Kunuk took it to the streets of Greenland

Single-issue protests in a young online democracy

Bibliographic Data

ID20508749
AuthorsAndreas Møller Jørgensen (0000-0002-8813-039X, Ilisimatusarfik, University of Greenland, Nuuk, Greenland, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume20
Issue8
Pages1204-1219
Publication date2017-08-03
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInformation Communication & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1369-118X • E-ISSN: 1468-4462
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1369118x.2016.1226919
OpenAlexW2508499210
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited16

Single-issue protests and online mobilization have proliferated in the wake of social media. While significant ground has been covered regarding the changing possibilities for mobilization, the question of how specific circumstances condition the political impact of online mobilization and public protests has received much less attention. During the last couple of years, Greenlanders have increasingly employed Facebook to mobilize the populace and arrange public demonstrations with noteworthy results. Arguing that single-issue protests cannot be separated from the issues they are concerned with, the paper explores how a single and potential trivial political issue – a new parliament building – developed from a prestige project supported by a nearly unanimous Parliament into a public-contested issue and a failed political project. The paper invokes Actor-Network Theory to account for the trajectory of the issue and how it was translated along the way as actors built and broke alliances. The concepts of mobilizing structures, opportunity structures and framing processes are employed to shed light on the conditions of possibilities for the emergence, development and impact of the protest against the parliament building. Finally, the paper discusses social media’s impact on the image of politically engaged Inuit and on the power relations between citizens and parliament in Greenland. This discussion is of paramount importance as Greenlanders are struggling with their colonial heritage while they are constructing Greenlandic democracy

Democracy · Media studies · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Law · Social Media and Politics