The contribution Alexander Banfield-Mumb and I have submitted to the conferences has been accepted!
Networking Democracy – New Media Innovations in Participatory Politics
25-27 June 2010, Cluj | Romania
Abstract:
The Revolution won’t be Televised!
Austrian Student Protests 2009 and the Role of Online Media
On October 22nd 2009, the Audimax, Austria’s largest lecture hall, has been occupied by hundreds of students to demonstrate for better study conditions. Further occupations in Austrian and German university cities followed shortly after, most of them lasting for weeks. Traditionally, student protests in Austria are organized and carried out by the Austrian Students’ Union (ÖH), a legal body that represents the interests of over 290.000 students throughout Austria. For the last decade students have been rather passive and were less enthusiastic to express and represent their interests.
This time the ÖH was barely involved in that protest mobilization. Instead, the demonstration and subsequent occupation of the Audimax was organized primarily by students who were disappointed and frustrated by the current university and education system and who informed each other via Internet and SMS. Several online platforms (mainly twitter and facebook), as well as text messaging, were used to coordinate and mobilize students, to inform them when and where demonstrations or other protest activities took place. Within few hours hundreds of students in Vienna self-organized and occupied the major lecture hall of the University of Vienna. Twitter and facebook were the first services used, other platforms like websites including blogs and wikis, live video streams, and chats etc. emerged shortly after. The participants of the demonstration and occupation were informed via online social networks or text messages, as there was no information provided in other media such as TV or newspapers. It took some time until traditional media coverage announced the student protests. Only after gaining broad public awareness, the national public service broadcaster ORF started with some minor reports on the protests in the late night news, other TV and radio announcements and newspaper articles followed. Meanwhile the media coverage entitles the student protest as “Student Protests 2.0″, “The Revolution is twittered”, or “Revolution 2.0″, which lets assume that there is an increasing awareness about the use of online social media in the protest activities from a broader audience.
In our paper we describe and analyze the use of online media during the Austrian student protests from October to December 2009 and their contribution for a participatory culture. The aim of our paper is to find out about the correlation and mutual influence of offline and online activities regarding the current student protests and how the support of online media contributes to the livability and sustainability of a student protest culture and to new forms of participation in a democratic society.
Based on literature review and theoretical concepts on political participation, cyberprotest, student protest etc., we discuss the democratic potential of online media exemplified on the Austrian student protests in fall 2009. We will evaluate how online media and social networking services influenced the Austrian student protest culture. A comprehensive dataset, including quantitative data and qualitative material such as newspaper coverage, chat logs, video material, facebook wall posts and tweets are available to analyze the potential and limits of online supported political activism in this “Student Revolution 2.0″.
