- 1. HARD ROCK HALLELUJAH POLITICKING ON THE INTERNET WITH
MONSTERS TAPIO HYHTI & JARMO RINNE
2. Politics emerging from the monstrous band 3. Anticipated
miracle : The Finnish Victory of Eurovision song contest
- Eurovision as a part of Finnish identity constructing
- From zero points to overwhelming victory
- How the monster rock band Lordi became a political topic?
4. From conservative comments to apotheosis
- March 2006 winning of the Finnish Eurovision televoting
selection: accusation of satanism and sacrilege against Finnish
reputation
- May 20th 2006 the victory of Eurovision song contests final new
direction of Lordi-politics
5. Politicised pictures A
- Mr. Lordis strong appeal to media for not publishing unmasked
pictures of the band
- Commercial photo hunt: within few days unmasked photos
published in European media. In Finland: 23.5.Aamulehti (daily
newspaper) , 24.5.Seitsemn piv ( 7 days:gossip magazine) ,Hmeen
Sanomat (daily newspaper) , and 26.5.Katso !(LOOK!:gossip magazine)
,
6. Politicised pictures B
- Shock reaction among the citizens expressions of disappointment
and anger on the Net.
- Online discussions raised a web movement targeting the
press
- Gossip magazines and their publishers attacked more intensively
than daily papers
7. Political action
- emerges in timeand spaces
- action = set ofintendedacts in certainspacewithtemporal dur
anddirection
- Meanings and direction of action unfold through time from
now/present towards future (Objective time)
- What has been passed through nothingness and emerges into being
and through becoming manifests into real beingAction takes place in
temporal-spatial reality
8. PASSING OF THE OBJECTIVE TIME (Hegel)
- BEING (Sein)EMERGING BEING THERE
9. Subjective time and political action A
- Action is not just a single, atomistic act, but interconnected
set of actsin time through which actors arepromoting their
preferences, priorities, goals, and values
- The essential feature in acting politically is to conquer the
future (Arendt 1958, Lappalainen 1995) ;the purpose is to win
peoples hearts
- In subjective time experience related to political action the
role of making political judgement is stresseddirects the course of
action
10. Subjective time and political action B
- In a subjective time experience political actor consider the
direction, achievements and ends of their respective action in
interplay in which the pastexperience historyandfuturesexpectation
horizonsare fusing within the subjective consciousness. Thus, on
the focus is the subject and the nature of her/his time experience
in the past-present-future continuum. This happens in an
objectivenow/present, in which the decisive political judgement is
conducted
11. Subjective time experience: the moment of political
judgement
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-
-
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- PASTPRESENTFUTURE (TO COME)
-
-
-
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- lived time flows through subject (adapted from van Gelder 1999,
changes JR)
Subjectiveconsciousness 12. Time for political action
- distinction betweenkronos -time andkairos -time. Kronos =
chronological, measurable time (objective); kairos = a moment to
act, auspicious/golden opportunity to achieve desirable
outcomes
- The kairos-moment in Lordi-case: repressed dislike towards
gossip-journalism outbursted because of the publishing unmasked
photos of the monster band
- The defamation of Lordi offers an opportunity to express
personal opinion and aversion about profit hunting commercial
journalism
13. New forms of action A
- The online forum of the Hmeen Sanomat closed for a day because
of exceptionally active discussion and contacting (Swarming); net
petition against the paper approximately 1700 names. Aamulehti
manage to avoid the attacks
14. New forms of actionB
- Massive swarming on the Net: boycott 7 Days petition
- 220 000 names on the Netpetition in few days
- Boycott 7 site: links to cancellation of the Aller magazine
subscriptions; links to 7 days discussion forum, editorial email,
and web feedback form, personal contact information of the
editorial staff, a template how to refuse direct marketing
15. New forms of action C:
- VOTELORDI.ORG mobilisedTurn the Seven Upside down/Turn the
Allers Upside down
- Site also encouraged people to send photos of their activity in
this campaign
- Yahoos Flickr site 153 photos submitted in votelordis photo
folder
- The campaing was succesful: Seven Days were turned upside down
in their selling stands (the snowball-effect)
16. New forms of action D:
- VIRTUAL SIT-INS targeted to the sites of Seven Days and
Look!
- Constant page clicking and reloading, filling the discussion
forums and feedback forms blocked user interfaces during few days
after publishing the unmasked Lordi-photos
- Public pressure towars the editorial staff of the Seven Days
and advertisers of the magazine filling up the e-mailboxes
- Seven Days considered legal acts against Lordi-activists
17. ACTION EMERGED ON THE NET
- Appeal to join the demonstration against Seven Days were
manifested on many websites: 3 people showed up
- Most intensive phase of the protest was in the end of May. In
June protest passed away
18. Temporal aspects of Internet-politics A
- In real world acting or sharing something together requires
co-presence, i.e. sharing the same space simultaneously in the
company of others (Nowak & Biocca, 2003)
- The computer mediated technology extends both spatial and
temporal limits/boundaries of co-presence. The emergence of a
virtual social realms and domains provide individuals a chance to
establish new kind of we-relationships in a new mutually shared
meaning context (Zhao 2004) The co-presence takes places from
different locations and could be temporally not-coincidental, i.e.
it happens in different times.
19. Temporal aspects of Internet-politics B
- The dislocation of space from temporality allows people to
share a same virtual space without necessarily sharing real-time
co-presence. That is to stay in certain place where theirbeing
thereconverge but theirnowdiverge (especially this is the case in
on-line campaigns and discussions). (Converted from Zhao 2004)
- The nature of co-presence is extended: virtualnowsmay be
asymmetrical respectively with objectivenows;for instance remarks
and commenting the online-discussion latency in responses
20. Temporal aspects of Internet-politics C
- Blurred temporal boundaries and fragmented time constraints
make the political action on the Net more fluid in comparison to
the traditional political activity
- On the Net-politics the present is extended; past and future
are somehow overlapping (enables virtual time-travelling)
21. Lordi protest as an example of the New Politics A
- NEW POLITICS-activity by the people instead of activityfor the
people:action-oriented politics.DIY-Do it Yourself approach
- Individualisation and globalisation: Political environment
fractures into diverse, complex and multi-spatial networks
- Course of action and consequences are not necessarily separable
from the action- participative action itselfmight be the THING
- Internets meet-up places - individuals come together to
deliberate their public concerns and to oppose any arbitrary and
oppressive exercise of power ( talk of the publicJohn Keane)
22. Lordi protest as an example of the New Politics B
- DIY-elements of the Lordi-protest:
-
- reacting and taking responsibility of journalistic choices
-
- Personally felt offence lack of respect of privacy and
disparaging the national hero
-
- Emerge of new carnevalist styles of political action
23. Lordi protest as an example of the New Politics C
- Targeted against commercial publishing policy of journalism
issue-specific politicking: Snowball-effect in spreading of the
protest -emerged from micro-publics
- Protest organised from swarming to an individualised collective
network employing creative styles of resistance
24. Political consumerism on the Net A
- Lordi protest was succesful: Advertisers recalled ads
- Unsubscrising the orders of Seven Days
- The selling of the lordi-issue was low, and magazines were
pulled out in some stores
- Public opinion made Aller magazines, Seven days and LOOK! to
apology from Lordi
25. Political Consumerism on the Net B
- A form of new politics: markets and consumption as a polical
tool and arena
- Narrow perspective: focus on single shopping decisions
(boycott/buycott) based on political/ethical subjective
judgements
- Broad perspective: civic political action that politicises
market practices (actors, consumption, market society). -
Discursive consumerism: global-social justice, human rights,
sustainable development, animal rights, ecological lifestyles etc.
Also one-target campaigns.
- Political consumerism refers also to alternative modes of
consumption: open source movement, net piracy, fair trade movement,
ethical banking system, environmental labels, dumpster diving
etc.
26. Political Consumerism on the Net C
- The Lordi swarming as political consumerism: 7 Days Lordi-issue
was the decisive act from the magazine that I have always detested.
Say no to this kind of news- and money-making. (Boycott Seven Days
-petition.)
- Critically judging citizen-consumers politicised the shopping
of gossip magazines and the publishing practices of commercialised
journalism on the micro-public spheres of the Internet
- With the Internet public spheres the political consumerism has
become more salient, because individualised citizen politics has
become easier and traditional mass-media may also give attention to
the net-publics.
27. Political Consumerism on the Net D
- The Lordi protest= individualized collectiveaction (Michele
Micheletti, 2003) emerging outside the formal
organisations/institutions is characteristic to the political
consumerism
- Personal concerns, responsibility-taking and subjective choices
motivate the projects of political consumerism
- A precondition of the cumulation of consumerist conflicts are
various public spheres-> enables loose networks around
issues
- Creative Lordi-campaigns manifests that ad hoc-publics on the
Net may be crucial for the politicisation of everyday-problems
attached to the consumption
28. Conclusion A: Action emerges through time
- World between subjectsconstitutes
Interworld->intersubjectivity, mutual tuning in, and sharing the
same lived temporal horizon(Crossley 1996)
- Internet mediated technology makes it possible for a n
individual to enter on-line discussions or virtual space whenever
she/he wants-> producing individualized collective action and
virtual belongness-> individualized collective identity
29. Conclusion B: Action through Internet-time
- On the Internet-politics present is extended. Political
judgements need to be made in short time.
- Extended present enables rethinking the course of actions at
the time of recursive present
- Multiple asymmetrical now-times may cause the exponential
cumulation of the political conflict: The case of Lordi-protest was
a cumulative process in temporal sense, and also an examplary case
of individualized collective consumeristic political action taking
place on the Net-environment.