Cover not available

Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 18:1 (2019) ► pp.40–60

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Facebook framed

Portraying the role of social media in activism

 | School of Communication, Ariel University
Published online: 10 October 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.17058.lev
Abstract
The study explores how Facebook was framed during the “tent protest” – the largest social protest in Israel’s history. Findings from of a content analysis of the local Israeli press indicate that Facebook was framed mainly as a political instrument assisting the protest, especially in the stages of recruitment, organization and dissemination of information to protesters. Alongside such positive framing, also evident, albeit less frequently, was negative framing that portrayed Facebook activities as incompatible with genuine political action, and portrayed the “Facebook generation” as lazy and spoiled.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Framing the Internet in the mainstream media
    • 1.2Facebook framing during social protests
    • 1.3The local press
  • 2.Method
  • 3.Findings
    • 3.1Theme 1: Facebook’s affordances as a political tool
      • 3.1.1Facebook as a mainstay of the protest
      • 3.1.2Facebook as a recruitment tool
      • 3.1.3Facebook as a logistical tool for organizing the protest
      • 3.1.4Facebook as a means of maintaining contact among protestors
      • 3.1.5Facebook as a discursive sphere
      • 3.1.6Facebook as an influential factor in the protest’s success
      • 3.1.7Facebook as a source of quotes
    • 3.2Theme 2: Facebook’s drawbacks as a political tool
    • 3.3Theme 3: Facebook as a political tool in the Arab Spring (a global perspective)
  • 4.Discussion and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
References (28)
References
Andersen, Kurt. 2011. “The protester: Cover story”. Time Magazine. [URL]
Bastos, Marco T., Dan Mercea, and Arthur Charpentier. 2015. “Tents, tweets, and events: The interplay between ongoing protests and social media.” Journal of Communication 65(2): 320–350. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Campbell, Heidi A., and Diana Hawk. 2012. “Al Jazeera’s framing of social media during the Arab spring.” CyberOrient 6(1).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cornish, Sabryna L. 2008. The Framing of the Internet by the Traditional Mass Media: From 1988 to 1995. PhD Thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dumitrica, Delia, and Maria Bakardjieva. 2018. “The personalization of engagement: the symbolic construction of social media and grassroots mobilization in Canadian newspapers.” Media, Culture and Society 40(6): 817–837. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fisher, Dana R., and Larry Michael Wright. 2001. “On utopias and dystopias: Toward an understanding of the discourse surrounding the Internet.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 6(2). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Freelon, Deen, Sarah Merritt and Taylor Jaymes. 2015. “Focus on the tech: Internet centrism in global protest coverage.” Digital Journalism 3(2): 175–191. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heider, Don, Maxwell McCombs, and Paula M. Poindexter. 2005. “What the public expects of local news: Views on public and traditional journalism.” Journalism Quarterly 82(4): 952–967. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hussain, Muzammil M., and Philip N. Howard. 2013. “What best explains successful protest cascades? ICTs and the fuzzy causes of the Arab Spring.” International Studies Review 15(1): 48–66. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnston, Rebecca. 2009. “Salvation or destruction: Metaphors of the Internet.” First Monday 14(4). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Larsson, Andres O., and Jakob Svensson. 2014. “Politicians online: Identifying current research opportunities.” First Monday 19(4). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lehman-Wilzig, Sam. 1990. Stiff-Necked People, Bottle-Necked System: The Evolution and Roots of Israeli Public Protest, 1949–1986. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lev-On, Azi. 2018a. The anti-social network? Portraying social media in wartime. Social Media and Society. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018b. The igniter and the megaphone: Perceiving Facebook’s role in activism. Convergence. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liran-Alper, Dalia, and Orly Tsarfaty. 2012. “Daphne’s laurels: Media representations of a social protest leader in the Israeli online press.” Kesher 431: 29–39. (Hebrew)Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Manosevitch, Idit, and Azi Lev-On. 2014. “Mapping the Israeli local press.” Media Frames 121: 1–28. (Hebrew)Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Margetts, Helen, Peter John, Scott Hale, and Taha Yasseri. 2015. Political Turbulence: How Social Media Shape Collective Action. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marichal, José. 2016. Facebook Democracy: The Architecture of Disclosure and the Threat to Public Life. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ogburn, William Fielding. 1922. Social Change with Respect to Culture and Original Nature. New York: Huebsch.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Papacharissi, Zizi. 2015. Affective Publics: Sentiment, Technology, and Politics. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pavel, Tal. 2012. Social Protest and Social Networks. Jerusalem: Parliamentary Center of Research and Information. (Hebrew)Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rainie, Lee, Aaron Smith, Kay Kehman Schlozman, Henry Brady, and Sidney Verba. 2012. “Social media and political engagement.” Pew Internet and American Life Project 191: 2–13.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rössler, Patrick. 2001. “Between online heaven and cyberhell: The framing of the Internet by traditional media coverage in Germany.” New Media and Society 3(1): 49–66. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tufekci, Zeynep, and Christopher Wilson. 2012. “Social media and the decision to participate in political protest: Observations from Tahrir Square.” Journal of communication 62(2): 363–379. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Dijk, Jan A. G. M. 2012. “Digital democracy: vision and reality.” In Public Administration in the Information Age: Revisited, ed. by Ig Snellen, Marcel Thaens, and Wim van de Donk, 49–62. Amsterdam, Washington DC: IOS Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Walla! 2011 (August 16). “Protest map.” Walla! News, [URL] (Hebrew)
Wolfsfeld, Gadi, Elad Segev, and Tamir Sheafer. 2013. “Social media and the Arab Spring: Politics comes first.” The International Journal of Press/Politics 18(2): 115–137. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ynet. 2011 (September 3). “Huge demonstrations in the periphery.” [URL] (Hebrew)
Cited by (8)

Cited by eight other publications

Ferré-Pavia, Carme & Rachel V. Brown
2025. Facebook activism and socio-political change: The perception of BlackLivesMatter and Catalan independence movement participants. Anàlisi 72 ► pp. 23 ff. DOI logo
Lev-On, Azi
2025. Covering online protest: what changes and what remains the same? Examples from the protest for justice for Roman Zadorov. Journal of Information Technology & Politics 22:4 ► pp. 389 ff. DOI logo
Nartey, Mark & Richmond Sadick Ngula
2025.  An examination of delegitimation in the activist discourse of Ghana's #FixTheCountry lead convener Oliver Barker-Vormawor . Social Semiotics ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Roth-Cohen, Osnat & Yaniv Gvili
2025. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the advertising industry: attitudes and behaviors. International Journal of Advertising ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Gao, Cunling, Hongfa Yi, Jinfu Wang & Shanshan Han
2023. Framing of female medical personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic: a case study of the Chinese official media. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 10:1 DOI logo
Lane, Daniel S, Hannah Overbye-Thompson, Emilija Gagrčin & Jennifer Stromer-Galley
2023. The story of social media: evolving news coverage of social media in American politics, 2006–2021. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 29:1 DOI logo
Nartey, Mark & Yating Yu
2023. A Discourse Analytic Study of #FixTheCountry on Ghanaian Twitter. Social Media + Society 9:1 DOI logo
Roth-Cohen, Osnat
2022. Viral feminism: #MeToo networked expressions in feminist Facebook groups. Feminist Media Studies 22:7 ► pp. 1695 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue