Premium
Western solidarity with P ussy R iot and the T wittering of cosmopolitan selves
Author(s) -
Weij Frank,
Berkers Pauwke,
Engelbert Jiska
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
international journal of consumer studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.775
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1470-6431
pISSN - 1470-6423
DOI - 10.1111/ijcs.12215
Subject(s) - solidarity , sociology , cosmopolitanism , context (archaeology) , social media , politics , punk , media studies , advertising , political science , law , history , art history , archaeology , business
This article aims to explain the widespread attention to contemporary protesting artists among Western audiences by focusing on the case of Pussy Riot. Social movement scholarship provides a first step into understanding how Pussy Riot legitimately protests Russian politics through its punk performances. It then turns to the concept of cosmopolitanism as a performance in everyday life to explain Pussy Riot's appeal among Western audiences. By collecting and analyzing 9001 tweets through a thematic hashtag analysis and topic modeling, this article analyzes how audiences talk about Pussy Riot and shows how Twitter affords users to perform cosmopolitan selves by sharing their ideas and experiences on Pussy Riot with others. Although we distinguish between four types of cosmopolitan selves, the results clearly show Pussy Riot is mainly reflected upon in a media context: Twitter users predominantly talk about Pussy Riot's media appearances rather than readily engage with its explicit political advocacy.