The virtual movement and on-line communities: a case study of T-Rex event in Taiwan

機構典藏 > College of Liberal Arts > Graduate Institute & Department of Mass Communication > Proceeding > Item 987654321/99962

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Title:	The virtual movement and on-line communities: a case study of T-Rex event in Taiwan
Authors:	Hsu, Chuan-Yang
Contributors:	淡江大學大眾傳播學系
Date:	2010-07
Issue Date:	2015-01-16 16:28:41 (UTC+8)
Abstract:	For the Taiwanese, the baseball is an important cultural symbol for constituting an imagined community. In this study, I will study one of major Taiwanese virtual movement events. In 2008, one of professional baseball teams—Dmedia T-Rex, involved a scandal. The authority issued a legal investigation on the Dmedia baseball players. The baseball fans also launched a virtual social movement to criticize the baseball’s managerial system. As Benedict Anderson (1983) recounts in imagined communities, abstract time, space and the abstract social, in which language replace the face-to-face relations of traditional communities, are successors to their concrete counterparts of tradition. This proposal is about studying the role of virtual movement and in construction of imagined communities in Taiwan. In the study I plan to discuss the possible effects of CMC on social movements in Taiwan. In theory, a common issue concerning with the Information Society theorists is: whether the utilization of CMC can be expected to generate new community networks or virtual extensions? Or, do the Internet social movement still need to mobilize participants to achieve these purposes of movements. In this controversy, Castells, for instance, argues that the social power of new information societies centers on the information infrastructure, which in turn constitutes the material foundation of culture. The Internet social movement could be viewed as a form of social organization in the Information Society. On the other hand, due to the social constraints, sociologists like Giddens emphasize the social structure, social classes or state power still exert sway in the formulation of culture (Nash, 2001).The main research question of research is to investigate how Internet movement groups exist on the virtual space. Dealing with the roles of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) in enacting a social construction, the study also explores how virtual movements, mediated by information technology, can facilitate or constrain the expansion of social bonds. In other words, the research focuses on how a baseball reform movement interacts with exercise in construction of imagined communities. Toward this end, the study will be composed of two parts. In the first half, with reference to social movement theory and foreign experience, I demonstrate the promise of information technology for aiding social movements. Based upon theoretical concepts and empirical findings, then, I will analyze the text of virtual movement. The empirical data will be collected from electronic discussion materials stored in PTT computer hosting service. These electronic contents will be analyzed using qualitative methods.
Appears in Collections:	[Graduate Institute & Department of Mass Communication] Proceeding

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