Occupying Facebook: social movements, performativity and engagement

This study has received funding from the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) via the Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen & Foundation for the Support of Science and Technology in Pernambuco (FACEPE - Brazil)

CAIS Fellowship Report | #OccupyEstelita: The Emergence of Identity as Part of Political Performativity in the Use of Facebook Events by Social Movements


About: This is the report from a fellowship at the Center of Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS), Bochum - Germany. This project investigates the following question: How is the perception of a political self-identity affected by the usage of Social Networks?



Paper | Facebook Event as a platform to promote engagement in social movements: Theory of performativity applied to social networks


About: This paper reflects on the application of the Theory of Performativity in complex communication processes that emerged from Social Networks. Austin’s (1975) theory of Speech Acts and the concept of Performativity as formulated by Butler (1997) are used to develop mechanisms of analysis in utterances that are intrinsic to the Facebook Events page.



Book Chapter (in Portuguese) | Performativity and conflicts between the occupation of real and virtual spaces: a study of the Facebook Events platform


About: This book chapter is the result of a Master’s thesis, investigating the tension between online engagement in social movements versus in-person presence in physical spaces like demonstrations on the streets.