The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society

What is Twitter

Modern Graph Theory

We analyze the betweenness centrality (BC) of nodes in large complex networks. In general, the BC is increasing with connectivity as a power law with an exponent $\eta$. We find that for trees or networks with a small loop density $\eta=2$ while a larger density of loops leads to $\eta<2$. For scale-free networks characterized by an exponent $\gamma$ which describes the connectivity distribution decay, the BC is also distributed according to a power law with a non universal exponent $\delta$. We show that this exponent $\delta$ must satisfy the exact bound $\delta\geq (\gamma+1)/2$. If the scale free network is a tree, then we have the equality $\delta=(\gamma+1)/2$.

Betweenness Centrality in Large Complex Networks

\"Beyond Feminist Aesthetics\" has a dual focus. First, Rita Felski gives a critical account of current American and European feminist literary theory, and second, she offers an analysis of contemporary fiction by women, drawing in particular on the genres of the autobiographical confession and the novel of self-discovery, in order to show that this literature raises questions for feminism that cannot be answered in terms of a purely gender based analysis.Felski argues that the idea of a feminist aesthetic is a nonissue that feminists have needlessly pursued; she suggests, in contrast, that it is impossible to speak of \"masculine\" and \"feminine,\" \"subversive\" and \"reactionary\" literary forms in isolation from the social conditions of their production and reception. The political value of such works of literature from the standpoint of feminism can be determined only by an investigation of their social functions and effects in relation to the interests of women in a particular historical context. This leads her to argue for an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of literature which can integrate literary and social theory, and to develop such an approach by drawing upon the model of a feminist counter-public sphere.Rita Felski has produced a closely reasoned, stimulating book that creates a new framework for discussing the relationship between literature and feminist politics. It will interest students and teachers of women's studies, comparative literature, cultural studies, and fiction.

Beyond Feminist Aesthetics: Feminist Literature and Social Change

In this article we investigate the hijacking of the Twitter hashtag #myNYPD following the launch of a public relations campaign by the New York City Police Department in April of 2014. Theorizing networked counterpublics, we examine how Twitter was used as a platform to generate and promote counterpublic narratives about racial profiling and police misconduct. Through a combination of large-scale network analysis and qualitative discourse analysis, we detail counterpublic structure and leadership, discursive strategies deployed by crowdsourced elites, and the reception of counterpublic activism in mainstream media. We conclude with implications for understanding the evolving nature of counterpublics, with particular consideration to the roles of new and old media in (re)shaping public debates around marginalization, profiling, and policing.

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Hijacking #myNYPD: Social Media Dissent and Networked Counterpublics

On the afternoon of 9 August 2014, 18-year-old Michael ‘Mike’ Brown was shot and killed by Officer Darren Wilson in the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri. Brown's body lay in the street for four and a half hours, and during that time, his neighbors and friends took to social media to express fear, confusion, and outrage. We locate early tweets about Ferguson and the use of the hashtag #Ferguson at the center of a counterpublic network that provoked and shaped public debates about race, policing, governance, and justice. Extending theory on networked publics, we examine how everyday citizens, followed by activists and journalists, influenced the #Ferguson Twitter network with a focus on emergent counterpublic structure and discursive strategy. We stress the importance of combining quantitative and qualitative methods to identify early initiators of online dissent and story framing. We argue that initiators and their discursive contributions are often missed by methods that collapse longitud...

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#Ferguson is everywhere: initiators in emerging counterpublic networks

#HashtagActivism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice

In this research, we examine the advocacy and community building of transgender women on Twitter through methods of network and discourse analysis and the theory of networked counterpublics. By highlighting the network structure and discursive meaning making of the #GirlsLikeUs network, we argue that the digital labor of trans women, especially trans women of color, represents the vanguard of struggles over self-definition. We find that trans women on Twitter, led by Janet Mock and Laverne Cox, and in response to histories of misrepresentation and ongoing marginalization and violence, deliberately curate an intersectional networked counterpublic that works to legitimize and support trans identities and advocate for trans autonomy in larger publics and counterpublics.

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#GirlsLikeUs: Trans advocacy and community building online:

In this paper, we examine online friendships at a network level. We focus on three structural signatures: network size, balance (triangles), and age homophily in the friendship ego-networks of 30 users of the virtual world Second Life. In relation to previous findings from studies of offline friendship networks, our results reveal that online networks are similar in age-homophily, but significantly different in size and balance.

http://dmrussell.net/CHI2010/docs/p4027.pdf

Brooke Foucault Welles

Papers

Hijacking #myNYPD: Social Media Dissent and Networked Counterpublics

#Ferguson is everywhere: initiators in emerging counterpublic networks

#HashtagActivism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice

#GirlsLikeUs: Trans advocacy and community building online:

Is a friend a friend?: investigating the structure of friendship networks in virtual worlds