Abstract
“Grandmas against the Right,” an Austrian group of mostly elderly women that vehemently and publicly opposes right-wing extremism, has become a part of the demonstrations against the right-wing ÖVP/FPÖ government and its policies in Austria. Founded on Facebook in 2017, the group sees their age as a mandate for resistance against fascist and exclusionary politics and to fight for a better future for all. The “grandmas” use digital media such as Facebook, blogs and Twitter for networking and mobilization, but their visible protests on the street represent their primary form of action. In the meantime, the grandmas are part of a civil society platform against the right-wing politics in Austria. The overarching questions of their contribution are: Which publics form through these articulations of protest? And what function are played by different types of media in this protest group? Building on the concept of participatory cultures, this paper focuses on the activists’ practices and the communicative actions that result. Through the medial and cultural productions that can emerge in collective associations, participation in social processes takes place. In these practices, meanings are negotiated, identification with common goals takes place, and various forms of opposition are expressed.
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Notes
- 1.
I would like to thank Antonio Bilic, Sushana Johann, Verena Kattinger, Benedikt Kluge and Hannah Mauracher for their support in conducting the interviews. The interviews were conducted in German, all interview quotes were translated by the author and were anonymized for privacy reasons. In the processing of the empirical material and in the presentation of the cases I used pseudonyms to protect the identity of the participants. I generalized participants’ descriptions such as gender, age, and location so that no conclusions can be drawn about the person.
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Drüeke, R. (2023). “I’m at 100!”: Protesting the Right-Wing Government in Austria. In: Wiesslitz, C. (eds) Women’s Activism Online and the Global Struggle for Social Change. Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31621-0_3
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