Social Mobilization and the Networked Public Sphere: Mapping the SOPA-PIPA Debate

This article investigates the public debate over proposed U.S. legislation designed to give prosecutors and copyright holders new tools to pursue suspected online copyright violations. We compiled, mapped, and analyzed a set of 9,757 stories published over 16 months relevant to the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). This study applies a mixed-methods approach that combines text and link analysis with human coding and informal interviews to map the evolution of the controversy over time and to analyze the mobilization, roles, and interactions of various actors. We find a vibrant, diverse, and decentralized networked public sphere that exhibited broad participation, leveraged topical expertise, and successfully reframed a debate and focused public sentiment to shape national public policy. A network of small-scale commercial tech media, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and individuals fulfilled the fourth estate function; traditional media then amplified the work of these actors. The campaign involved substantial experimentation and rapid development of mobilization strategies. We observe an increased public awareness of an agenda originating in the networked public sphere, which emerged successfully despite substantial expenditures attempting to produce a mass media narrative that favored the legislation. Moreover, we witness what we call an attention backbone, in which more trafficked sites amplify less-visible individual voices on specific subjects. The data suggest that, at least in this case, the networked public sphere enabled a dynamic public discourse that involved both individual and organizational participants and offered substantive discussion of complex issues contributing to affirmative political action.     

‘Reform dissonance’ in the modern rentier state: how are divergent economic agendas affecting state-business relations in Saudi Arabia?

ABSTRACT

Large fiscal deficits brought about by the decline in oil prices in late 2014 and long-standing challenges with youth unemployment have been two of the dominant underlying pressures driving economic policy in Saudi Arabia in recent years. In decades past, issues of unemployment were addressed through public sector hiring, but with increasingly limited resources, these old mechanisms are becoming less viable, giving way to a post-distributive policy environment. By exploring the dual pressures being exerted on the state by high levels of unemployment on the one hand and large fiscal deficits on the other, the resulting, seemingly contradictory policy outcomes are identified, examined, and contextualized in this paper. ‘Reform dissonance’ is the term used to describe the complex picture that emerges, where the private sector is confronted with a confusing policy landscape resulting from liberal and statist economic agendas being pursued simultaneously and in the absence of significant coordination. In particular, this chapter argues that this phenomenon of ‘reform dissonance’—contradictory policy outcomes resulting from the lack of coordination between different reform initiatives—is manifested in persisting public sector entitlements, the crowding-out effect by SOEs, and the persisting mismatch between the pace of human capital development and labour nationalization quotas.