Articulating Dissent

Protest and the Public Sphere

Pollyanna Ruiz

• Publisher: Pluto Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9780745333052
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781849648868
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Articulating Dissent analyses the new communicative strategies of coalition protest movements and how these impact on a mainstream media unaccustomed to fractured articulations of dissent. Pollyanna Ruiz shows how coalition protest movements against austerity, war and globalisation build upon the communicative strategies of older single issue campaigns such as the anti-criminal justice bill protests and the women's peace movement. She argues that such protest groups are dismissed in the mainstream for not articulating a 'unified position' and explores the way in which contemporary protesters stemming from different traditions maintain solidarity. Articulating Dissent investigates the ways in which this diversity, inherent to coalition protest, affects the movement of ideas from the political margins to the mainstream. In doing so this book offers an insightful and original analysis of the protest coalition as a developing political form.

1

Unmasking Domination

So, in sum: the media are not the holders of power but they constitute by and large the space where power is decided.

(Castells, 2007, p. 242)

The mainstream media have traditionally been hostile to polyvocal articulations of dissent (Hollingsworth, 1986). I argue that an explanation for this sense of distrust can be found in Jürgen Habermas’s influential model of the public sphere. As Habermas points out, the eighteenth-century bourgeois public sphere precipitated, and most successfully embodied, this aspirational ideal. Crucially this understanding of the public sphere depends upon a notion of an educated, coherent and, perhaps most importantly, an explicitly exclusive group of individuals. Unsurprisingly contemporary commentators have been highly critical of Habermas’s delineation of the boundaries which constitute the public sphere and have tried to address the exclusionary implications raised by his original conception.

Despite these serious reservations, Habermas’s model has generated much academic debate and is considered by theorists such as Fraser to be ‘indispensable to critical social theory and to democratic political practice’ (1990, p. 57). Garnham points out that the debates concerning the public sphere have focused on two particular problems. Firstly ‘on the nature of the public sphere (in particular was it one or many)’ and ‘secondly on the validity of Habermas’s concept of discourse ethics and communicative rationality as a normative test of “undistorted” communications’ (2007, p. 207). I discuss and develop these issues in relation to the media strategies of contemporary coalition protest movements. In doing so, I seek to re-examine some of the ‘binary fault lines’ which underpin the notion of the public sphere (Goode cited by Garnham, 2007, p. 208) and explore the ways in which they stifle articulations of polyvocal dissent.

The need to re-conceptualise the parameters which define the public sphere becomes particularly pressing when one considers the way in which Habermas ascribes so many of the problems traditionally associated with the erosion or disintegration of the public sphere to the movement of structures and systems across these boundaries. Thus, for example, the refeudalisation or ‘colonisation’ thesis outlined in Habermas’s later work states that the movement of instrumental rationality and information based communication forms from the systems world to the lifeworld will lead to the eventual corruption of the liberal bourgeois public sphere. However, as radical democratic commentators point out, declaring the public sphere to be a space of uncontaminated neutrality is not enough to make it so (Fraser, 1990). Moreover, such a declaration can belie the complexities and contradictions of the actual existing terrain and in doing so, obscure the power imbalances which structure supposedly universal discursive arenas. In these circumstances it can be argued that, rather than being of protective value, carefully demarcated boundaries may contribute to the preservation of an already corrupted power dynamic and therefore actively prevent potentially positive consequences.

The rise of coalition movements requires intellectuals from the radical left to reflect again upon the way in which different groups of protesters communicate with each other, and with a mainstream accustomed to more unified expressions of dissent. Whereas single-issue campaigns frequently pivot upon a grand ideological refusal, coalition campaigns tend to formulate around a series of smaller, more immediately achievable acts of resistance. Coalition activists therefore tend to foreground methodology in such a way as to enable groupings from very different ideological backgrounds to coalesce into fractured but generally united whole. These shifts have impacted upon the communications strategies of coalition movements in such a way as to require a re-conceptualisation of the theoretical models that traditionally frame our understanding of the public sphere.

This book argues that the need to combine solidarity and difference is of central importance to a notion of coalition politics and draws upon the work of radical democratic scholars such as Curran, Mouffe and Dahlberg to explore the complex network of us/them relationships that characterise both the intra and inter group communications of protest coalitions. Consequently this chapter extends and develops Habermas’s focus on communicative procedure and combines it with more rhizomatic understandings of the media environment. This synthesis creates a theoretical space in which coalition movements’ use of innovative and challenging protest methods can be better understood. As such Articulating Dissent will add to arguments that have appeared in recently published works such as @ is for Activism by moving beyond the notion of activism as a digitalised endeavour and engaging with a broader range of technological, cultural and political practices.

I will build on the work of scholars of alternative media such as Chris Atton (1999, 2002) and John Downing (1984, 1995, 2001) who argue that organisational differences underpin the relationship between alternative media and the political ‘mainstream’. These organisational differences will be explored within the context of rhizomatic media models first introduced by commentators such as Landow (1994) and Moulthrop (1994) in relation to the internet and then developed by authors such as Bailey, Cammaerts and Carpentier (2008) to include other alternative media forms.

This book aims to go beyond the ‘particualrism’ (Epstein, 1993, p. 241) of specific movements without losing the sense of fractured harmony that is so characteristic of coalition protest movements at the start of the twenty-first century. In doing so it also builds on the work of social movement scholars. Epstein points out that these theories emphasises the ‘diffuse, fragmentary quality’ of social movements at the turn of the twentieth century (p. 241). As such these movements are reluctant to impose a shared agenda upon the fragmentary multiplicity of elements through which they are constituted. Instead of prioritising agreed unity, there is a celebration of diversity and difference. This is not an entirely new phenomenon. As Calhoun points out, the commentators of today have a tendency to ‘vastly underestimate the diversity of earlier social movements’ (2012, p. 3)

This book therefore recognises that activists today, like activists in the past, can pose radical challenges to the status quo while also and at the same time being ‘moved by contradictory values and beliefs’ (Calhoun, 2012, p. 6). However it also suggests that contemporary coalition movements demonstrate a particular awareness of the need to manage difference in such a way as to make the inevitable conflicts politically productive. I would suggest that such awareness of the risks associated with coalition is typical of self-reflexive risk societies (Beck, 1992) in which the individual is acutely aware of their (in)ability to influence the worlds in which they live and distinguishes coalition protest movements from the social movements which have gone before.

In his review of the social movements, protest and mainstream media McCurdy (2012) argues that work in this field draws upon sociology, social movement studies, political sciences and media and communications, and can be divided into two approaches. The ‘representational’ which focuses on the way in which protest movements are framed in the mainstream media and the ‘relational’ which explores the media strategies of protest movements as they contest their media representations. This book brings together these two strands of scholarly interests into a single line of enquiry.

In doing so it develops elements taken from the study of alternative media, social movements in two interwoven directions over the next two chapters. Firstly, it extends rhizomatic models of media organisation to include the emergence of protest coalitions such as the anti-globalisation movement and the anti-war movement. Secondly, I follow Habermas in making a connection between methodological systems and structures (such as rational consensual deliberation) and ideological spaces (such as the liberal bourgeois public sphere). In this way I will argue that a rhizomatic understanding of political communication can be developed into a model of the public sphere, which accommodates rather than laments the nature of contemporary public spheres.

This chapter begins by exploring the ways in which dominant/subordinate binary pairings have shaped the liberal bourgeois model of the public sphere. It questions Habermas’s emphasis on the strict separation of the lifeworld and the systems world and examines the ways in which Fraser’s notion of overlapping ‘dual aspect activities’ (1987) complicates many of the theoretical divisions which constitute the liberal bourgeois model. Thus, it foregrounds the possibility of movement between both the different elements of contemporary protest coalitions, and between those coalitions as a whole and the mainstream. In this way it begins to suggest that a re-conceptualisation of the parameters which define the liberal bourgeois public sphere may create a model of the public sphere more able to accommodate the fractious and fractured boundaries which characterise the postmodern political environment.

Sections two and three of this chapter offer a contextualised and detailed account of some of the ‘binary fault lines’ (Goode, 2005, p. 113) which are particularly significant to the media strategies of multiplatform or coalition protest organisations. Both of these sections are structured around a number of binary opposites such as inclusion/exclusion, consensus/conflict, reason/passion and artifice/authenticity. I have chosen to focus on these boundaries in an attempt to illustrate the usefulness, both academically and politically, of an approach which foregrounds the blurring of binary distinctions. Therefore, while these two sections retain their theoretical focus they also seek to examine the issues raised in far greater detail than a purely abstract debate could allow. In this way I endeavour to demonstrate the usefulness of a public sphere model which could accommodate the articulation of polyvocal dissent.

In ‘The Pressure of the Streets’ I will examine the way in which Jürgen Habermas’s emphasis on a single overarching arena can be particularly problematic for political activists and will explore the way in which a more contemporary reworking of the classical liberal model allows for a more flexible understanding of the public sphere. I argue that the International Encounter for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism which took place in 1996 in Chiapas, Mexico can be understood as a model of the ways in which coalition protest movements establish a ‘common space’ (Mouffe, 2005, p. 52) away from the ‘supervision of dominant groups’ (Fraser, 1990, p. 66) in which a diversity of consensuses can be reflected upon.

Section three, ‘Public Frictions’, then focuses on the relationship between differing forms of discourse within and between spheres. It suggests that traditional public sphere theory’s tendency to privilege conversation and the written word not only fails to accommodate the needs of a mass democracy but actively excludes modes of address which could – potentially – reinvigorate political debate. These arguments are contextualised by examining the place of demonstrative events within the public sphere, focusing in particular on the way in which these communicative forms blur the distinction between reality and unreality, substance and surface. This sense of duality contributes to, rather than detracts from, the development of contemporary public spheres. Finally this section combines a theoretical understanding of communicative discourses with a historical approach which examines the ways in which changing technologies have contributed to contemporary understandings of the public sphere. These two strands interweave to create a model in which emotion and non-verbal forms of political communication, such as those employed by contemporary protest coalitions, can be effectively accommodated.

Divide and Rule

Those that seek to dominate and rule our lives rely on keeping us apart. If you think you’re alone in your desires, you’re less likely to act. Divide and rule. Tolerate single issues but don’t let them join up.

Wat Tyler (protester pseudonym), 2003, p. 195

Public sphere theory has ‘a long history and deep roots . . . within Western post-enlightenment thought’ and is therefore structured around a series of complex and interrelated binary oppositions such as feelings/reason, freedom/power and action/structure (Garnham, 2000, 174). John Durham Peters (1993) argues that these categorisations developed the earlier threefold models of civil society established by philosophers such as Hegel and created a space in which a more flexible understanding of the public sphere could be conceived. This enabled theorists to ‘schematically locate the bourgeois public sphere in a fourfold table’ and, in doing so, neatly map out some of the (many) borders which circumscribe the classical liberal public sphere (p. 557). Peters illustrates the benefits of such an approach in the following grid which maps out the relationships between Habermas’s concept of the lifeworld (characterised by lived everyday human experiences) and the system world (characterised by the media of money and power).

The lifeworld/systems world binary is then further dissected by the introduction of a private/public divide which distinguishes between the particular interests of the individual and those of society as a whole. In this way the ‘fourfold scheme’ illuminates the lifeworld/systems, public/private nuances which underpin the notion of the bourgeois public sphere with ‘more subtlety’ and to greater ‘effect’ than previous models (Peters, 1993, p. 557).

Taken from Peters (1993), p. 557.

The carefully demarcated boundaries outlined in the table serve two primary functions. Firstly, they create an empty space within the lifeworld which private individuals occupy in order to organise themselves as ‘the bearer of public opinion’ (Habermas, 1974 p. 50). Secondly, they preserve and protect this space from the insidious and infectious influences of money and power in the systems world beyond. However there are problems inherent to this formulation of the public sphere. These problems are acknowledged by Peters and further explored by Garnham who argues that, far from being a neutral zone, the concept of a public sphere necessarily foregrounds our ‘deep unease’ over the ‘conceptual difficulties’ raised by binary pairings such as feeling/reason, personal/political and freedom/power (2000, p. 174). Thus while the liberal bourgeois model clearly offers more subtle theoretical inflections, its dependence on the strict maintenance of boundary definitions creates a new series of problems.

Garnham describes binary pairings such as the private/public distinction as ‘value vectors’ (2000, p. 174). His use of the word ‘vector’ is significant because it highlights the way in which the relationship between the two elements of any pairing – as well as the definition of each individual element – is liminal and in flux. This sense of ambivalence seems to exist on both a historical and a philosophical level. Thus Garnham describes how the term ‘private’ has changed and developed historically from feudal to modern eras. He also describes the way in which ‘classical liberal’ theorists and theorists from a ‘classic civic republican tradition’ have deployed the term ‘private’ in fundamentally differing ways (2000, pp. 175–6). In both instances it becomes clear that the parameters, which define and delineate the ‘private realm’ are neither static nor exact but constantly evolving. Consequently the theoretical terrain that underpins the neat and tidy constitutive boundaries of the analytic grid reveals itself to be both uncertain and unstable.

A number of scholars have sought to disrupt the boundaries and borders of classical public sphere theory by focusing on historically subordinated social groupings such as women (Benhabib, 1992) and the proletarian (Negt and Kluge, 1993). Fraser’s work on the ‘masculine subtext on the citizen role’ (1987, p. 45) and her critique of ‘actually existing democracy in late capitalist societies’ (1990, p. 77) has been particularly influential within this field. Moreover her more recent work on the implicitly Westphalian nature of the public sphere (2007) has highlighted a previously unconsidered series of ‘tacitly assumed’ boundaries which ‘frame’ the notion of that sphere. The sustained emphasis on the need to ‘expose the limits of the specific form of democracy we enjoy in contemporary capitalist societies’ makes Fraser’s work of particular relevance to this book (1990, p. 77).

In ‘What’s Critical about Critical Theory?’, Nancy Fraser re-examined the way in which Habermas’s classical model cleanly allocates symbolic and material production to isolated quadrants of the fourfold structure, arguing that symbolic and material reproduction – like many other constitutive elements of the public sphere such as ‘socially integrated’ and ‘systems integrated’ action contexts, ‘normatively assured’ and ‘communicatively achieved’ outcomes – are in fact dual activities. She concludes by maintaining that ‘Habermas misses important cross connections among the four elements of his public-private schemata’ and maintains that feminine and masculine gender identity run like pink and blue threads through . . . all arenas of life’ (1987, p. 45). Despite these reservations Fraser maintains that ‘public sphere theory is in principle an important critical-conceptual resource that should be restructured rather than jettisoned, if possible’ (2007, p. 9).

Consequently in ‘Re-thinking the public sphere: a contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy’ Fraser rejects Habermas’s notion of a single, reason-based public sphere in favour of a multiplicity of themed spheres standing in a contested relation to each other. This creates a theoretical space for the notion of subaltern spheres which Fraser describes as ‘parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counter discourses’ (1990, p. 67). Fraser goes on to argue that the subaltern spheres have two functions. Firstly ‘they function as spaces for withdrawal and regroupment’ which enable countercultural groups to ‘formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests and needs’ (1990, p. 68). She illustrates the functions of subaltern public spheres in stratified societies by discussing the way in which the ‘intra public’ relation...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. Unmasking Domination
• 2. The Paradox of the Frontier
• 3. Networked Uprisings
• 4. Into the Streets
• 5. Unsettling Spaces
• 6. Austerity Measures and National Narrative
• Conclusion
• Bibliography and Sources
• Index