Berridge, Willow J. "Briefing: The Uprising in Sudan

Louisa Wang
Dr. Hill
Comm 312
10th March 2021
Annotated Bibliography
Berridge, Willow J. "Briefing: The Uprising in Sudan." African Affairs 119.474 (2020): 164-176. https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adz015
In this article, Berridge focuses on the changes Twitter has introduced in pushing for social and political changes in the contemporary world. The author achieves this objective by comparing two similar events that happened in the same country but in different technological ages. Berridge the event of Sudan railway workers staging a protest back in 1985 against the rise of basic food prices during President Nimeiri's regime. As the author asserts, these protests did not use the current social media technology and took two and a half weeks before achieving the objective of toppling the regime in power. A similar situation arose in December 2018 and only took less than three days before the protest was popularized to the extent of prompting government response. This article is valuable to my research as I intend to explore the theme of urgency in communicating social change messages through social medial. The article will play a significant role in exploring the cultural shift of mass protests introduced by Twitter and other social media sites. I will use the article to evaluate whether the ease of access of the platform contributes to the urgency by which social change communication is done online.
Brannen, Samuel, Christian Haig, and Katherine Schmidt. "The age of mass protests: understanding an escalating global trend." (2020). /analysis/age-mass-protests-understanding-escalating-global-trend.
The authors of this article are highly qualified in the field of modern communications. For instance, Brannen is a senior officer on an international security program. The article is about the rising number of mass protests around the globe. Brannen, Samuel, Christian Haig, and Katherine Schmidt observe that mass protests have increased by an annual average rate of 11.5%. This increase was recorded during the years between 2009 and 2019. The authors assert that most of these mass protests are witnessed in North Africa and the Middle East regions. Interestingly the article predicts that these protests are not likely to decrease any time soon. Instead, they are projected to continue rising. Twitter is among the aspects attributed to this rise of protests around the world. The article points out that Twitter has provided a platform where anyone with internet access can air their views and easily mobilize with like-minded individuals. The authors go above evaluating the causes of an increase of mass protests to the consequences of the protests. The article attests to consequences such as regime change and organized political violence. The article also offers a future perspective of a scenario where factors such as disinformation and slow economic growth are likely to continue fueling mass protests.
Edrington, Candice LaShara, and Nicole Lee. "Tweeting a social movement: Black Lives Matter and its use of Twitter to share information, build community, and promote action." The Journal of Public Interest Communications 2.2 (2018): 289-289. https://journals.flvc.org/jpic/article/view/106120
Black Lives Matter is certainly among the most prominent and popular social media movements in recent times. As Edrington, Candice LaShara, and Nicole Lee acknowledge in this article, BLM has been successful in using Twitter in sharing information, establishing an online community, and encouraging action. BLM social media movement is an example of a minor society coming together to air their dissatisfactions and call for social change. The authors use Twitter to collect information for over four years to evaluate the strategies the movement has utilized to reach where it is at the moment. This article will be significant in my research as it evaluates the success of a marginalized group in effectively using Twitter to call for social change. The article is more important since it goes an extra mile in evaluating the strategies used to make Twitter the efficient tool of advocating for social change. The article will also be important in evaluating how social change movements on social media can maintain their relevance. The authors evaluate community-building tweets, which provide findings that will be instrumental in evaluating aspects that make Twitter effective as a tool of mobilizing marginalized groups to call for social change.
Jenzen, Olu, et al. "The symbol of social media in contemporary protest: Twitter and the Gezi Park movement." Convergence (2020): https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1354856520933747.
Jenzen, Olu et al. evaluate the significant role played by social media in facilitating protests in the contemporary world. The authors are academicians with vast experience in sociology and communication systems. The article further explores the concept of "media imaginaries" and introduces an additional concept of "social media imaginaries." Using the two concepts, the authors evaluate how technology easily shapes activists and how the activists succeed at pushing for social change. The article utilizes the famous Gezi Park protest movement, which became popular in 2013. The article has much emphasis on the importance of the practice of free speech on Twitte...