Struggling in Intense Digital Times. Discursive Mobilization as an Overarching Protest Repertoire

Recent contributions in the field of social movement studies have characterized the most recent period in terms of “intense times” (della Porta 2025)—a moment of “extraordinary upheval” that occurs during a generalized erosion of consolidated sociopolitical structures but also through a progressive intensification of social relations. Within these reflections, digital media and social media in particular have not yet found a clearly defined place even if, over the past twenty years, the study of digital political participation has experienced rapid acceleration. It is now widely acknowledged that within contemporary “deeply mediated” societies (Hepp 2020) the organizational forms of collective action are less centered on the role of movement organizations and on collectively defined, encompassing identities (Bennett & Segerberg 2013), while mobilization networks unfold in a fluid and seamless manner across physical and digital spaces (pavan & Earl 2026). Nevertheless, the relationship between the expansion of these participation networks within which individual mobilization often occurs independently of formal affiliations with organizations or associations and the intensification of social conflict remains underexplored. In this paper, I argue that a dynamic that plays a crucial role in the reconfiguration of contemporary political conflict is that of discursive mobilization (pavan & Rapini 2022). This consists of an overarching repertoire of forms of networked everyday activism that vary depending on the digital spaces in which they take place but that, transversally, enable a multiplicity of actors – both individual and collective – to intervene in a contentious and antagonistic manner within the space of public discourse by politicizing ordinary conversations, mobilizing and, simultaneously, redefining collective identities and narratives that guide political conflict. Because this repertoire grounds in a contentious yet mundane use of social media, it is equally available to different actors who position themselves (even radically) at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. Through the creation and circulation of digital content of various kinds (texts, images, videos, links, but also fake news), discursive mobilization enables both the internal consolidation of contentious collectivities and their confrontation with adversaries, often fueling processes of ideological and affective polarization, and intertwining with more conventionally recognized forms of contentious collective action such as those that become visible in demonstrations in streets and public squares. References Bennett, W. L. & Segerberg, A. (2013). The logic of connective action: Digital media and the personalization of contentious politics. Cambridge University Press. della Porta, D. (2025). “Rethinking movements in intense times”. Mobilization. An International Quarterly, 30(1):1-12. Hepp, A. (2020). Deep mediatization. London: Routledge. Pavan, E. & Earl, J. (2026). “Beyond the online vs. offline binary. Processes of social movement hybridization.” In Bosi, L. & Malthaner, S., Processes of Collective Action, Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Pavan, E. & Rapini, A. (2022). "’Battles over issues’ in networked publics. Investigating the discursive mobilization of the antifascist frame on Twitter." Mobilization. An International Quarterly, 27(1): 69-90.