platforms, while emphasising the importance of physical place. Chapter 2 argues that, in Gerbaudo’s terms, social media messages create a sense of allure around occupied squares that act as ‘sources of identification for the movement’, which contrasts with Castells’ vision of ‘society as a network without centres’, thus identifying physical places as nodes of the movement. The third chapter questions who is being asked to participate in the movement and who the leaders behind it are. The extent of participation is explored alongside Geert Lovink’s work on the size of networks, while the nature of ‘soft’ leadership choreographing the movement behind the scenes reconfigures community by identifying contemporary movements as leader-full. In conclusion, this research highlights that although social media reconfigures aspects of community formation, it also serves to reinforce the importance of what lies at the heart of community formation; physical place, leadership, and most importantly, narrative.