Understanding the Social Movement as Meme

Discussion

Aaron Peters:

"Understanding the Social Movement as Meme

One can understand the social movement as a distinct process through which actors engage in collective action of a socially and politically 'contentious' nature. They meet the following criteria:

(a) an involvement in conflicting relations with clearly identified 'opponents'

(b) a linking together by dense informal networks (these used to be offline and now are increasingly online as well)

(c ) the sharing among participants, and those sympathetic to participants’ demands, of a distinct collective identity

If one accepts the premise that ideas, symbols and practices are culturally disseminated through memes, then memetics may prove to exercise an impact on how successful social movements turn out to be. If all that is required is a shared identity, a shared political antagonism, informal networks and a particular set of protest 'repertoires' (tactics) then it is possible to reduce social movements to an identity, an antagonism and a practice, all of which can be seen as memes.

With the #oct15 and #occupy movements, the tactics of square occupations have been memetically reproduced, as have a particular identity and antagonism. While all groups are heterogeneous, there are clear genealogies of practice and symbol that can be extricated from Tahrir to the 15m movement in Spain to Occupy Wall Street and finally the #oct15 movement. Likewise we have seen certain memes in student movements across the globe. This is the case in both demands over 'another education being possible' in Chile, France, Greece, Italy, the UK and the US (as well as elsewhere) and also in 'tactics', such as the paintbomb or book bloc, which has been reproduced rapidly on the streets of Rome, London, Santiago, Manchester, Bogota, San Francisco, Paris and Berlin. 'Methods of best practice' (for want of a better term) in protest and political contention are quickly disseminated in the distributed networks of the Network Society."

The Internet and the Transformation of Memetic Reproduction

How the #occupy movement disseminates could well be the first major bellweather of just how quickly radical critique, symbol and most importantly practice spreads via online networks and is translated into offline action.

Among all the ambiguity and heterogeneous demands of the #occupy movement we should hold back from being overly critical and dogmatic in presumption and analysis. How it will unfold is anyone's guess and all I can say is that after the last year in global social movements nothing surprises me any more. The changes we will see with how the distributed network impacts the existing social and political apparatus through its impact on political, cultural and social memes could be as big as those it affected the last time the 'software' changed with the rise of typographic print and the printing press. Then, too, memetic reproduction of symbols and practice qualitatively sped up - the consequences were the Reformation, the nation-state, scientific rationalism and the formation of the Habermasian public sphere. This time we may again see truly epic social change accompany the adoption of a new medium that speeds up memetic reproduction of movements. We are only at the beginning, however - bear in mind that after the arrival of the printing press the first pornographic novels came about within a few years, while the first regularised scientific journals took a little over a century.

The next few days and weeks may offer the first manifestation of just how changed contentious collective action, on a global level, becomes when mediated by distributed networks and many-to-many forms of digital communication. My impression is that the last year, as well as subsequent years to come, will show that how the 'people' make demands on political power is changing beyond all recognition. Where it ends is possibly with a challenge to national, parliamentary democracy itself. Within the information abundance of the distributed network of the internet, institutions built in previous eras of information scarcity will increasingly no longer make sense. The software is obsolete; things fall apart, the centre cannot hold." (http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/aaron-peters/reproduction-of-movements-without-organisation-ukuncut-ows-occupymovement)

Example

UK Uncut as Meme

Aaron Peters:

A primary example of how social movements as memes can operate within the network society for British audiences is UKUncut. As the 'about' blurb reads on their homepage:

- On October 27th 2010, just one week after George Osborne announced the deepest cuts to public services since the 1920s, around 70 people ran down Oxford Street entered Vodafone's flagship store and sat down. We had shut down tax-dodging Vodafone’s flagship store…

…At that point, UK Uncut only existed as #ukuncut, a hashtag someone had dreamed up the night before the protest. As we sat in the doorway, chanting and handing leaflets to passers by, the hashtag began to trend around the UK and people began to talk about replicating our action. The idea was going 'viral'. The seething anger about the cuts had found an outlet. Just three days later and close to thirty Vodafone stores had been closed around the country.

The claim that UKUncut was 'just a hashtag' was, although humble, fundamentally incorrect. After the first action UKUncut already possessed the elements to become a social movement capable of imitation and reproduction. Firstly, it had a shared identity of participants - British taxpayers or those opposed to tax avoidance and who favoured progressive general taxation as the fairest way of funding collective forms of health and work insurance as well as education and elderly care.

Secondly, it had isolated a point of political antagonism and an 'enemy' - multinational companies and high net worth individuals who sought to avoid tax or minimize costs of tax through clandestine (albeit legal) means. Thirdly, it had the ability through online platforms such as Twitter to disseminate through informal networks very quickly. Fourthly, its chosen tactic of protest - closing down high street outlets of tax-avoiding multinationals such as Vodafone and Boots - was easily replicable on any British high-street.

One can easily isolate the areas that render UKUncut a social movement capable of being easily replicated. The costs of entry are low and hence high participation resulted, just like with the #occupy movement. The ease with which to replicate such action, antagonism and shared identity meant that UKUncut was, without the initial participants perhaps recognising it, the perfect example of how a social movement as meme might go 'viral'.

It is of course arguable as to whether or not UKUncut remains 'memetically' reproduced. I would contend not and would instead hold it increasingly closer to a traditional social movement organisation with a permanent secretariat. Initially, however, it was generated and regenerated in a very similar manner to the #occupy movements in Acampa da Sol, Wall Street and now London. UKUncut was a paradigmatic example of the social movement as memetically reproduced by online communication and offline affinity groups and action." (http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/aaron-peters/reproduction-of-movements-without-organisation-ukuncut-ows-occupymovement)