Authors:Gino Canella Pages: 1 - 17 Abstract: Union organising is surging in the United States, especially among younger workers in the service industries. This article examines this uptick in labour organising through a case study of Starbucks Workers United (SBWU). I studied this campaign from March to December 2022 using a variety of online and offline methods: conducting twenty-three in-depth interviews with SBWU organisers; attending strikes, direct actions, and planning meetings; and following these groups on social media. This study addresses two main questions: How are SBWU organisers communicating unionisation with their co-workers and to broader publics' And, how are social media influencing workers’ organising practices' Despite claims that social media are “a great radicaliser”, this study demonstrates how workers were politicised by their material conditions in an industrialising workplace. While media helped organisers amplify their messages and recruit new members, the social relationships among organisers were central to SBWU’s early growth. By detailing how organisers navigated the contradictions within networked media, this study shows how worker-led campaigns like SBWU are reshaping the structure and composition of the US labour movement. PubDate: 2023-01-25 DOI: 10.31269/triplec.v21i1.1358 Issue No:Vol. 21, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Mahima Singh, Akshaya Kumar Pages: 18 - 32 Abstract: The Indian television industry is transforming via an increasing number of Over-the-Top (OTT) platforms. This shift from broadcast to OTT has given rise to research assessing the impact on the television ecosystem. With the case of Star Network, this study examines how the emergence of live sports streaming has affected the power dynamics in the sports broadcasting ecosphere. This study employs the Critical Political Economy framework to address the following question: How do television-based media conglomerates – and by extension television itself – negotiate the challenge of Internet-based digital media in India' Keeping the focus on sports live-streaming services, we study the transition from Star television network to Disney+ Hotstar, its corresponding OTT platform. We however argue that the Political Economy of Communication holds its ground despite the apparently disruptive promise of web-based platforms. Despite the Internet posing new challenges in terms of distribution networks, media conglomerates find a way to convert their dominance of the television industry into the OTT space. PubDate: 2023-02-21 DOI: 10.31269/triplec.v21i1.1395 Issue No:Vol. 21, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Eduardo Maia Pages: 33 - 40 Abstract: This article reviews the book Internet for the People: The Fight for Our Digital Future by Ben Tarnoff. PubDate: 2023-03-09 DOI: 10.31269/triplec.v21i1.1401 Issue No:Vol. 21, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Daniel Sullivan Pages: 41 - 50 Abstract: This essay reviews the anthology Siegfried Kracauer: Selected Writings on Media, Propaganda, and Political Communication (2022), edited and with translations by Jaeho Kang, Graeme Gilloch, and John Abromeit. The editors describe the volume as "a selection of Kracauer’s diverse materials on propaganda and political communication – texts hitherto unavailable in English or strewn among different […] journals, periodicals, and magazines" (2). Beyond this, Selected Writings presents readers and scholars with an opportunity to re-evaluate the legacy of Siegfried Kracauer, particularly in connection with the strands of mutual influence and parallel thought between his work and the development of early Frankfurt School critical theory. The volume contains remarkable and largely unpublished work on totalitarian propaganda in film; the manipulative devices of the U.S. advertising industry of the 1940s and 50s; and philosophy of science in the area of sociologically informed empirical research. PubDate: 2023-04-05 DOI: 10.31269/triplec.v21i1.1405 Issue No:Vol. 21, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Jernej Amon Prodnik Pages: 51 - 73 Abstract: Capitalism has become so naturalised in recent decades that there seems to exist little to no alternative to it. Common acceptance of this social formation begs the basic question of how particular systems are legitimised. In this paper, I look at some legitimation mechanisms at play by focusing on the capitalist tendency to ideologically appropriate criticism emerging from social struggles. I draw on the study The New Spirit of Capitalism by Boltanski and Chiapello and the cool capitalism thesis put forward by McGuigan. Both provide a basis for a case study of two advertising campaigns by Slovenia’s biggest mobile network operators. During the period of mass uprisings following the 2008/09 economic crisis, the two operators harnessed the symbolism of resistance in their advertising targeted at young people. In each case, the messages of the protests in the ads were deradicalised and largely stripped of any meaningful political content. While it is clear the advertising industry plays an important systemic role in capitalism, the two case studies hint at another way that advertisements can help perpetuate the system: by reinterpreting the critical messages emerging from within society, they become neutralised, with the critical voices thereby becoming more easily integrated into the capitalist social structure. PubDate: 2023-04-05 DOI: 10.31269/triplec.v21i1.1403 Issue No:Vol. 21, No. 1 (2023)
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