Search

The relationship between online and offline activism has been studied intensely, especially with the outbreak of COVID-19 that forced environmental movements to be online. Nowadays, activists can mobilize crowds and create unique self-representation online by using social media, which requires specific knowledge and skills. In our research conducted among the members of the Hungarian Fridays for Future (FFF) movement for 3 years, we aimed to describe these skills gained through online activism. We focused on mapping the connection between offline and online activism using various qualitative methods such as participant observation, interviews, focus groups, and digital ethnography. In order to get a clear image, we put heavy emphasis on the Hungarian context, namely the structure of the public sphere, the politicization of environmental issues, and the general approach toward activism and social movements. Our results show a mutually reinforcing process between online and offline activism in which numerous learned skills exist in parallel, in the frontstage and the backstage. The most essential skills are building the image of a strong online and offline community with explicit values and objectives as the most effective way of attracting youth to be activists; and learning skills to keep boundaries between personal life and activism similarly to adult experiences of keeping work-life balance. Although, the effectiveness of the FFF activists in both spheres is influenced by the segmented and politicized public sphere from which Hungarian youth tend to be excluded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young people involved in climate justice activism engage in a range of tactics across entangled 'online' and 'offline' spaces. This article explores the affordances and ambivalences of humour in digital modes of contention for young people (aged 12–30) involved in climate justice activism. Four of the authors are 19–22 years old and involved in climate justice activist organising, and one author is a university-based researcher in her early 40s. Through a collaborative, intergenerational analysis of stories of hybrid digital climate activisms, we ask: what is the role of humour in young people's varied activist repertoires? Thinking with the conceptual resources of adrienne maree brown's Pleasure Activism, we pose three analytic provocations: (i) humour can amplify generational tensions; (ii) humour is entwined with individual and collective identity-work; and (iii) sometimes humour is 'just a thing' (that can also help with burnout). We collaboratively analyse how young people use humour to dissent, through lampooning hierarchical power structures and profit-driven systems, drawing attention to intersectional injustices, and joyfully expressing affinity and solidarity. At the same time, humour may exclude, offend, and reinforce existing divisions and injustices. Humour is an underappreciated feature of organising towards a more just world, even as the pleasurable and just outcomes of humour are not guaranteed. We argue for further attention to young people's multimodal repertoires across hybrid spaces, and the multiplicity of feelings that accompany climate justice activisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Video activism is among the predominant forms of contemporary digital activism. In networked cultures dominated by social media platforms, video activism has seen various transformations. This paper investigates the role of video activism within the feminist movements in Turkey in the context of digital culture. In-depth interviews have been conducted to explore the tactics of feminist video activists. In particular, the tactics of feminist video activists have been analysed at four levels: video production, video distribution, video ethics and video archiving. The results show how networked video activism contributes to the feminist movements at three levels: the creation of feminist media as an alternative to patriarchal narratives, the organisation of affect and solidarity among women and finally, self-reflexivity and subjectification for activists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disabled people need to be activists given the many problematic lived realities they face. However, they frequently encounter obstacles in traditional offline activism. Online activism could be a potential alternative. The objective of this scoping review is to examine the extent and nature of the coverage of disabled people in the academic literature that focuses on online activism. We searched the abstracts in Scopus, Web of Science, and the 70 databases in EBSCO-HOST for the presence of 57 terms linked to online activism or online tools or places for online activism, which generated 18,069 abstracts for qualitative analysis. Of the 18,069 abstracts, only 54 discussed online the activism by disabled people. Among these 54 relevant abstracts, only one contained the term "Global South". No relevant abstracts were found that contained the terms "Metaverse" or "Democrac*" together with "activis*". Only two relevant abstracts contained the phrase "digital citizen*". Out of the 57 terms, 28 had no hits. The thematic analysis identified 24 themes: 6 themes in 30 abstracts had a positive sentiment, 7 themes in 30 abstracts had a negative sentiment, and 11 themes present in 23 abstracts had a neutral sentiment. There were three main themes: the positive role and use of online activism; the technical accessibility barriers to online activism; and the attitudinal accessibility problems arising from ableist judgments. The intersectionality of the disability identity with other marginalized identities and the issue of empowerment were rarely addressed, and ability judgment-based concepts beyond the term's "ableism" and "ableist" were not used. The study underscores the necessity for further research given the few relevant abstracts found. The study also indicates that actions are needed on barriers to online activism and that examples for best practices exist that could be applied more often. Future studies should also incorporate a broader range of ability judgment-based concepts to enrich the analysis and to support the empowerment of disabled activists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article approaches digital activism as an object of discourse and asks: how is the political prowess of digital technologies discursively articulated in news magazine coverage of digital activism? We take an exploratory approach that maps the representations of digital activism in two world-renowned news magazines – Wired and Time, between 2010 and 2021. We find five dominant narratives through which digital technologies gain political significance, namely: as a last resort; as a witness; as a double-edged sword; as sites of creativity; and as enablers of horizontalism. We argue that these narratives contribute to a persistent discourse casting digital technologies as powerful political tools of grassroots empowerment, which enable unprecedented levels of citizen mobilization. This discourse rehearses techno-utopian imaginaries casting digital technologies as democratizing forces while underplaying the difficulties of sustaining mobilization and of working towards political change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, I shall analyse the transformation of media activism in the field of French feminist counterpublics, from the 1970s to the present. Based on Jürgen Habermas's and Nancy Fraser's conception of the public sphere, and centred on the French case, I shall study the passage from a pre-digital feminist counterpublic, defined by intellectual journals and theoretical debates (1970s), to a digital feminist counterpublic, dependent on the Internet and social networks, and with a more pragmatic approach to feminism (2010s). I shall argue that this transition involves the mutation of the 'universal intellectual' and the emergence of new modes of political intervention such as the 'media intellectual' and the 'informational activist'. The continuities and discontinuities between both historical moments will be observed, as well as the different degrees of immersion in the basic parameters of the digital culture by contemporary French feminist political interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article rethinks the concept of presence in feminist theory through the empirical study of Tunisian feminist and queer movements after the 2010–11 revolution. Over the past decade, these movements have displayed various forms of mobilisation, revealing different shades of presence/absence. Some strategies focused on gaining visibility within institutions and physical public spaces, while others showed new forms of disembodied, digitally mediated presence/absence. With the recent rise of cyber-authoritarianism, a re-calibration of positions of presence/absence have enriched our understanding of presence. Building on interviews and social media content analysis from 2017 to 2023, the article challenges the widespread notion that physical presence equates to empowerment and absence to disempowerment. It argues that presence and absence are political positions within a spectrum of contention, influenced by political opportunities, and calls for the recognition of multiple, disembodied and hybrid forms of presence/absence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political consumerism is widely assumed to have a positive relationship with civic and political engagement, and much scholarly work has argued that marketplace-based politics align neatly with contemporary norms of engaged citizenship. Current studies of Hong Kong have discussed the rise of the "yellow" (pro-democratic) economy in connection with the 2019 pro-democracy movement, arguing that political consumerism is a new form of political participation. However, few studies have examined how food influencers on social media have mediated political messages and shaped the meanings of political consumerism in an increasingly authoritarian society. Drawing on original data collected from interviews with yellow food influencers, content analysis of their Instagram posts, and a survey of educated young consumers, this study seeks to understand the interactions between food influencers and consumers in the post-movement era, as facilitated by social media platforms. This study shows that the meaning of buying from yellow food shops has changed from expressing support for pro-democratic political parties to conserving unauthorized collective memories of protest as expressions of a new Hongkonger identity. Such practices maintain democratic values in a political context where conventional forms of democratic engagement are no longer possible. (191) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By addressing ableism through social media and other digital outlets, feminist disability activists share stories on what it means to be human from an intersectional perspective, and their storying is a way of understanding and theorising the world. However, the possibilities of digital disability activism to story ableism within broader feminist debates are underexplored. Storying as an anti-hegemonic approach to theorising ableism further from an intersectional perspective, implemented through an activist-academic working alliance, contributes to speaking otherwise about disability and draws attention to disability perspectives in feminist theory. In this article, I propose a feminist intersectional approach to storying ableism that exposes manifestations of ableism in its intersections with classism, racism and sexism at structural, identity and representational levels. I then argue for digital disability activism as a means of storying ableism, provide examples of such storying and describe the potentials and principles of digital activist storying. While the creation of further theory is central to the proposed approach, the connection of intersectionality theory with ableism and feminist disability theory serves as its foundation. I discuss how linking ableism with intersectionality strengthens the uncovering of ableism at different levels, why studies of ableism should be extended to fields beyond Disability Studies but remain closely connected to disability activism and how feminist disability theory has thus far shaped debates on the dis/ability binary in relation to the gendered body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media and digital platforms have become essential tools for the new generation of youth activists. However, these tools subject youth to both new (and old) forms of surveillance and control. Drawing on in-depth interviews and social media walkthroughs with 61 youth activists, I examine hybrid tactics that these youth employ to resist surveillance and other forms of digitally mediated control as they participate in politics and social movements. I show that even in democracies like the United States and Canada, for individuals along intersecting axes of marginalization (e.g. race, gender), public political acts do not capture the full range of young people's political repertoires. Young people, especially those from marginalized groups, adopt hidden, under-the-radar tactics in response to pressures of social, state, and corporate surveillance. I develop the concept of "digital infrapolitics" referring to the ways in which digital politics and activism go below the radar under surveillance and control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractScholarly research on the role of digital activism in authoritarian settings has largely centered around debates on “liberation technology” versus “networked authoritarianism”. In this article we aim to extend existing research by linking authoritarian legitimation theories with emerging scholarship on digital activism. We examine Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, two autocracies in post-Soviet Central Asia, and show how non-democratic regimes use digital activism for legitimation purposes. Our study draws on 33 qualitative in-depth interviews with digital activists and state officials in both countries to generate critical comparative insights into how modern autocracies function in the digital age. Our analysis suggests that autocracies use four mutually inclusive and escalating legitimation mechanisms (limited participation, outputs legitimation, regime discourse, and targeted repression) in their interactions with digital activists to become more resilient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We look back to explore the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on domestic violence amplification in India and the digital activisms that spotlighted this social and health injustice. This analysis focuses on two case studies - the #LockDownMeinLockUp [#LDMLU] campaign mobilized on Instagram, and articles drawn from the digital feminist publication, Feminism in India [FII]. We share our perspectives on how the #LDMLU campaign visually politicized the public nature of a silenced and normalized injustice against at-risk women during a pan-national health crisis. We turn to FII's reporting on DV exacerbation during India's pandemic that vocalized this issue from three critical perspectives: structural problems that contribute to gender injustices; financial violence; and mental, emotional, and physical health impacts on abused and at-risk women. In addition to this 'look back,' we look ahead to consider callsto-action and opportunities, digital and/or on-ground, that remain imperative after the urgency of the viral lockdown. We are still at the threshold of activisms waiting, and needing, to happen. We conclude with questions for ourselves and our readers about what happens to advocacy when urgency ends. This growing body of feminist work demonstrates that advocacy will persist across physical and virtual landscapes. It is our responsibility and hope, as gender and communication scholars, to rally challenges against oppression based on gender or sex. Domestic violence against Indian women is continually overlooked. Our collective perspective intends to consolidate visibility toward such acts of abuse at the center of this scholarly piece. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opioid-related overdose death continues to be a public health crisis in the United States, reaching a new peak in 2021 with more than 100,000 people dying of drug overdose; 75% of these deaths involved an opioid. Naloxone, often known by the brand name Narcan®, can be easily administered to prevent opioid overdose death. While naloxone is a central harm reduction tool, it has generated controversy as discussions of its use have been framed by longstanding stigmas associated with drug use. Critics have framed it as a "moral hazard" that encourages drug use, stigmatizing its distribution and uptake. Harm reductionists have responded by countering misinformation about drug use and harm reduction and humanizing people who use drugs. Social media platforms have become key sites for these debates. These are digital social spaces in which individuals may fuel stigma and/or build community with others by enacting identities, exchanging knowledge, and bonding over shared experiences. TikTok, a video-based platform, has become an active space for community-building around harm reduction. This article examines the experiences of people who post about naloxone on TikTok. We draw on thematic analyses of semistructured, open-ended interviews with 13 TikTok users who tagged posts with #naloxonesaveslives or #narcansaveslives hashtags from June 2020 to April 2023. Specifically, we explore how these individuals understand and leverage TikTok's association, creative, and interactive affordances as "doors" to build harm reduction community and to educate others about drug use and harm reduction. We also explore how they navigate the "traps" of visibility on TikTok that pose challenges to using the platform for harm reduction activism: stigma, burnout, mental distress, and digital silencing. Finally, we consider the implications of our findings for future research and practice related to digital harm reduction activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disabled people need to be activists given the many problematic lived realities they face. However, they frequently encounter obstacles in traditional offline activism. Online activism could be a potential alternative. The objective of this scoping review is to examine the extent and nature of the coverage of disabled people in the academic literature that focuses on online activism. We searched the abstracts in Scopus, Web of Science, and the 70 databases in EBSCO-HOST for the presence of 57 terms linked to online activism or online tools or places for online activism, which generated 18,069 abstracts for qualitative analysis. Of the 18,069 abstracts, only 54 discussed online the activism by disabled people. Among these 54 relevant abstracts, only one contained the term “Global South”. No relevant abstracts were found that contained the terms “Metaverse” or “Democrac*” together with “activis*”. Only two relevant abstracts contained the phrase “digital citizen*”. Out of the 57 terms, 28 had no hits. The thematic analysis identified 24 themes: 6 themes in 30 abstracts had a positive sentiment, 7 themes in 30 abstracts had a negative sentiment, and 11 themes present in 23 abstracts had a neutral sentiment. There were three main themes: the positive role and use of online activism; the technical accessibility barriers to online activism; and the attitudinal accessibility problems arising from ableist judgments. The intersectionality of the disability identity with other marginalized identities and the issue of empowerment were rarely addressed, and ability judgment-based concepts beyond the term’s “ableism” and “ableist” were not used. The study underscores the necessity for further research given the few relevant abstracts found. The study also indicates that actions are needed on barriers to online activism and that examples for best practices exist that could be applied more often. Future studies should also incorporate a broader range of ability judgment-based concepts to enrich the analysis and to support the empowerment of disabled activists.

More than one year since its coup, the Myanmar military has neither established effective control of the territory nor crushed online dissent. What factors have enabled the resistance forces to deny the consolidation of military rule? We address this question by building a novel theoretical framework that incorporates the role of long-standing digitalized pro-democracy activism and by conducting a mixed methods analysis that includes an original, largely representative sample of public Facebook posts in post-coup Myanmar. We find that the development of online and hybrid pro-democracy activism against digital abuse and other illiberal policies under previous quasi-civilian governments enabled anti-coup resistance forces to thwart the military's attempt at authoritarian revival in 2021. Our research findings deepen understanding of Myanmar's post-coup contestation dynamics as well as other cases of unpopular autocratization in the digital age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the deployment of digital tools in pushing citizen activism on political accountability and empowerment using the 2018 #EndSARS campaign in Nigeria as point of reference. In so doing, the article explores the utility of digital activism and analyze the successes and challenges associated with the effectiveness of its use to advance citizens' voices in transitional democracies. The study deployed Chorus Analytics to harvest and thematically analyze 13,000 tweets of Nigerians that relate to the 2018 #EndSARS campaign. The article argues that the campaign can be deemed successful given that it elicited and raised public discourse on police abuse in Nigeria. The study observes the absence of strong institutions as a challenge to digital activism in transitional democracies. The individuality of activism leaders also poses a significant danger to digital activism. The findings demonstrate the weaknesses associated with transitional democracies in the area of building strong institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we examine protest of India's passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Registry of Citizens (NRC) which spurred instances of physical and digital protest. We study the intersections of gender, political subjectivities, and digital activism among anti-CAA-NRC activists, specifically the "Women of Shaheen Bagh." We discuss our data collection methods, description, and analysis of the protests in the context of larger questions, including how critical, feminist researchers may engage with data tools and how forms of gendered, transnational protest are mediated and represented via individual images, texts, and videos that make up social media data. We illuminate the formation of political subjectivities in the context of transnational, digital protest movements by re-appropriating computational and data tools. This article seeks to demonstrate an interdisciplinary engagement between critical, feminist approaches to knowledge and subject formation and data science approaches to social network analysis and data visualization techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the fifth episode of Last Week Tonight,John Oliver satirized an FCC proposal to alter net neutrality leading to a surge in public comments, a groundswell of media attention, and the proposal's defeat. In 2017, the FCC considered the proposal again and, despite Oliver's redoubled efforts, voted against net neutrality. These engagements illustrate how satire like Oliver's leverages the inventional resources of networked rhetoric to captivate audiences and direct shared sentiments toward activism by drawing attention to, creating, and extending moments for activism, revealing and engaging adversaries, and challenging discursive barriers that can foster engagement with public policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how activist organizations wield collective memory as they advance cross-racial solidarity on Instagram. We center digital memory-making in political work by Black and Asian activist organizations as a contribution to understanding social movement communication and online organizing. We study Instagram content from local organizations in Minneapolis (and the Midwest region), Atlanta (and the Southeast region), and national digital organizing collectives between the end of May 2020 to June 2021. This corpus of material includes the summer uprisings for Black liberation following the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, as well as the increased visibility of incidents of anti-Asian violence during the COVID-19 pandemic, including a mass shooting at massage parlors in Atlanta. Among our findings is the centrality of memories of internationalist feminist movements to contemporary cross-racial politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of MATRIZes is the property of Universidade de Sao Paulo, Programa de Pos Graduacao em Ciencias da Comunicacao and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Jurnal Hubungan Internasional is the property of Universitas Airlangga and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the context of today's global structure, many changes and effects have gained a significant scope. In the light of this scope, many social awareness actions and models have emerged. Among these emerging models, the digitalisation of activism and the electronification of lynch culture have had the most significant impact. Especially in recent years, increasing awareness of animal rights all over the world has also been shaped within this scope. It would not be wrong to say that one of the biggest contributions to the increase in animal rights awareness all over the world is the Save Ralph short film. Cos in addition to the effect created by the Save Ralph short film, lynching culture is generally a negative situation thanks to both street and internet activism created by the activist society created by the digitalisation of activism, while lynching actions created through animal rights have gained a more positive and sanctioned perspective. For this reason, semiotic analysis was used to evaluate the Save Ralph example in the article produced from this thesis. In addition, 250 tweets posted on Twitter using the hashtags "#saveralph and/or #hayvanhakları" within a 22-day period between 29.03.2021 and 19.04.2021 were analysed by content analysis in 17 different categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous-led activism against proposed oil pipelines has relied heavily on social media, as in the #NoDAPL campaign against the Dakota Access Pipeline. This paper explores affective engagement in online activism, including the Standing Rock 'check-in' campaign on Facebook. Moving beyond dichotomous understandings of embodied vs digital activism, Cannupa Hanska Luger's Mirror Shields Project employs digital media in order to support direct action at Standing Rock. Patricia Clough draws a direct link between affect and technoscientific understandings of the body in her concept of biomediated bodies. This helps explain how physical and digital activism are linked: the digital and the physical cannot be understood as independent of each other, since online engagement always has an embodied aspect as well. Luger's Mirror Shields Project functions as a form of alterlife, in resistance to biopower, recognizing historical and ongoing harms while also creating new possibilities for resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the formation and diminishment of collective hope in Vietnam by tracing the Facebook-based circulation, intensification, and attenuation of affective engagement with the Đồng Tâm land dispute in Hanoi from April 2017 to September 2020. The dispute enables us to conceptualize online activism as essentially fueled by collective embodiment of hope, understood as temporalized openness toward the 'not-yet' that stretches beyond pre-existing agendas. The magnitude of online activism depends not on the network itself but on how new media facilitate an attunement between the public and the latent force of subaltern dissensus. When such connection was disrupted, political hope faded when it was enveloped by endless crises habituated by the network. With implications in Vietnam and beyond, the article highlights hope as a political affect and a political capacity indispensable in social struggles, which enables us to embrace instead of enclosing precarious possibilities of change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the influence of the social sciences on policymaking during the first wave (2020 to 2021) of the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. It explains two broad orientations of the social sciences: technocratic, which was incorporated into elite-driven institutionalized responses that, at times, did not fully address urgent healthcare needs; and critical, which provided timely digital health information for the wider public. On a practical level, though, the two orientations can be intertwined. The article argues that further understanding of social scientists' relationship to power is needed in efforts to make the social sciences more beneficial to the people rather than to the elite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the case of O Movimento Brasil Livre (The Free Brazil Movement), or MBL, this article interrogates key assumptions about the nature of networked digital activism. The MBL, formed in the early 2010s by a Koch‐funded network of libertarian student groups, utilized a combination of activist training and strategic media engagement to organize a series of mass mobilizations in 2015 against supposed corruption within the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) administration under President Dilma Rousseff. Organized through MBL Facebook pages and promoted via YouTube and television appearances by movement leaders, these protests brought millions of Brazilian citizens to the streets in a wave of protests that eventually sparked Dilma's impeachment in May 2016. Deploying the conceptual framework of right‐wing Leninism, this article argues that conservative groups like the MBL are able to construct digital protest movements with revolutionary political ramifications due to their embrace of strategies originally formulated by Lenin, including the training of groups of ideologically coherent and committed cadres and the pursuit of dual power formation where the current political order is ruptured from the inside. Understanding how right‐wing activists mobilize digital media is of paramount importance for both countering their influence and developing strategies for the Left. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shinzo Abe, Japan's former and longest-serving prime minister was assassinated on 8 July 2022. As the world expressed sorrow of the human tragedy, nationalists in China were celebrating the disappearance of a hardline Chinese hawk with great enthusiasm. When a Chinese journalist sobbed for Abe's death during a live report of the assassination, the surging anti-Japan sentiment exploded and soon developed into a hashtag-based nationalist protest attacking Abe and the journalist. Drawing from cyber nationalism and hashtag activism literature, the author coined a concept 'hashtag nationalism' to analyze this protest, the interactions between state-led nationalism and popular nationalism, and the role of digital media in the public-state relation. This article also generalized three affordances of hashtag – interconnectivity, intertextuality, and interdiscursivity – to approach the role of social media in digital activism from a relational perspective. Finally, the analysis revealed the discursive and networked nature of hashtag nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is some scholarship on intersectionality focusing on African feminist movements, more work needs to be done to examine the importance of employing an intersectional framework to understanding feminisms in Africa. I critically analyze the advocacy work of four feminist groups on social media and digital media platforms. I examine discourses in contemporary feminist movements that are especially visible on digital media and proffer recommendations on how their work can embody an intersectional praxis. I argue that to truly embody a radical praxis in African feminist politics, it is imperative that we employ an intersectional lens to ensure that feminist topics that have historically been pushed to the periphery are centered in our theory and praxis. While digital media provides a platform for voices that would ordinarily be excluded in discussions on feminist activism, it is imperative to pay attention to how these platforms are utilized by activists to (in)advertently exclude the most marginalized from their feminist work. By applying an intersectionality framework to understanding African feminist discourses, we open ourselves up to driving feminist theory and praxis toward emancipatory interventions. This study draws attention to the importance of centering historically marginalized groups in mainstream Ghanaian feminist discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade, emerging digital technologies have created spaces for youth-led activism to flourish across the world. These spaces have facilitated civic engagement and bottom-up political participation from children and young people that are grounded in their specific interests and needs. Since the participatory practices granted by digital activism have been at the core of how younger generations are fighting for and advancing social change, it is essential for development education (DE) to explore the pedagogical possibilities of this particular type of participation. This article analyses youth-led mobilisations in Brazil connected to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their corresponding social media activity as a way to explore digital activism experiences and practices. The mobilisation is the Brazilian school occupations under the hashtag #OccupaTudo and #EscolasEmLuta that address SDG 4 Quality Education. Through a digital ethnography that explores the social media discussions associated with this movement and what can be perceived as the lack of long term impact, the article demonstrates the relevance of political action as a pedagogy and a tool for teaching children and young people about their rights, how to uphold them and how to overcome existing barriers for their civic engagement and participation. Building upon Hannah Arendt's theory of action, the article proposes an approach to digital political action as pedagogy and not only as an expected outcome for development education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, grassroots movements have gained traction and significant numbers globally. Against longer histories of resistance and protest movements' mobilisation of documentation, mechanisation and digital technologies, this scoping literature review seeks to understand how resistance and social movements have drawn upon the participatory and easily accessible nature of social media and digital platforms to mobilise new generations of activists, create new archives, document activities and abuses, call for accountability and overwrite or challenge the narratives put forward by mainstream media outlets and state archives. We identify relevant projects, explore the activist potential and threats of the combination of digital technologies, social movements, and documentary or archival practice, before concluding by identifying open research questions in relation to digital technologies, social movements and archival practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore digital consumer activism through a spatial lens, in order to understand how digital and place-based consumer activism intersect and interact. The empirical context is provided by Fairtrade Towns activism in the UK, investigated through netnographic methods. Three main spatialised tactics of digital consumer activism emerged from the analysis: emplacing the digital space; territorialising ethical consumption; and materialising digital activism. Building on these, we theorise hybrid consumer activism as a form of consumer activism whereby activists display belonging and identity both in physical and digital 'places' draw boundaries around spaces of ethical consumption through localised and digital collective action, and form hybrid digital ties. This study contributes to existing scholarship by taking into account placed and spatialised dimensions of digital consumer activism and by questioning the dichotomy between digital and place-based activism through the concept of "hybrid consumer activism". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dissemination and viralization of information on social media has been widely studied from various perspectives, including the digital activism. On the other hand, disability-related activism has conquered the online esphere, thus obtaining a reach that goes beyond the offline space and dialogue. This article analyzes the conversation generated on Twitter taking as a sample all the tweets with the hashtag #disability before and after the International Day of Diabled Persons. More than 18,000 tweets have been analyzed in which there are almost as many mentions, which have been interpreted as the weighted edges of a directed graph with the Gephi software, using the Force Atlas 2 brute force algorithm. The focus has been placed on the conversational communities generated around that hashtag, the main themes and the prominent actors in said conversational communities. In conclusion, it is verified that, although the network of mentions is very dispersed, Twitter is the scene of claims that include certain institutional and political support from the Latin American environment, from entities related to the cause such as Fundación ONCE and, above all, the clear predominance of female activists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Espiga is the property of Revista Espiga and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The study of how ethnonationalists mobilize digital media is not matched in size by an investigation into the progressive activists digitally mobilizing against them. This is especially true in diaspora communities, which form the focus of this work. In this paper, we discuss diasporic online progressive activism against one form of ethnonationalism, Hindutva. Situating our argument in the context of the Indian Australian diaspora, we argue that the study of activist media ecologies which seek to resist Hindutva is as critical as the study of Hindutva itself, but that scholarship on this kind resistance in diaspora remains sparse. We suggest that the Australian case – witnessing a critical acceleration in Hindutva mobilization since 2020 – provides a unique opportunity to understand the role of digital media at the nascence of online resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Burgess and Bruns (2015) have linked the computational turn in social media research to an increase in the number of studies focussing exclusively on 'easy data', such as the 'low hanging fruit' provided by Twitter hashtags. This paper explores whether there is a preponderance of such easy data in digital activism research through a systematic review of relevant journal articles published between 2011 and 2018 (N = 315). Specifically, it examines whether computational digital methods have become increasingly prominent in digital activism research during this period. A key focus of the paper is the extent to which digital activism research focused on easily accessible Twitter data, and whether these were obtained via standard API services. Results indicate that (1) traditional research methodologies were more commonly deployed in these articles than digital methods, but (2) Twitter was the most researched platform in the corpus, and (3) single-platform hashtag studies were an archetype of digital activism research alongside single-platform Facebook studies and holistic approaches (hybrid, multi-method & multi-sited, e.g., ethnography). The paper concludes by advocating for greater diversity in terms of the methodological approaches adopted in digital activism research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a pan-South Asian phenomenon that marks certain groups and bodies as untouchable, caste-based discriminatory practices have also traveled with the South Asian diaspora. This article examines the case of anti-caste activism, especially in the context of its transnational potentials which have blossomed with the ubiquitous uptake of digital technology worldwide. We examine anti-caste activism in the US through the work of Equality Labs, an anti-caste civil rights organization that works with digital and non-digital activist strategies. Analyzing a range of material including surveys and reports, online chatter, and journalistic discourse we show how the organization's work is part of a larger, transnational network of anti-caste activism—something we term the anti-caste alter-network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social media revolution has affected all areas, including activism. However, there is scepticism about its emancipatory capacity, and it is considered by some to be a distorted form of activism. This article presents a review of the existing literature on digital activism, starting with the concept itself, and examines its impact on the organisation of activists and citizen participation. Likewise, based on the platformisation of these spaces and the evolution of their affordances, we observe a growth in individual, strategic and low-commitment participation, the accentuation of the role of emotions in media that promote virality, and the assumption of playful forms of politainment by activists -especially on TikTok-. On the other hand, the strategies carried out by organisations to promote activism in relation to their causes are investigated, such as the generation of arguments provided by the interest group and the involvement in an action of dissemination, co-creation and replication of activists. Finally, the main challenges of digital activism are indicated: the growing inequality in terms of access to algorithmic visibility between activists and brands, influencers and interest groups; the desirability of complementing playful activism with work in alternative digital media that allows for more stable forms of collaboration; and the need to protect activists against the growth of hate speech on these platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Comunicar (English Edition) is the property of Oxbridge Publishing House and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Feminist theorist and cultural critic bell hooks was known for calling out modern-day feminists for failing to take into consideration the plight of other non-privileged women. She intricately analyzed how various factors of oppression form a web, which contributes to the complexities of women's marginalization. The vision of hooks, thus, is a revolutionary type of feminism which is inclusive and for everybody. This means that everyone, all persons of various races or classes, should become enlightened witnesses and be a part of the struggle towards eradicating what she refers to as White Capitalist Supremacist Patriarchy. Such vision, however, seems to be already included within fourth wave feminism. Also known as digital or online feminism, the fourth wave movement has taken to heart the vision of replacing oppressive thought and action with feminist thought and action. The question that arises, however, is whether this new online society is the type of global transformation or revolutionary change that hooks envisioned. Based on hooks' works, I examine the concepts, nuances, and problematic aspects of online feminism through the lens of bell hook's theories. Additionally, I consider how bell hooks' feminist framework can be used to re-envision and improve online feminism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Foco (Interdisciplinary Studies Journal) is the property of Revista Foco and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper studies the development of the movement and the meaning of hijrah in social media. Hijrah was originally understood as a process of leaving the past misguidance (jahiliyyah) and towards conditions that are in accordance with syariat. In its development, hijrah refers to a transformation of individuals who are less religious to more religious (Islamī). The form of this transformation can be seen from the choice of clothes, work preferences, and social relations models. The ideological process of the meaning of hijrah was carried out massively through social media. This is based on the search results on the internet about “hijrah” is more than other religious topics. This article answers how and why hijrah is interpreted and articulated by a number of digital activists. This research is qualitative research with a critical discourse analysis method combined with a digital hermeneutic approach. Based on research, digital activists who carry out the ideologization of the meaning of hijrah are preachers who have many followers on social media. Followers on social media are capital and modal in mainstreaming a discourse and idea. This article reveals that religious studies regarding hijrah on social media are not only related to understanding religious texts but are also part of religious commodification. In addition, the dominance of conservative groups is a fact that cannot be separated from the ideological flow of hijrah on social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper undertakes a comprehensive investigation into the pivotal role of digital activism within Nigeria's democratic framework, specifically its influence on public and civic engagement. The advent of social media networks has emerged as a significant tool for disseminating information and mobilizing support for various causes. Drawing upon the theoretical lens of technological determinism, this study critically examines the intricate relationship between digital activism and political participation in Nigeria since the return of democratic governance in 1999. Employing a descriptive research design complemented by a qualitative review of existing literature, the findings reveal that digital activism, if not properly organized, can yield adverse outcomes. Consequently, the paper advocates for a holistic approach to managing digital activism, emphasizing effective collaboration between those spearheading progressive causes and the government. By analyzing the multifaceted impacts of digital activism, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of its complexities and significance within Nigeria's political landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cadernos PAGU is the property of Universidade Estadual de Campinas - Portal de Periodicos Eletronicos Cientificos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Cuadernos.info is the property of Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Facultad de Comunicaciones and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Since 2007, there has been a recrudescence in gender-based violence and feminicides in Mexico, with an average of more than 10 feminicides a day. Out of nearly 47 million Mexican women above the age of 15, almost 31 million have been victims of some form of gender-based violence, mostly perpetrated by current or former partners. The present article investigates feminist online activism against gender-based violence and feminicides in Mexico as a discursive and mobilization strategy opposing the government's populistic rhetoric in the context of a political and cultural invisibility of violence against women in the public discourse. By analyzing the deployment of private memory to remember and honor the victims of feminicides and desaparecidas, the article reflects on the relationship between institutional patriarchy, populism, memory, and gender-based violence in Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Civic technologies have the potential to support participation and influence decision-making in governmental processes. Digital participatory budgeting platforms are examples of civic technologies designed to support citizens in making proposals and allocating budgets. Investigating the empirical case of urban biking activists in Madrid, we explore how the design of the digital platform Decide Madrid impacted the collaborative practices involved in digital participatory budgeting. We found that the design of the platform made the interaction competitive, where individuals sought to gain votes for their single proposals, rather than consider the relations across proposals and the larger context of the city decisions, even if the institutional process rewarded collective support. In this way, the platforms' design led to forms of individualistic, competitive, and static participation, therefore limiting the possibilities for empowering citizens in scoping and self-regulating participatory budgeting collaboratively. We argue that for digital participatory budgeting platforms to support cooperative engagements they must be revisable and reviewable while supporting accountability among participants and visibility of proposals and activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the social media moderation research space by examining the still under-researched "shadowban", a form of light and secret censorship targeting what Instagram defines as borderline content, particularly affecting posts depicting women's bodies, nudity and sexuality. "Shadowban" is a user-generated term given to the platform's "vaguely inappropriate content" policy, which hides users' posts from its Explore page, dramatically reducing their visibility. While research has already focused on algorithmic bias and on social media moderation, there are not, at present, studies on how Instagram's shadowban works. This autoethnographic exploration of the shadowban provides insights into how it manifests from a user's perspective, applying a risk society framework to Instagram's moderation of pole dancing content to show how the platform's preventive measures are affecting user rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Electronic Turkish Studies is the property of Electronic Turkish Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study focuses on the experiences of disabled individuals in online activism in the context of China. Adopting the social model of disability, this study found an iceberg structure consisting of two levels and three layers. The explicit level included observed labels, attitudes and legislation. The implicit level involved both social and internalized stereotypes. These three layers of social structures interacted with each other and together brought about social exclusion into being. Adopting the social model as an organizing principle represents a starting point to alter social patterns and possibly change social isolation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]