| Description |
Networked communication technology has intensified protests around the world. Recent contestations of power and resistance since the 2011 Occupy Wall Street have unfolded with the visuals of loosely organized gatherings. These visuals displaced a hunger strike or mass rallies with speeches and blurred the lines between online and on the street. It has been debated whether Internet and social media platforms foster or curtail democracy. Departing from cyber utopian views and the logocentric Habermasian public sphere, The Visualization of Protests in Digital Age: The Rhizomatic Activism in Thailand addresses how self-organized activism in Thailand reconfigures the spectacles of peoples resistance in the digital age. Based on Deleuze, Guattari and Latours concepts of network, Thai people innovated different networks of resistanceassemblages of people, cultural practices, symbols from popular culture, visuals, and alliances. This project focuses on the visuals of protests, introduced and disseminated on social media platforms. These visuals succinctly exert force in political contestation, advocacy and participation. Chapter 1 discusses Deleuze and Guattaris concept of rhizomes that can be used to rethink social movements with networked communication technology. The chapter also features the research questions, theoretical framework of social movements, visual communication and the Internet as the fertile grounds of contestation, background of Thai political turbulence and chapter overview. Chapter 2 examines the public performances of the violence of the 2010 crackdown and how protesters created lines of flight, forging networks of resistance. Chapter 3 illustrates how people engaged in politics by means of visuals such as memes to co-create meanings of events, advocate for political actions, contest truths and participate in cultural production. Chapter 4 analyzes the transformation of protests under severe military suppression. People adopted symbolic acts and appropriation of gestures from popular culture to amplify their acts defying the coup makers. Chapter 5 concludes with the discussion on media technology and the posthumanist ontology in examining the visuals of resistance, challenges and limitations in the digital technology. The findings of this dissertation show that activism in the digital age is rhizomatic, adaptive to suppression and unfolding in ever-changing transformations. |
