Title of the thesis: Contentious Brands. Reassembling the social movement in digital environments.

Abstract: Contentious networks have been notoriously affected by the rise of digital communication. The present work proposes to translate the notion of “brand” in order to cope with the challenges social movement studies are facing. Drawing, in particular, on the case of the intriguing movement nebulous related to the hacktivist network Anonymous and the Occupy worldwide protest wave, material-semiotic and systemic arguments are developed so as to sustain this theoretical claim. The cases chosen will be investigated, exploiting a digital methods strategy to unfold their assemblage and to empirically characterize the way “contentious brands” articulate contemporary social movement networks.

Research interests: digital methods; social movements; new media; online networks; Actor-Network Theory; systems and complexity

Graduated from: Università degli Studi di Milano

Degree: Laurea Magistrale in Science Sociali per la Ricerca e le Istituioni

Email address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.