Take Part - Social Learning to Take Part in Social Movements:

Understanding the Social Transformation of Civic Participation

TakePart Team Presents Four Research Papers at the 2024 Conference of the European Sociological Association

TakePart researchers Sorana Constantinescu, Matthias Hoffmann, Dan Mercea, and Felipe G. Santos presented their research at the 16 th Conference of the European Sociological Association on “Tension, Trust, and Transformation”, hosted by the University of Porto, Portugal, from August 27 to 30.

On the conference track on “Social Movements”, the team presented the paper titled “Protest Images and Emotions: A Multimodal Analysis of Affective Cues and Engagement with #rezist Twitter Posts”. Using Twitter data since the beginning of the Romanian #rezist protests, the paper examines how the images and texts of a tweet, as well as the emotions they display influence social engagement with that message. Their analysis suggests that, while protest images significantly increase engagement with a tweet, non-protest image messages are more emotionally charged.

On the conference track ‘Interlinkages between attitudes and political actions’, Sorana and Alexandru- Vasile Sava presented the paper “Xenophobic Attitudes in Eastern Europeans: A Study of The Interplay Between National and European Identities”. It examines how East-European nationals attempt to assert their claims to a European identity on the basis of their opposition to non-European migrants and
refugees. Through an analysis of the voting behavior and political participation of East European diaspora populations together with survey data on the shifting attitudes towards minorities, the two authors explore how the perception and self-representation of East-Europeans in Western European countries (with a specific focus on Romanian nationals) has shifted with the appearance of newer non-European migrant groups. They concluded their talk with a discussion on the potential implications this shift might have on the development of European identity in general.

Again, on the “Social Movements” track, Matthias presented ongoing research based on preliminary findings from TakePart’s Protest Event Analysis, titled “Unlikely Allies? Protest Co-Participation Networks of Civil Society Organizations and Political Parties”. Applying a relational approach to the study of coalitions in protest fields, the presentation examined protest co-participation patterns of political parties across countries. This study provides support as well as nuances the differentiation hypothesis, which ascribes different roles to political parties in contentious collective action in Central and Eastern Europe, and in Western Europe, finding that in Romania, more political parties participate in protest events and play more central roles in the overall protest field, as opposed to, for example, the United Kingdom.

In the research network on Environment and Society, Felipe, Matthias and Dan jointly presented the paper “Experimental Evidence on How Different Frames of the Energy Transition Influence Political Participation and Readiness to Adopt Lifestyle Changes”. This research builds on the collaboration of the team with the European Climate Foundation, in Romania, and uses a vignette survey experiment to test different ways of framing the energy transition. The paper shows that speaking about transitioning to renewable energies from a gain (vis-à-vis a loss or trade off perspective) has a greater influence on the importance Romanians place on the energy transition, as well as their readiness to vote for a party that promises to facilitate investments in renewable energies.

In addition, both Dan and Matthias acted as chairs and discussants on the conference panels “Activism and Digital Technologies”, “Online Activism”, “Far-right and Anti-Immigrant Mobilization”, “Repression and Resistance”.

en_USEnglish