Taking the Square: Mediated Dissent and Occupation of Public Space ed. by Maria Rovisco and Jonathan Corpus Ong

Abstract

Reviewed by: Taking the Square: Mediated Dissent and Occupation of Public Space ed. by Maria Rovisco and Jonathan Corpus Ong Ma. Diosa Labiste MARIA ROVISCO AND JONATHAN CORPUS ONG, EDS. Taking the Square: Mediated Dissent and Occupation of Public Space London and New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016. 244 pages. Taking the Square: Mediated Dissent and Occupation of Public Space joins the conversation on how to think about the public sphere beyond the classical ideal that Jürgen Habermas has sketched out. It connects with the theorizing stream of Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge (Public Sphere of Experience: Analysis of the Bourgeois and Proletarian Public Sphere; Verso, 1993), who deem the public sphere as the "social horizon of experience," thus expanding the definition of this phrase beyond institutions and practices like the press, public opinion, and public places. Places, presence, and publicity, which are presupposed in a public sphere, are useful elements to think about when reading the ten essays in this book. Mediated dissent refers to protests and other forms of oppositional communicative practices that are presented through media technologies (2–5). At the same time a mediated public sphere can be found on the internet. The internet is such an imposing public space that one of the contributing authors, Paulo Gerbaudo, calls it "digital-popular," a take on the Gramscian phrase "national-popular," which refers to the commonly held beliefs of subaltern groups (39). Many of the case studies in the book show how online discursive spaces are bound up with physical spaces of [End Page 265] protests. These physical locations constitute another type of public sphere, the public square. The fusion of mediated dissent and protests in physical places has worked for social movements in communities in Leyte and Samar hit by Typhoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) and Hong Kong's "Umbrella Revolution" and has functioned as a metaphorical stage for performance-as-protest in Tahrir Square in Cairo and the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Two chapters look at mediated dissent in the Philippines: "Protest as Interruption of the Disaster Imaginary: Overcoming Voice-Denying Rationalities in Post-Haiyan Philippines" by Nicole Curato, Jonathan Corpus Ong, and Liezel Longboan (77–96) and "Minority Groups and Strategies of Display and Dissent in Physical, Virtual and Hybrid Spaces" by Cheryll Ruth Soriano and Ruepert Jiel Cao (207–25). It is worth focusing on these two case studies as examples of how social movements negotiate online and offline limitations to put forward practical and symbolic claims and enact agency. The case study on how the people in Samar and Leyte found their collective voices in the aftermath of the 2013 tropical storm Haiyan follows the activities of People Surge, a group that demands transparent relief and rehabilitation procedures from the government and participation in the rebuilding process. Haiyan was one of the strongest storms to hit the planet, and the Philippines was ill-prepared for the destruction it caused over vast swaths of coastal communities, municipalities, and cities. The study seeks to find out how "voice-denying rationalities" (79) have shaped postdisaster events. Broadly defined as ways of thinking that silence political speech in disaster-affected communities, voice-denying rationalities are also the effects of discourses the government puts forward. The official postdisaster discourse tries to set rehabilitation narratives in a three-fold manner: first, priority shall be given to basic needs for survival over communication needs; second, political demands have to yield to calls for sobriety and national unity; and, third, since the protests seem divided along political lines, the authenticity of the voices of the community of sufferers have to be doubted (81). As a result of this official discourse, rather than granting sufferers the right to freely speak, they are rendered voiceless. The idea of silencing is challenged by an implied assumption in the case study that disasters are sites of justice or spaces where the delivery of needs and communication is oriented toward respect, honesty, and equity. [End Page 266] Voice-denying rationalities are reinforced by the axiom that postdisaster recovery is possible through a resilient human spirit; thus, accusations of incompetence, corruption, and neglect leveled against the government are simply signs of victims being...