Social Media Counterpublics and the Chief Big Foot Memorial Ride
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33621/jdsr.v4i4.96Keywords:
Lakota, visual anthropology, activismAbstract
The annual Chief Big Foot Memorial Ride represents the longest continuous example of Lakota memorial and resistance rides in contemporary Lakota activism. First held in 1986, this commemoration of the journey of Chief Big Foot’s band of Lakotas and the subsequent Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 now reaches beyond the confines of the ride itself through the use of social media profiles that serve to both publicize and document the ride. This article seeks to understand the way that photographs from the rides influence the types and amount of engagement it receives on social media. Using a qualitative and quantitative approach, 304 images and their associated engagements from the 2018 ride were analyzed using content analysis and a grounded theory approach. This revealed that certain characteristics gave rise to the construction of a counterpublic around this ride. Findings suggest that both the content of photos and types of authors for posts influenced the number and types of engagements received by certain photographs. Given the relative isolation of many Indigenous communities in the Americas, these findings suggest that certain strategies for social media posts by Indigenous social movements can overcome these barriers to spread their message to a wider audience through strategic use of imagery associated with these movements.
References
AIHREA (American Indian Health Research and Education Alliance). (n.d.). Who We Are. Retrieved October 3 from http://aihrea.org/who-we-are.html
Albers, P. C., Berndt, C., Brown, E., Kelly, Y., Kittelson, V., Rossina, K., Schlegel, S., & Yardley, A. (2003). The home of the bison: An ethnographic and ethnohistorical study of traditional cultural affiliations to Wind Cave National Park.
Allsop, B. (2016). Social media and activism: A literature review. Social Psychology Review, 18(2), 35-40.
Banks, M. (2018). Using visual data in qualitative research (Vol. 5). Sage.
Belarde-Lewis, M., Cote-Meek, S., Parkhurst, N. A. D., Duarte, M., Dutta, M., Elers, P., Elers, S., Farrell, A., Frazer, R., & Kennedy, T. (2021). Indigenous Peoples Rise Up: The Global Ascendency of Social Media Activism. Rutgers University Press.
Bell, P. (2001). Content Analysis of Visual Images. In T. Van Leeuwen & C. Jewitt (Eds.), The handbook of visual analysis. Sage.
Bernard, H. R. (2011). Research methods in anthropology: qualitative and quantitative approaches (5th ed.). AltaMira Press.
Bohman, J. (2004). Expanding dialogue: The Internet, the public sphere and prospects for transnational democracy. The sociological review, 52(1_suppl), 131-155. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2004.00477.x
Bonilla, Y., & Rosa, J. (2015). # Ferguson: Digital protest, hashtag ethnography, and the racial politics of social media in the United States. American Ethnologist, 42(1), 4-17. https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.12112
Borra, E., & Rieder, B. (2014). Programmed method: Developing a toolset for capturing and analyzing tweets. Aslib journal of information management.
Burton, T. R. (2020). Using Social Media to Organize a Marginalized Community: A Case Study Examining LGBT Military Leaders Advocating for Inclusive Service. In Applied Social Science Approaches to Mixed Methods Research (pp. 216-249). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-1025-4.ch010
Byrd, S., Ferguson, B., & Mannel, S. (2006). Tradition and Technology: Using Waypoints, GPS, and GIS to Retrace and Document the Historical Big Foot Ride. South Dakota Academy of Science,
Carlson, B. (2013). The ‘new frontier’: Emergent Indigenous identities and social media. In M. Harris, N. Nakata, & B. Carlson (Eds.), The Politics of Identity: Emergent Indigeneity. University of Technology Sydney E-Press.
Carrotte, E. R., Prichard, I., & Lim, M. S. C. (2017). “Fitspiration” on social media: A content analysis of gendered images. Journal of medical Internet research, 19(3), e6368.
Charmaz, K. (2001). Grounded Theory. In R. M. Emerson (Ed.), Contemporary field research: perspectives and formulations. Waveland Press.
Charmaz, K. (2017). The power of constructivist grounded theory for critical inquiry. Qualitative inquiry, 23(1), 34-45.
Charmaz, K. (2021). The Genesis, Grounds, and Growth of Constructivist Grounded Theory. In Developing Grounded Theory (pp. 153-187). Routledge.
Chouliaraki, L. (2017). Symbolic bordering: The self-representation of migrants and refugees in digital news. Popular Communication, 15(2), 78-94. https://doi.org/10.1080/15405702.2017.1281415
Coleman, W. S. (2001). Voices of Wounded Knee. University of Nebraska Press.
Ferguson, M. R. (2018). Native Youth Contributions to Indigenous Sovereignty and Climate Justice in the# noDAPL Movement Bates College].
Frank, S. (2015). Future Generations Teen Photojournalism Project. Retrieved November 9 from http://teenphotojournalism.org/frames.html
Fraser, N. (1992). Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy. In C. J. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the public sphere. MIT press.
Freeman, B. J., Coll, K. M., Two Dogs, R., Iron Cloud Two Dogs, E., Iron Cloud, E., & Robertson, P. (2016). The value of Lakota traditional healing for youth resiliency and family functioning. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 25(5), 455-469. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926771.2015.1079282
Fulton, B. S. (2013). OutServe: An underground network stands up. Journal of Homosexuality, 60(2-3), 219-231. https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2013.744668
Gladwell, M. (2010). Small change. The New Yorker, 4(2010), 42-49.
Goeckner, R. (2018). "These Types of Sites Are Really Hard to Find": Lakota Oral Tradition and Resistance Against the Dakota Access Pipeline University of Kansas].
Goeckner, R., Daley, S. M., Gunville, J., & Daley, C. M. (2020). Cheyenne River Sioux Traditions and Resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Religion and Society, 11, 75-91. https://doi.org/10.3167/arrs.2020.110106
Greene, J. A., & Powers, T. (2014). American Carnage: Wounded Knee 1890. University of Oklahoma Press. [Record #201 is using a reference type undefined in this output style.]
Hand, M. (2017). Visuality in social media: Researching images, circulations and practices. The SAGE handbook of social media research methods, 217-231.
Herle, A. (1994). Dancing Community: Powwow and Pan-Indianism in North America. Cambridge Anthropology, 57-83.
Hopper, F. (2018). Leonard Peltier Freedom Riders Reach White House After 1,500 Mile Spirit Ride. Indian Country Today Media Network. https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/news/leonard-peltier-freedom-riders-reach-white-house-after-1-500-mile-spirit-ride-aZX2UJuTHEqGHBvOoApb4w/
Hunt, K., & Gruszczynski, M. (2019). The influence of new and traditional media coverage on public attention to social movements: the case of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. Information, Communication & Society, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2019.1670228
Jackson, S. J., & Foucault Welles, B. (2016). # Ferguson is everywhere: Initiators in emerging counterpublic networks. Information, Communication & Society, 19(3), 397-418. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2015.1106571
Johnson, H. (2017). #NoDAPL: Social Media, Empowerment, and Civic Participation at Standing Rock. Library Trends, 66(2), 155-175.
Lai, L. S., & To, W. M. (2015). Content analysis of social media: A grounded theory approach. Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, 16(2), 138.
Leverston, J. B. (2021). From Isolation to Visibility: Social Media as a Tool for Native American Activists to Generate Support for their Social Movements Harvard University].
McCabe, A., & Harris, K. (2020). Theorizing social media and activism: where is community development? Community Development Journal. https://doi.org/10.1093/cdj/bsz024
McVey, M. (2016). Re-engaging disconnected youth: Transformative learning through restorative and social justice education. International Review of Education, 62, 647-649. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-016-9575-4
Mendieta, E., & VanAntwerpen, J. (2011). The power of religion in the public sphere.
Mitchell, L. M. (1989, 1989/10/01). George E. Trager: Frontier Photographer at Wounded Knee. History of Photography, 13(4), 303-309. https://doi.org/10.1080/03087298.1989.10441005
Onuch, O. (2015). Facebook Helped Me Do It’: Understanding the EuroMaidan Protester ‘Tool?Kit. Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 15(1), 170-184.
Papacharissi, Z. (2002). The virtual sphere: The internet as a public sphere. New media & society, 4(1), 9-27.
Peruta, A., & Shields, A. B. (2017). Social media in higher education: Understanding how colleges and universities use Facebook. Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, 27(1), 131-143.
Pesantubbee, M. E. (2006). Wounded Knee: Site of Resistance and Recovery. In O. Stier & J. Landres (Eds.), Religion, violence, memory, and place (pp. 75-88).
Raynauld, V., Richez, E., & Boudreau Morris, K. (2018). Canada is# IdleNoMore: exploring dynamics of Indigenous political and civic protest in the Twitterverse. Information, Communication & Society, 21(4), 626-642.
Rice, E. S., Haynes, E., Royce, P., & Thompson, S. C. (2016). Social media and digital technology use among Indigenous young people in Australia: a literature review. International journal for equity in health, 15(1), 81. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-016-0366-0
Rickert, L. (2014). The Photo of Chief Big Foot Frozen in the Snow is Embedded in My Mind. Native News Online. Retrieved 12/5/2019 from https://nativenewsonline.net/currents/photo-chief-big-foot-frozen-snow-embedded-mind/
Rose, G. (2016). Visual methodologies: An introduction to researching with visual materials. Sage.
Sandoval-Almazan, R., & Gil-Garcia, J. R. (2014). Towards cyberactivism 2.0? Understanding the use of social media and other information technologies for political activism and social movements. Government information quarterly, 31(3), 365-378. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2013.10.016
Shear, S. B., Knowles, R. T., Soden, G. J., & Castro, A. J. (2015). Manifesting destiny: Re/presentations of indigenous peoples in K–12 US history standards. Theory & Research in Social Education, 43(1), 68-101. https://doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2014.999849
Taylor, A. (2018). A 400-Mile Ride to Mark 150 Years of the Fort Laramie Peace Treaty. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/08/a-400-mile-ride-to-mark-150-years-of-the-fort-laramie-peace-treaty/566654/
Tupper, J. (2014). Social Media and the Idle No More Movement: Citizenship, Activism and Dissent in Canada. Journal of Social Science Education, 13(4), 87-94.
Ullrich, J. F. (2008). New Lakota Dictionary: Lak?ótiyapi-English, English-Lak?ótiyapi & incorporating the Dakota dialects of Yankton-Yanktonai & Santee-Sisseton. Lakota Language Consortium Inc.
Velasquez, A., & LaRose, R. (2015). Social media for social change: Social media political efficacy and activism in student activist groups. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 59(3), 456-474. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2015.1054998
Virtanen, P. K. (2015). Indigenous social media practices in Southwestern Amazonia. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 11(4), 350-362.
Watson, K. (2018). Missing and murdered Indigenous women: The role of grassroots organizations and social media in education. Canadian Woman Studies, 33(1-2).
White Hat Sr, A., & Cunningham, J. (2012). Life's Journey—Zuya: Oral Teachings from Rosebud. University of Utah Press
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 The Author
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
