Nuit Debout| Nuit Debout: Representations, Affect, and Prototyping Change — Feature

Abstract

While the physical presence of Nuit Debout demonstrators has been central to the movement’s strategy, the scale of technological intervention on display by activists seems unimaginable in the recently bygone mass media era dominated by relatively unhackable broadcast and print news outlets. Various media projects and strategies employed by movement participants are meeting the specific local need and conditions, and at the same time they constitute a broader technopolitical action: collective practices that take place both on- and offline, aimed at political reform or revolution. This article examines the global and local dynamics of technopolitical action as it is being played out in France, with a focus on what Nuit Debout media activists are introducing to the long-established protest culture there.