Table Of ContentCitizen Media and Public Spaces
Citizen Media and Public Spaces presents a pioneering exploration of citizen
media as a highly interdisciplinary domain that raises vital political, social
and ethical issues relating to conceptions of citizenship and state boundaries,
the construction of publics and social imaginaries, processes of co-optation
and reverse co-optation, power and resistance, the ethics of witnessing and
solidarity, and novel responses to the democratic defi cit.
Framed by a substantial introduction by the editors, the twelve contribu-
tions to the volume interrogate the concept of citizen media theoretically
and empirically, and offer detailed case studies that extend from the UK to
Russia and Bulgaria and from China to Denmark and the liminal spaces
within which a growing number of refugees now live.
A rich new domain of scholarship and practice emerges out of the studies
presented. Citizen media is shown to embrace both physical and digital
interventions in public space, as well as the sets of values and agendas that
infl uence and drive the practices and discourses through which individuals
and collectives position themselves within and in relation to society and
participate in the creation of diverse publics.
This book will be of interest to students and researchers in media and
communication studies, particularly those studying citizen media, media
and society, journalism and society, and political communication.
Mona Baker is Professor Emerita in Translation Studies at the Centre for
Translation and Intercultural Studies, University of Manchester, UK. She is
the author of T ranslation and Confl ict (2006) and I n Other Words (2011)
and editor or co-editor of numerous reference works, including Routledge
Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (2009).
Bolette B. Blaagaard is Associate Professor of Communications at Aalborg
University, Copenhagen, Denmark. She is co-editor of Deconstructing Europe:
Postcolonial Perspectives (2012) with Sandra Ponzanesi, A fter Cosmo-
politanism (2013) with Patrick Hanafi n and Rosi Braidotti, and Cosmo-
politanism and the New News Media (2014) with Lilie Chouliaraki.
Critical Perspectives on Citizen Media
Edited by Luis Pérez-González
University of Manchester, UK
Bolette B. Blaagaard
Aalborg University, Denmark
Mona Baker
University of Manchester, UK
Critical Perspectives on Citizen Media aims to defi ne and advance under-
standing of citizen media, an emerging academic fi eld located at the interface
between different disciplines, including media studies, sociology, translation
studies, performance studies, political science, visual studies and journalism
studies. Titles in the series are focused on high-quality and original research,
in the form of monographs and edited collections, made accessible for a wide
range of readers. The series explores the relationship between citizen media
and various cross-disciplinary themes, including but not restricted to, partic-
ipation, immaterial work, witnessing, resistance and performance. The series
editors also welcome proposals for reference works, textbooks and innova-
tive digital outputs produced by citizen engagement groups on the ground.
Translating Dissent
Voices from and with the Egyptian revolution
Edited by Mona Baker
Citizen Media and Public Spaces
Diverse expressions of citizenship and dissent
Edited by Mona Baker and Bolette B. Blaagaard
Forthcoming:
The Routledge Encyclopedia of Citizen Media
Edited by Luis Pérez-González, Bolette B. Blaagaard and Mona Baker
Citizen Media and Public
Spaces
Diverse expressions of citizenship
and dissent
Edited by Mona Baker and
Bolette B. Blaagaard
First published 2016
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2016 Mona Baker and Bolette B. Blaagaard
The right of Mona Baker and Bolette B. Blaagaard to be identifi ed
as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their
individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-84764-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-84765-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-72663-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Sunrise Setting Ltd, Brixham, UK
To Gaza Parkour Team
An example of citizen media at its best
Founded in 2005, still dreaming of establishing a parkour academy in
Gaza and representing Gaza in international parkour tournaments
May their dreams come true
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Gaza.PKT
YouTube : www.youtube.com/palparkour
https://instagram.com/gaza.parkour
https://twitter.com/gazaparkour
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Contents
List of fi gures ix
List of contributors x
1 Reconceptualizing citizen media: a preliminary charting of
a complex domain 1
MONA BAKER AND BOLETTE B. BLAAGAARD
PART I
Empowering citizens 23
2 Understanding citizen media as practice: agents,
processes, publics 25
HILDE C. STEPHANSEN
3 Frontiers of the political: ‘Closed Sea’ and the cinema
of discontent 42
SANDRA PONZANESI
4 Citizen mediations of connectivity: narrowing the ‘Culture
of Distance’ in television news 58
BOLETTE B. BLAAGAARD AND STUART ALLAN
PART II
Questions of performance and affect 77
5 Theatricality and gesture as citizen media: composure on
a precipice 79
JENNY HUGHES AND SIMON PARRY
6 Nanodemonstrations as media events: networked forms
of the Russian protest movement 96
EVGENIA NIM
viii Contents
7 The politics of affect in activist amateur subtitling:
a biopolitical perspective 118
LUIS PÉREZ-GONZÁLEZ
PART III
The Personal and the Political 137
8 Media participation and desiring subjects 139
SARA BERETTA
9 Participatory urbanism: making the stranger familiar
and the familiar strange 155
STINE EJSING-DUUN
10 Ironic ‘resistance’ in Chinese citizen media online 172
ASTRID NORDIN
PART IV
Processes of appropriation: whose agenda? 187
11 The securitization of citizen reporting in post-Arab
Spring confl icts 189
LILIE CHOULIARAKI
12 The people formerly known as the Oligarchy:
the co-optation of citizen journalism 208
JULIA RONE
13 Memory, guardianship and the witnessing amateur in
the emergence of citizen journalism 225
KAREN CROSS
Index 239
Figures
1.1 ‘Obsession for men’ spoof ad 18
1.2 ‘Photo Op’, 2005 18
5.1 ‘Boom/Bust’ 85
5.2 ‘Tall Thrift’ 89
6.1 Second Nanodemonstration in Barnaul, 14 January 2012 100
6.2 Third Nanodemonstration in Barnaul, 19 February 2012:
A single-person picket 102
6.3 Wall-E holding the banner ‘I am for clean elections’ 107
6.4 The Lego-Town 108
13.1 Adam Stacey 227
13.2 Images taken by commuter Alexander Chadwick,
7 July 2005 233
