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Citizenship, Communication, and Modes of Audience Engagement

Exploring Alternative Voices in the Public Sphere

Christine L. Garlough and Dhavan V. Shah

Citizens involved in grassroots politics often engage in acts of witnessing and in testimonials about their life experiences as a way to participate in the public sphere. They present themselves in this way across a diverse set of communication modalities – from interpersonal and low-tech modes (conversation, street theater) to mass produced and high-tech forms (documentaries, websites) – in order to share their perspectives on controversial issues. In this chapter we consider three such approaches to citizen communication and activism: street theater, documentary film, and political blogging. Regardless of the mode, the goal of these “acts of acknowledgement” is to draw audiences into this process through highly personal public performances – accounts of issues that entertain and inform – and to invite audiences to engage in turn with these questions and concerns, in meaningful ways (Schaffer & Smith, 2004, p. 16). Through performances of such communicative acts, citizens are attempting to engage with others, build community, and argue for political points of view.

According to Shuman (2005), the success of these autobiographical communications, which are intended not only to involve, but also to activate the audience depends on two judgments delivered by the people who encounter them: (1) the teller's experience is understood as “real”, as something that actually happened; and (2) the teller is seen as entitled to claim the experience as his/her own. Such autobiographical accounts differ markedly from episodic frames and cues found within news coverage – that is, packaging press accounts around individuals and instances – that have been found to reduce the sense of shared responsibility (Iyengar, 1991) and to crystallize intolerance (Cho, Zuniga, Shah, & McLeod, 2006). Instead, these forms of witnessing and testimony highlight relationality (our lived connection to other human beings) and help to build community by drawing audience members into a process of actively acknowledging the perspective and experience of the teller.

Reflecting upon this orientation, we begin by considering how street theater is used throughout the world as a form of political rhetoric and as a venue for the creation of spaces for thoughtful discussion. We focus on its use by marginalized groups in India to speak about social injustices – specifically, what is called “sex-selection abortion” (selective abortion, where the selection is based on the predicted sex of the newborn) as a form of female infanticide. We then consider how documentary film has been deployed in a diasporic context as a tool in struggles for recognition and acknowledgment and as a site of community building and maintenance. Our focus centers on the documentary efforts of a grassroots organization to address issues of post-9/11 hate crimes directed at South Asian and Arab Americans. We conclude by considering the role of political blogs, videos, and other user-generated content in providing sites of (1) interaction with like-minded others; (2) confirmation of social perceptions; and (3) coordination for participatory action.

In all of these cases, citizens are transforming the features and the forms of messages as well as the modes in which messages are delivered, in an effort to shape political outcomes and public policies. Whether using street theater, documentary film, or digital media, audiences are seen as active parts in the communication process, telling their own stories and speaking back to expressive actors. It is through these forms that alternative perspectives get communicated across conventional ideological or structural boundaries. Although distinct in many ways, these forms of autobiographical, narrative, and public testimonial provide channels for people to engage effectively with major public issues.

Political Street Plays

Street play performances take place all around the world, from the courtyards of South Asia to the town halls of America. They are a form of grassroots politics in which ordinary people put the aesthetics of verbal and non-verbal performance to work in the service of resistance. As Katrak (2009, p. 244) notes:

This form is also used to communicate with audiences that might not otherwise get the message, due to limited access to communication technologies – whether print, broadcast, or digital. For this reason, street theater is often used as a political tool to express alternative perspectives on major social issues.

This observation is borne out by scholars from a variety of disciplines. Schechner (2003) writes about street theater performances in Shanghai in May 1989 that called for the resignation of Li Peng and for the retirement of Deng Xiaoping. Haedicke's work (2009) describes disenfranchised groups using performance to protest against unethical immigration practices. Garlough (2007) has explored how South Asian feminists use street plays to address issues of “dowry death” (the death of young wives as a result of in-laws' attempts to increase their dowry), caste, and sex-selection abortion. To illustrate our perspective on the role of street theater as a mode of introducing alternative perspectives into the public sphere, we consider the example of South Asian women's groups and their deployment of this cultural form.

South Asian women's organizations have labored to address the social inequality and everyday struggles faced by women in India since the early twentieth century. Growing out of movements for Indian independence, early activists tended to address “women's issues” in terms defined by nationalist reformers. In contrast, current work by women's organizations represents a varied array of political positions, ranging from radical feminist to Hindu fundamentalist (Kumar, 1993). These groups strive for social reform and legislative changes regarding issues such as rape, inheritance rights, domestic abuse, dowry death, and prenatal sex determination tests (Garlough, 2008a, 2008b).

In order to promote awareness about social conditions that require immediate attention, feminists in India participate in a variety of resistive activities. Some organizations focus upon economic advancement or educational programs, whereas others attempt to raise women's self-awareness of gender disparities, or to increase political participation. Many organize protest rallies, run for office, lobby for special interests, and work within communities to tackle long-term goals concerning education and skills attainment. Our concern, however, centers on how grassroots feminist groups deploy street plays as part of political outreach campaigns. Many of these efforts embed performances within personal testimony, merging autobiography with familiar cultural forms such as songs, folklore, dance, and artwork. For these women, the combination of personal narratives with cultural forms yields a rhetorical resource for advancing political arguments, raising critical consciousness, and mobilizing groups of women.

Cultural Action and Street Theater

This use of culture for political purposes, labeled “cultural action” by many South Asian feminists, reflects a particular pragmatism. Some contend that traditional cultural forms and performances, typically associated with conservative norms and values, could be powerfully appropriated for subversive political purposes. These traditional practices hold political potential because they are an immediately recognizable means by which to engage and involve disenfranchised groups of women in civic issues that impact their everyday lives. Indeed, all cultural forms – popular culture, high culture, and folk culture – are viewed as potential resources in mobilizing grassroots political action.

So how can cultural forms be successfully transformed into compelling political tools? The reasons behind street theater's success are varied. In some cases, it is related to the iconic social importance of the form. In other cases, success stems from the form's ability to create ties to other audience members, to demarcate community boundaries, or to encourage self-reflection and national identity formation (Schechner, 2003). Often it involves including individuals who are socially disenfranchised (Boal, 1979; Kumar, 1993). Of course, the success of any given effort depends, at least in part, upon the target audience's familiarity with the particular cultural form that is used. As Zipes (1983) notes, the success of critically appropriating and transfiguring a cultural form depends on the audience's recognition of strategic changes in the typical format and content of that form. The uncanny experience of familiarity combined with unfamiliarity provokes critical inquiry.

This perspective draws attention to the fact that even traditional cultural forms can be successfully appropriated for the purpose of addressing contemporary issues from a critical perspective. Indian street theater's heritage stems from long-standing traditions of folk performance, classical drama, and Western theater that have been combined with “the political pamphlet, the wall poster, the agitational speech, the political demonstration – these all have gone into creating the diverse forms adopted by our street theatre” (Hashmi, 1988, p. 31). Akin to Boal's (1979) Theater of the Oppressed, Indian street theater is a means through which individuals and groups can explore oppositional meanings and suggest new orientations for social action. These oral performances offer strategies of self-representation, used at particular times, in particular places, and in front of particular audiences (Bauman, 1986). In this sense, street plays are a twentieth-century phenomenon, often connected to a scene of protest linked to left-wing politics.

Indeed, to characterize such performances as mere entertainment certainly denies their power. Like other types of political performance, street theater creates an alternative space where civic struggles for social justice can take place (Clair, Chapman, & Kunkel, 1996; Madison & Hamera, 2006; Pollock, 2005). In addition to providing entertainment, it often offers the audience an opportunity for shared understanding and a chance to reflect upon how the personal narratives of others can resonate within a broader set of community concerns. However, unlike other dramatic forms, modern street theater is principally characterized by political, often militant, overtones. The range of groups that use street plays to discuss complex issues in an engaging, often colloquial fashion includes religious reformers, politicians, citizen groups, factory workers, and students. Yet the principal practitioners are middle-class urban activists who believe that their privilege requires them to bear responsibility for the less fortunate (Kumar, 1993).

As Garlough (2007, 2008a, 2008b, 2009) notes, due to the fact that street plays are essentially a mobile medium, actors can go out in search of an audience. This mobility means that often no formal stage exists, and props are kept to a minimum. Costumes, particularly masks, sometimes create a bit of illusion; however, the emphasis falls most heavily upon the performance of the actors. On the written page, prior to the performance, the structure of street plays resembles that of other literary dramatic pieces; however, in practice, the form remains somewhat open to the demands of the moment, and this often enhances the political potential of the event. For instance, during performance, audience members might publicly interact with the lines spoken on stage by shouting out a response, which may prompt further unscripted remarks from the actors. This provides an opportunity for both actors and audience members to contribute to a political exchange in a public space – a situation that is often unavailable to many disenfranchised individuals. In addition, sometimes a question-and-answer session follows the performance, allowing for deeper interactions between performers and audience members as they further interrogate the problems at hand.

Scripts often develop from small-group discussions within local organizations. In this context, women identify a particular problem that women in their community face and offer personal testimony regarding their experiences with the issue. Within their testimonies, common concerns often include the caste system, communalism, healthcare, political corruption, terrorism, current economic trends, alcoholism, sexism, or police brutality. Many times the authors explicitly reference these testimonies in the scripts; indeed, many activists feel that contextualizing issues through testimonies is the key to engaging the audience and successfully communicating their agendas. In addition, popular film tunes, folk songs and dances, as well as characters from popular literature or media are frequently included in the scripts, not only to provide entertainment, but also to serve as touchstones or comparison points. The stage is a place where cultural possibilities are explored, performed, and suggested, with the hope of broader impact. These performances are also central to the politics of remembering and forgetting. They keep the trauma visible, they testify to the suffering of others, and they engage in the rhetorical work of witnessing that involves listening, deliberating, and exploring possibilities.

Sahiyar's Street Play

An excellent example of this type of grassroots feminist activism can be found in the street plays written and produced by the women of Sahiyar (see Garlough, 2009). Sahiyar is one of over four hundred women's organizations in the state of Gujarat. It is one of the first of its kind in the modern city of Vadodara (formerly Baroda). Sahiyar's approach to activism is decidedly radical, unlike that of more conventional women's organizations. Rather than focusing upon trade skills or literacy, they promote critical awareness of women's social oppression; that is their fundamental goal. This work addresses pressing needs of the women in their community, needs that arise due to the rise of rape, domestic violence, dowry harassment, and the use of sex-determination tests in recent years.

A relatively small organization, Sahiyar includes in its staff only part-time volunteers and a staff director, all of whom are women. The size of Sahiyar limits the types of activities it can sponsor. Its priorities include organizing demonstrations, social reform, counseling for “family affairs” and “personal problems,” work with Dalit and Muslim women who struggle against communalism and casteism, and the publication of a feminist magazine called Narimukti, produced in collaboration with other feminist organizations. Recently, the group created a workshop to study Maharashtra's pioneering Anti-Sex Determination Act, with the hope of having a similar law passed in Gujarat.

Growing out of this project, the groups wrote and performed a street play called Deekri chhu, manav chhu . . . manvtane marsho shu? (I am your daughter, I am a human being . . . will you kill humanity?). As Garlough (2009) explains in an article titled “Feminist Street Performance and Grassroots Advocacy in India: Combating Sex-Selection Abortion,” their mission was to increase awareness of the connection between the identification of fetuses as female and subsequent abortions. It is estimated that one half of a million female fetuses are aborted in India in a year simply because of their gender; so there are 10 million fewer female births than would have occurred without this practice (Jha, Kumar, Vasa, Dhingra, Thiruchelvan, & Moineddin, 2006). Many feminist groups have identified it as yet another form of violence against women – a mode of gendercide or eugenics. For Sahiyar, the issue of sex-selection abortion was one of ethics, and their street performance was a call to activate the individual and social conscience.

“I am your daughter, I am a human being . . . will you kill humanity?” was written in a feminist workshop with Krishna Nandi and other students in the Women's Studies program at Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. The plot developed primarily from personal testimonies, case studies, and a sex-selection abortion survey that the women of Sahiyar had conducted in Vadodara and that encompassed a broad range of religions, classes, and castes. The women who agreed to participate in this street play performance were not professional actors; indeed, most of them had never acted before. Yet they participated because, as Daksha Patel explained to me in a fieldwork interview, “the issue is of critical importance to the lives and freedoms of women.” Moreover, the testimonies given by women about the often-traumatic events leading to sex-selection abortions and the scope of the problem – 500,000 girls eradicated a year – instilled feelings of responsibility.

The performed scenes grew directly from interviews with women in the Vadodara area; they give a sense of the struggles and misfortunes that women experienced in their homes, neighborhoods, and hospitals; and they offer a counternarrative grounded in a postcolonial feminist politics of recognition (Garlough, 2009). Consequently the scenes not only focus upon the personal problems experienced by women faced with the possibility of being subjected to a sex-selection abortion, they also refute three common public arguments that support the practices of sex determination and sex-selection abortion: (1) girls are simply a drain on the economic resources of families; (2) sex-selection abortions are primarily a practice of illiterate, rural Hindus; and (3) women are generally un-coerced in their decision to have sex selection abortions. This set of claims is advanced delicately, as the group also wants to make clear that they support a woman's right to abortion. The two issues, they argue, should not be conflated.

Audiences ranging from middle-class Hindus in temple courtyards to college students in university auditoriums to citizens at political rallies have witnessed this street play over a three-year period, with audience members also participating in the question-and-answer session that follows it. It is a powerful illustration of the ways in which individuals can use street play performance to keep a trauma visible, to testify to the suffering of others, and to engage in the political work of challenging social practices that are harmful to women. Most importantly, the performance of this autobiographical counternarrative in public offers an opening for political speech – a creation that is personal, interpersonal, and social. These street plays are not the only autobiographical form of mass communication that have been put to use by activists seeking to add their voice to the public sphere.

Activist Documentaries

For the past century, around the globe, non-fiction film has played a prominent role in the public sphere, providing a powerful means of persuasion that seeks to facilitate deliberation and debate, constitute identities, and raise political consciousness. This can be observed in a range of contexts, from the 1930s Worker's Film and Photo League to the radical documentaries produced by South Asian feminists in the 1990s (Aguayo, 2005). Unfortunately most film studies scholars' academic discussions about documentaries fail to put the kind of theory that grows from the subfields of political communication or rhetoric at the center of their investigations (Holbert, Kwak, & Shah, 2003).

On the other hand, it is only quite recently that political communication scholars or rhetoric scholars have become interested in studying activist documentary films, learning how to promote the interests of social movements and how to perform social tasks by presenting a complex assemblage of discourse, image, and sound (Dow, 2004). Among the most valuable explorations of this intersection is Plantinga's (1997) work, which provides a rhetorical orientation to understanding non-fiction film.

Certainly there are many types of non-fiction films or documentaries that would hold the interest of those concerned with political or rhetorical discourse. Of particular interest, however, is the activist documentary. What makes a film an activist documentary? Some scholars argue that the defining element has to do with the intentions of the filmmaker, or with his or her ideological commitments outside of filmmaking. Others claim that it is a reflection of the political or moral content of the film. Still others believe that, to be considered an activist documentary, the film must intervene in the public sphere and create political agents who take up the political work initiated by documentary film. Nevertheless, scholars seem to be in agreement that the influence of activist documentary is primarily constitutive, providing a sense of shared identification and purpose (Blakesley, 2003; Dow, 2004).

Testimony, Recognition, and Acknowledgment

One of the central issues taken up by scholars concerned with testimony and witnessing is a critique of the epistemological nature of documentary film. Historically, both producers and audiences of non-fiction film have understood it to provide truthful and factual representations of the world. In consequence, the camera was compared to an eye that captured the world in action and accurately recorded it. Therefore documentary films were conceived of as a powerful witness of the veracity of particular human experiences – they stockpiled facts. However, in recent years most scholars have challenged this sense of objectivity and highlighted the constructive nature both of the recording and of the editing process, as well as the interpretative nature of the viewing experience (Plantinga, 1997). As a result, many scholars of non-fiction film have focused upon the attempts of various directors to play with traditional elements of documentary film in order to move the audience, from a passive viewing experience in which they uncritically accept the veracity of what is being presented to them, to a more active and reflexive viewing experience, which democratizes the interpretation of non-fiction content.

In relation to this, some scholars have been interested in the ways recognition and acknowledgment grow out of witnessing documentary films (Garlough, 2009). In particular, this perspective is concerned with how representations of suffering may move us to action. How might they renew our sense of collective responsibility for the lives of others, especially those whom we view as foreigners? Does our personal experience of traumatic narratives encourage acts of identification, or does it merely illuminate our encounters in a voyeuristic fashion? Questions about the nature of these representations also lead to a concern with the limits of understanding and recognition and with the potential of such shifts in consciousness to lead to concrete action.

These questions suggest something beyond a sense of “mere” acknowledgment, in which something or someone is only given notice in passing. Rather, they foreground a more substantive sense of acknowledgment, one that opens both space and time for others, allows for honest, critical discussion, and is therefore intimately tied to the prospect of protest rather than being opposed to it. As Michael Hyde argues in The Life-Giving Gift of Acknowledgment:

In this way acknowledgment has a political potential. It functions rhetorically, to give attention to others, thereby allowing people to share their concerns as well as to express the truth about their sense of their own existence.

SAALT's Documentary

An important example of the ways activist documentaries may engage in the public sphere as sites of testimony, witnessing, and acknowledgment is Raising Our Voices, a documentary made by South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT). SAALT, based in Washington, DC, is a national non-profit organization whose aim is “to address political, social justice, and quality-of-life issues facing South Asian Americans, especially the disadvantaged and marginalized segments of the community.” It seeks to create an environment in which South Asians can participate and influence US public life, documentary film being just one of the tools it uses (SAALT, 2002).

SAALT works to accomplish its goals through advocacy, community education, local capacity building, leadership development, partnerships with other disempowered communities, and collaboration with broader civil and immigration rights movements. It has also formed partnerships with several other national coalitions in order to raise awareness of issues facing the South Asian community around immigration and hate crimes.

Raising Our Voices is one such effort. It addresses the rise of hate crimes against South Asian Americans in the last four decades, and it was initially completed just days before the tragic events of 9/11. Immediately following the attack – as a plethora of media images and stories directed our attention toward a devastated lower Manhattan and Pentagon, bodies of victims, the testimony of witnesses, and the grief of those who lost loved ones – hate crimes against South Asian Americans soared (Lavina, 2008).¹ Across the United States, individuals vilified as “terrorists” were beaten with baseball bats, attacked in their places of work and worship, violated verbally with racial epithets, and frightened by death threats. Not surprisingly, given the “rally around the flag” phenomenon that characterized mainstream discourse in the wake of 9/11, these forms of suffering were not prevalent in the public sphere and generally went unacknowledged by the wider US population, even by many South Asian Americans. But SAALT cataloged these hate crimes in the aftermath of 9/11 and collected testimonies from many of the victims, some for use in a modified version of the documentary and others for inclusion in an online archive.

The revised documentary was first screened in New York, barely three months after the terrorist attacks, and it provided an important framework for understanding and visualizing the impact of the post-9/11 backlash that affected so many South Asians in America. As SAALT Director Deepa Iyer noted:

She went on to explain that the documentary was intended to play a role in generating dialogue, understanding, even controversy. Propelled by the positive responses that the documentary received, SAALT launched a national hate crimes awareness campaign in 2002. Along with the documentary, SAALT compiled a companion guide designed to facilitate discussion of the issues surrounding the film. The guide contains background information on hate crimes, demographic information on the South Asian community, and ideas on how to incorporate the video into workshops. It also contains two separate sections – one intended for college students and the other for community leaders – with discussion questions and examples of the types of activities that community members could undertake, such as the creation of a local task force to monitor hate crimes, or the provision of interpreters in local police departments to help translate procedures and rights for victims with limited English proficiency.

Since then, the documentary has been screened in more than 150 venues. In May 2007, for example, it was shown at the University of Michigan's first annual Hate Crime Week, which was taking place along with the Martin Luther King symposium. Many in the audience expressed concern about the ongoing discrimination directed at South Asians. For instance one audience member stated: “I didn't even know about half of the issues the documentary presented. It's very shocking to see. I'm actually surprised to see that so many Indians are victims (of hate crimes). I thought (the backlash) was more of an Arab thing” (see Khatri & Doctoroff, 2002). This is a consistent response. As Iyer remarks:

Her comments reflect how valuable the biographical narratives contained in the documentary have been in helping South Asians become more aware of the extent of the prejudice faced by other members of their community, encouraging as they did acknowledgment of the relational nature of such suffering. But more generally, the film is valuable because it contests a homogeneous understanding of US identity and encourages awareness of the broader need for US citizens to accept immigrants and diasporic persons. In addition, Raising Our Voices addresses the pressure to stay silent and, by allowing victims of hate crimes to share their stories, it shows a way also to address experiences of social violence, thus creating a context for acknowledging the marginalization of South Asian Americans and the disruption of their “homes.”

Digital Engagement

Although street plays have been used for centuries to entertain and illustrate social issues and documentary film has been put to work over the last several decades to catalog and comment on politics, the Internet and the advent of digital and social media platforms have provided a decidedly newer venue for engagement. Some trace back this development to the use of the Internet by the Zapatista movement over 20 years ago; as Kahn and Kellner (2004, p. 87) write,

With the rapid diffusion of the Internet as well as the increasing use of and reliance on this medium as a political venue, evidence of the Internet as a force in shaping engagement and activism has grown. A turning point in the use of the Internet for activism was the rise of the antiwar movement:

In the years that have followed, a growing body of work has supported the perspective that the informational and expressive features of the Internet support collective action (Shah, Cho, Eveland, & Kwak, 2005; Shah et al., 2007). This body of work, which emphasizes the centrality of communication among citizens with a view to making political action possible, focuses on traditional modes of public-spirited participation, ignoring political protest participation and more radical forms of direct action.

Yet there is increasing attention being paid to the role of digital media in providing a means for political activists to insert alternative perspectives into the public sphere (Gueorguieva, 2008; Nah, Veenstra, & Shah, 2006; Thorson, Ekdale, Borah, Namkoong, & Shah, 2010). These scholarly inquiries consider how many emergent digital and social media are used for political purposes, from political blogs to online video. In many cases these online messages have an autobiographical component, weblogs often beginning as personal diaries and video posts often featuring a monologue to the camera and first-person accounts of events and experiences (Thorson et al., 2010).

For example, Thorson and colleagues' analysis of the 2008 passage of California's Proposition 8, which effectively banned same-sex marriage, found that most posted videos advocating for or against “Prop 8” were original content, often autobiographical, with a majority against Proposition 8. Most of the “No on 8” videos were amateur productions that functioned as a means of witnessing. In this sense,

Of course, the act of witnessing also has an effect on the audiences that encounter the video; for, as McHale (2004) states, “when people watch videos, viewers feel as if they are witnesses, rather than just consumers of someone else's account” (p. 156). The same sense of outrage and disbelief than characterized the Prop 8 protest videos was also a feature of the antiwar blogs, which were a point of focus of the protests against the War in Iraq and the supposed weapons of mass distruction (WMDs).

The Gulf War and Media Dissociation

The role played by these political blogs offers a case study illustrative of the use of digital media for activism. Work on Internet activism around the Gulf War investigates how news consumption and political exchanges among visitors to antiwar weblogs may have influenced political participation (Nah et al., 2006). On the basis of a survey of Internet users recruited through online channels critical of the Iraq War, the research finds that these respondents used the Internet in ways that encouraged antiwar activism, especially when they talked about politics online.

Illuminating further the autobiographical nature of these activist communications, related research has found that the process of explaining how political blog use produces involvement in antiwar protests was highly personal, and it was linked to the social construction of reality presented in the mass media to justify the war. Contrary to the view that news media exert social control over dissenters by discouraging political expression and opposition during periods when the public is being encouraged to “rally around the flag” (Mueller, 1970), these scholars found that Internet access allows people to play a more active role in their selection of media. This reduces the influence of the mainstream media and increases the likelihood of dissenters speaking out and taking action (Hwang, Schmierbach, Paek, Zuniga, & Shah, 2006).

Specifically, Hwang and colleagues find that people who are alienated from mainstream media engage in information gathering and discussion via the Internet. The more the individuals surveyed felt that their views differed from mainstream media portrayals, the more motivated they were to use the Internet as a source of information and as a conduit for discussion. These very same online behaviors, then, facilitated antiwar political action. As Glasberg and Shannon (2011, p. 56) write, “the more immersed [these activists] become in the Internet, the more dissociated they become from mainstream media,” which, in turn, leads them to challenge the official narrative and resist political authority (also Bennett, Wells, & Rank, 2009).

Proposition 8 and YouTube

This ability to challenge official viewpoints and to organize forms of resistance to governmental action must be understood in its interplay with key institutions and public policy. As the case of the War in Iraq illustrates, digital media use can serve as a counterpoint to traditional mainstream media, providing a corrective to what is perceived as a media reality that is inconsistent with what an individual believes to be true. However, the goal of digital activists would often seem to rest on the hope that their efforts have the ability to sway key institutional players and to reshape public policy. The use of YouTube as a platform for political commentary and activism in relation to California's Prop 8 provides a vivid example of the potential for this dynamic.

The work of Sayre, Bode, Shah, Wilcox, and Shah (2010) considers whether the witnessing that takes place on sites like YouTube can spur coverage in conventional news outlets. As Vaidyanathan (2008) notes,

This potential agenda-setting role for social media cuts both ways, of course, since it's also possible that the traditional media have set the agenda for the public, encouraging its members to post their results on sites such as YouTube. The research of Sayre and colleagues considers both possibilities.

Accordingly, their inquiry considers whether people who post content on YouTube are acting in response to mainstream news, possibly in reaction to perceived distortions in that coverage, or whether videos generated by citizens have the potency to actually shape news coverage of an issue, leading the agenda setting process. This work builds on the view that the witnessing and deliberation present in YouTube videos and in the user comments they elicit provide a potential forum for a digital public sphere that could rival other such venues (Downey & Fenton, 2003; Milliken & O'Donnell, 2008; Silverstone, 2001). As Sayre and colleagues (2010, pp. 14–15) contend, “minority opinions in particular are likely to take advantage of alternative media in order to make their voices heard.”

Notably, all these researchers find that newspaper coverage, search traffic, and YouTube postings are mutually determined by public events (e.g., elections, court decisions); but, once this is taken into account, a connection emerges between YouTube and the news media – one that shifts depending on the period in question. Before the election, mainstream media appeared to drive YouTube activity, much of the latter being produced as a corrective. However, after the election and the passage of Prop 8, YouTube videos appeared to drive the news coverage and the search traffic. That is, attention to Prop 8 on YouTube followed the mainstream media coverage before the November 4 election, but, when mainstream media coverage declined, citizens and activists began using YouTube as a platform, to register their opinions that they felt were underrepresented in the mainstream; and the media followed. These citizens' autobiographical accounts, whether a monologue to the camera or a first-person account of an event, proved to be potent forms of speech, garnering attention from the news media.

Witnessing as Engagement

Each of these case studies highlights a particular type of political discourse; they are testimonies (or the performance of personal experience stories) used by grassroots groups to address exigencies in the public sphere. Certainly, stories and their persuasive appeals are part of our everyday practices – so much so that often we are hardly aware of them. As Kirsten Langellier notes: “In everyday talk, we tell stories or personal narratives, about our experiences of the mundane happenings of an ordinary day and the extraordinary events that mark our lives” (Langellier, 1989, p. 243). Personal experience stories or testimonies also play a significant role in the public sphere within more formalized or heightened accounts, which address issues of social importance. While some stories may work to maintain the status quo or rationalize oppression, especially when framed in episodic terms (Iyengar, 1991), others may offer oppositional readings and counter-histories that respond to calls of conscience, acknowledge the suffering of self and others, and have emancipatory potential (Adorno, 1991; Felman & Laub, 1992; Hyde, 2006; Pollock, 2005). More fundamentally, these biographical accounts, presented publicly through street plays, documentaries, and other modalities, are forms of political engagement around controversial and challenging issues.

Rich examples of this type of communication range from the testimonies of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who witness the disappearance of their children during the Dirty War in Argentina (1976–1983), to online grassroots forums such as YouTube, which were used by supporters and opponents of California's Proposition 8, in the months before and after the controversial vote about defining marriage as an act between a man and women (Thorson et al., 2010). As Thorson and her team argue, these modes of communication turn audiences into witnesses rather than letting them just be passive consumers of an account of “others.” Because they do this, they can be used to “build community among like-minded others, reveal suffering to those geographically distant and, in some instances, serve as legal evidence of human rights abuses” (Thorson et al., 2010, p. 5).

Through these testimonies and the audience members' act of witnessing them, conversations can occur about cultural differences and rights to self-determination (Schaffer & Smith, 2004, p. 16). These stories may also lead to a nuanced consideration of the communal, one that explores the challenges of living together. Furthermore, activists and members of grassroots movements use personal narrative to testify about forms of terror and trauma – including sexual violence, domestic abuse, political degradation, racism, terrorism, and genocide. Within tribunals and national investigations of human rights offenses, personal witnessing may play a key role in the creation of new rights protections (ibid.). These rhetorical discourses also create the possibility of address and acknowledgment from a listening community.

As noted above, Shuman (Shuman, 2005) suggests that the success of testimonies of suffering depend upon two factors. First, the experience that is at the center of the narrative is understood as real – something that truly happened. Second, the stories depend upon the authentication of identity claims – that is, on evidence that the teller is entitled to claim the experience as his/her own. In this way experience is presented as the most authentic kind of truth: the “real” experience of an “authentic” speaker.

Yet we know that autobiographical testimonials are never a “complete” account, as they are based upon fragments of memory that represent a particularly situated perspective (Felman & Laub, 1992). They are performed, an act of face-work driven by a desire for dignity and consistency in self-presentation (Goffman, 1963). Given this nature of autobiographical testimonials, the “truth” in personal experience stories is negotiated and subject to contested interpretations (Butler, 2005; Cavarero, 1997). As Smith (1998, p. 17) writes,

Both in the case of the street theater and in that of the documentary, which have been considered here, there are certainly aspects of performance and self-presentation. But this doesn't detract from the fact that these two are forms of testimony and witnessing and that, as modes of engagement, they are at the center of much grassroots politics. These “acts of acknowledgment” draw audiences into interaction around an issue by simultaneously entertaining and informing them. The audiences, in turn, engage with these issues, participate in dialogues, and ultimately build a community. Their demands for acknowledgment – whether in the form of performing a street play, directing a documentary film, or developing a social media platform – highlight the bonds forged among members of a community and help create bridges to other groups.

NOTE

1 Partha Banerjee, community organizer of New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE): “There are many more hate crimes, particularly against South Asians, Muslims and Arabs after 9/11 . . . According to governmental statistics, there was a 1,600% rise in hate crime incidents right after 9/11. After that, the incidents came down, but once again have gone up. Most importantly, many hate crimes are not being reported because people are so afraid.”

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