“Yes We Vote”: Civic Mobilisation and Impulsive Engagement on Instagram

Abstract

Social media have become increasingly central to civic mobilisation and protest movements around the world. Emotions, symbols, self-presentation and visual communication are emerging as key components of networked individualism and connective action by affective publics challenging established political norms. These emerging repertoires have the potential to reignite civic engagement, although their coherence and sustainability have been questioned. We explore these phenomena through an examination of Instagram use during the 2014 Romanian presidential election. Voting irregularities during the 1st round, particularly affecting the diaspora, gave rise to an impulsive civic movement utilising social media to express solidarity and drive turnout in the 2nd round. Using an original coding framework, we look at how narratives of identity, community and engagement were visually constructed by users on Instagram; the activities, settings, spaces, objects and emotions that comprised this multi-authored story. Our analysis reveals the creation of a loose “me too” collective: an emotionally charged hybrid of self-presentation and participation in a shared moment of historic significance, which otherwise lacked particular norms, political agendas or hierarchies. The civic movement on Instagram materialised primarily through photos documenting the act of voting; an imagined community that combined co-presence in physical space with virtual solidarity through photos of ballots, flags and landmarks. The platform appears to favour impulsive, symbolic and affective expression rather than rational or critical dialogue. As in other cases of post-systemic grassroots engagement, individuals came together for a short period of time and expressed the need for change, although this remained largely an abstract signifier.

KEYWORDS:

• affective publics
• civic mobilisation
• connective action
• identity
• Instagram
• social media
• Romania

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank Ana Alania, Auguste Janutaite and Sofie Edlund for their assistance with the research.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Ana Adi https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2438-5764

Roman Gerodimos https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6284-727X

Notes

1 The coding sheet is available online at http://www.romangerodimos.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/YesWeVote.pdf.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ana Adi

Ana Adi is Professor of Public Relations/Corporate Communications at Quadriga University of Applied Sciences, Berlin. Email: [email protected].

Roman Gerodimos

Roman Gerodimos is Principal Academic in Global Current Affairs at Bournemouth University, UK, and a faculty member at the Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change.

Darren G. Lilleker

Darren G. Lilleker is Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Politics & Media Research in the Faculty of Media and Communication, Bournemouth University. Email: [email protected].