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Prior studies have tended to focus on the figure of consumer movements rather than the ground from which they arise. This AI-assisted netnography interprets data from the WallStreetBets (WSB) subreddit during the GameStop short squeeze and for a period of 2.5 years afterwards. Analysis reveals an intimate relationship between the subreddit and portrayals of participants' everyday lives, connecting financial strategies to jokes, memes, banter, and personal anecdotes. Collective identities are forged through discussions of life situations, populist counternarratives, shared cultural referents, and self-deprecation. Findings reveal digital activism ranging from the everyday and transitional to the extraordinary, bridging literatures on fluid consumer movements with everyday politics. Results affirm the value of collective identification to digital activism and suggest conceptual linkages to participatory culture and infinite gameplay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital activism in Southeast Asia is on the rise. The Milk Tea Alliance, known as a collaboration of netizens voicing human rights concerns in Asia, has now reached the citizens of Southeast Asian autocratic regimes, including Myanmar. Having faced decades of human rights oppression and undemocratic rule, the Milk Tea Alliance of Myanmar has been vocal in disseminating the post-2021 military coup domestic situation and reimagining what a democratic Myanmar would consist of in the future. This perspective article argues the significance of digital activism for Myanmar by tracing what the existing literature misses in assessing this phenomenon and the nexus between Myanmar's Milk Tea Alliance and the prospects of change in the state's democratic landscape. Taking into consideration the development of digital activism in Myanmar between 2020 and 2024 and adopting the theoretical frameworks of "legislative opportunism" and "liberation technology," this study concludes several possibilities: (1) the massive following of Myanmar's Milk Tea Alliance could establish the foundations for offline movements mimicking the Arab Spring; (2) the harnessing of democratic thoughts among citizens; and (3) changes from within are feasible through digital activism compared to externally imposed actions such as through the regional organization of Southeast Asia, ASEAN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The shock and anger felt by the Myanmar public as they witnessed their democratically elected government deposed in an illegal military coup in early 2021 has led to a revolutionary break in Burmese politics. The Bamar Buddhist political elites, formerly silent on the Rohingya Muslim crisis, apologised for failing to administer justice for the Rohingya victims; the coup breathed new life and possibilities into the formation of a federal democracy; and young students and strike leaders dared to challenge the dominance of the elites. However, little is known about whether this struggling together against military dictatorship might enable a broad-based development of solidarity among Myanmar's traditionally divided ethnic communities. Since many revolutionary communities across Myanmar took to social media to mobilise resistance, studying these groups' online interactions can provide critical insights to this question. By analysing conversations over the year following the coup on three of the most popular resistance Facebook groups from Bamar and non-Bamar communities, this article finds a two-step process of inter-ethnic solidarity building, driven by both instrumentalist interest and organic empathy. The findings deepen understanding on solidarity building among diverse anti-dictatorship forces, revolution dynamics in post-coup Myanmar, and the role of social media on forging inter-communal empathy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Building on critical, performative, and emancipatory visions for digital citizenship education, this paper analyzes social media within systems of global capitalism in a time of climate crisis, which not only introduce opaquely complex agencies but shape relations on a planetary scale. To reconceptualize digital citizenship education in a computational age, with consideration for just relations and the future health of the planet, this paper draws on the work of African philosopher Achille Mbembe, who articulates how plasticity among human and non-human agencies is being used within capitalist systems to take power over the living – a power that is shaped by colonial hierarchies. In place of individualism, Mbembe's philosophy emphasizes the need for collective action to repair harms and work across differences towards protection and sharing of what we have in-common. Connecting his thinking to digital citizenship, there is potential for education to support decolonial disenclosure of social media's capitalist capture and engage in deep historical learning towards the replacement of exclusionary, necropolitical forces with care and communing in support of life. This paper offers possibilities and provocations for digital citizenship education, inviting readers to respond in their own contexts in ways that consider our planetary relations. [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 explores how contemporary feminism has become increasingly platformized, focusing on how Scandinavian feminist opinion leaders negotiate Instagram as an integral part of their everyday lives. Drawing on 3 years of digital observations and interviews with activists with over 12,000 followers each, the article investigates the meeting between Instagram's script and feminist users who might not utilize the technology in line with the platform's intentions. The analysis takes cues from domestication studies and underlines the morality and materiality involved in the appropriation of technology, pointing at the tensions arising when doing feminism and making culture is intertwined through the everyday use of social media platforms. Building on recent scholarship on the platformization of culture, the article offers novel contributions into how platformization affects non-profit countercultural projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article elaborates a feminist digital activist perspective on the Colombian national strike of 2021 through the work of two women-led collectives (colectivas) in which I participated from afar, as part of the Colombian diaspora. Radio Lila is a collective of women living in Cali's oriente, and Cacerola Collective is formed by Colombians in the diaspora, mostly people working in the creative industries. Through the study of these colectivas's praxis, this article argues that women-led collectives use digital tools and the internet not only to set up political actions but also to create online places for care and mourning. This argument makes conspicuous how there is a gap in the research on digital activism, concerning the emotional tools activists seek to transit political uprisals and their aftermaths. In other words, we see here how feminist research on social media can also focus on retreating, going offline, as a way of personal and communal care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research question: Social media in sport management contexts is increasingly used to highlight social issues in sport and to advocate for change, such as expanding the opportunities for women to participate. The purpose of this study is to examine how and why people strategically used various Twitter conventions to advocate for women's cycling during the 2013 (men's) Tour de France. We draw on Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis to frame our exploration and analysis of the issue. Research methods: We analyzed the text of approximately 6000 tweets to examine the use of Twitter conventions, as discursive practices, in digital activism efforts to advance the women's cycling agenda. Findings and discussion: People used links, retweets, hashtags, direct mentions, and influencers' posts as individual discursive practices and for their collective potential to draw attention to, and advocate for, women's pro-cycling in the context of the 100th iteration of the men's Tour de France. We discuss why this was an important process in the context of women's cycling, and some of the impacts, ten years later, of this Twitter activity. Implications: Twitter conventions can be a useful digital activism tool for feminist agendas in sport. We are cautious of overstating this case as each cause will have different contexts, and the ability of trolls and other users to derail activism is ever present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although digital activism has strengthened in recent years on the African continent with the expansion of mobile phones and social networks, dictatorial or authoritarian governments have adapted their methods of repression to the new situation. This can be seen in particular in how these governments use ICTs to consolidate their power and/or exercise greater surveillance and stronger repression on citizens. In this article, we explore the case of Niger to highlight the multiple forms of repression implemented by African authoritarian regimes in response to attempts to use ICTs to expand the space of public liberties. We demonstrate that in authoritarian states characterized by technological deprivation, in particular limited access to digital technologies, low levels of education and a low sophistication of the state apparatus, digital repression is distinguishable from traditional forms of repression only in that it exclusively targets users of the Internet and social networks.

This research examines the influence of CEO versus brand communication on public engagement and digital activism during the Russia–Ukraine war. Brand communication refers to messages sent out through an organization's social media accounts, whereas CEO communication comes from the executive's personal account. The authors depart from an analysis of 236,119 tweets investigating the effects of message sender (CEO vs. brand), message framing (self vs. other), and message appeal (informational vs. emotional) on engagement (i.e., likes, retweets, and replies). To further understand, they subsequently deploy a 2 × 2 between-subjects design (N = 608) that introduces scenarios where either a CEO or brand proposes a public policy campaign, advocating support for U.S. citizens (self framing) or Ukrainian civilians (other framing). Key findings reveal that CEO communications foster greater engagement and digital activism than brand messages. CEO communication that merges self framed with informational appeals or other framed with emotional appeals outperforms brand messages regarding public engagement. In addition, CEO campaigns centered on Ukrainian civilians amplify digital activism, mirroring findings when brands approach the war's implications for U.S. citizens. Together, these insights unveil the intricate dance of message sender, framing, and appeal during global geopolitical events, providing vital knowledge for organizations and policy makers aiming to optimize public backing in times of war. [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]

Copyright of Gumushane Universty Electronic Journal of the Faculty of Communication / Gümüshane Üniversitesi Iletisim Fakültesi Elektronik Dergisi is the property of Gumushane Universitesi Iletisim Fakultesi Elektronik Dergisi (e-GIFDER) 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 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 study examines the information diffusion of "Airbnb discrimination" and related digital activism on Twitter. The model-based inferential network analysis shows a hub-and-spoke network that is loosely connected, indicating that the diffusion network of Airbnb discrimination includes various issues (e.g., antisemitism). The retweet network mirrors the existing offline relationship of users (e.g., those who support opinion leaders of antisemitism), demonstrating a core–periphery structure during the information diffusion process. This study not only empirically tested the retweet relationships but also provided theoretical explanations on how these relationships form through the notion of curative logic and two step information flow theory. The findings of this research challenge the widely accepted assumption about social media that "the more users share, the more people will see." [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]

This essay explores the pivotal transition in Iranian feminist activism through ‘Baraye’, a digital poem collectively written by Iranian users on Twitter during the Woman Life Freedom (WLF) movement, linked to the #MahsaAmini trend launched in September 2022. Initially sparked by tweets featuring the hashtag #MahsaAmini, this trend quickly evolved into a powerful form of digital activism, articulating widespread grievances and aspirations. Shervin Hajipour’s viral song ‘Baraye’, composed from these tweets, amplified the movement’s message and garnered international recognition, including at the Grammy Awards. As a part of the Feminist Media Activism in Transition special issue, this study highlights the relationships between social media and new forms of feminist activism, with ‘Baraye’ as an emblematic work of instapoetry that transcends geographical boundaries and fosters deep emotional and ideological connections among participants. The collective crafting of ‘Baraye’ by Iranians enabled suppressed voices, including marginalized ethnic, religious, and LGBTQIA+ communities, to express their demands and dissent. By employing digital humanities techniques to collect, curate, and analyse pertinent tweets, and drawing upon theories of performance studies, particularly Diana Taylor’s work, this research underscores this instapoem’s impact on Iranian feminist media activism and beyond. By looking at it as a performance, the work seeks to demonstrate how ‘Baraye’ blurs the line between physical presence and digital expression, marking a significant transitional moment in Iranian social movements. The essay aims to offer a different perspective on new modes of activism by examining ‘Baraye’ from the perspectives of performance and new media studies, emphasizing the role of digital platforms in fostering poetic digital activism and offering fresh insights into the interplay between technology and feminist movements in Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a digital ethnography of Istanbul Pride events in 2020 and in-depth interviews with LGBTI+ activists from Turkey, this study examines the transformations in the sites and practices of resistance during the COVID-19 pandemic. For the LGBTI+ community in Turkey, whose rights are already threatened by right-wing populist hegemony in politics, the pandemic brought further challenges and limitations to their public assemblies. While digital technologies afforded new sites for resistance, these spaces are not free from surveillance and inaccessibility, making their potential fragilities important to discuss. In this article, sexual citizenship is a central concept to analyse the resistance practices of the LGBTI+ community. By focusing on the affects and narratives of Pride participants, the article explores new opportunities and threats for the practices of LGBTI+ resistance caused by digitalisation. The analysis suggests that the assemblage of locations, technologies, and bodies primarily initiate novel forms of resistance. The LGBTI+ experiences show technological affordances make located experiences travel to a transnational digital, enabling affective interactions from afar, and that activists navigate their (in)visibilities via digital technologies to transform their resistance practices. [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 has become a revolutionary instrument for women's empowerment, upending established hierarchies of power and providing fresh avenues for advocacy, individuality, and engagement in the economy. This essay examines how digital platforms can advance women's rights by emphasising the ways in which social media increases action, amplifies the voices of the marginalised, and makes information easier to obtain. The report also looks at the obstacles that women must overcome to fully utilise these platforms, such as the digital divide, online harassment, and algorithmic bias. This research highlights the need for inclusive digital policy to provide a safer, more equal online environment for women globally by analysing the influence of social media on women's empowerment. [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]

Copyright of Journal Public Administration & Social Management / Administração Pública e Gestão Social is the property of Administracao Publica e Gestao Social 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 FORUM is the property of John Benjamins Publishing Co. 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 examines the critical role of Twitter (X) in crisis communication during the earthquake that struck Türkiye on 6 February 2023, focusing on how two prominent influencers, Haluk Levent and Oğuzhan Uğur, effectively utilized the platform in response to the disaster. Analysis of highly retweeted posts and engagement rates for tweets collected using related keywords—"ahbap," "babalatv," "haluklevent," and "oguzhanugur"—reveals how Twitter served not only for functions such as sharing locations for rescue operations, information dissemination, organization, and fundraising but also for defense against attacks and criticism of the government. Furthermore, Twitter emerged as a digital battleground where power struggles unfolded between the state and activist influencers. This study addresses this oversight by examining how Twitter functions not merely as a tool for communication and aid coordination but also as an arena of political contestation, filling a critical gap in understanding the role of social media. It underscores the critical need to consider the underlying political dynamics that social media interactions bring to the forefront during emergencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital activism in Southeast Asia is on the rise. The Milk Tea Alliance, known as a collaboration of netizens voicing human rights concerns in Asia, has now reached the citizens of Southeast Asian autocratic regimes, including Myanmar. Having faced decades of human rights oppression and undemocratic rule, the Milk Tea Alliance of Myanmar has been vocal in disseminating the post-2021 military coup domestic situation and reimagining what a democratic Myanmar would consist of in the future. This perspective article argues the significance of digital activism for Myanmar by tracing what the existing literature misses in assessing this phenomenon and the nexus between Myanmar’s Milk Tea Alliance and the prospects of change in the state’s democratic landscape. Taking into consideration the development of digital activism in Myanmar between 2020 and 2024 and adopting the theoretical frameworks of “legislative opportunism” and “liberation technology,” this study concludes several possibilities: (1) the massive following of Myanmar’s Milk Tea Alliance could establish the foundations for offline movements mimicking the Arab Spring; (2) the harnessing of democratic thoughts among citizens; and (3) changes from within are feasible through digital activism compared to externally imposed actions such as through the regional organization of Southeast Asia, ASEAN.

Social media platforms have become powerful tools for advocating rights and pursuing justice by mobilizing virtual “crowds”. In Türkiye, where confidence in the justice system has declined, social media has emerged as an alternative means to seek justice. Social media activism is frequently employed in response to femicides, encompassing various communication and legal aspects. This article aims to investigate how social media is utilized in the fight against femicide in Türkiye. Does seeking justice through social media truly influence court decisions? Do users adhere to democratic principles and freedom of expression while engaging in social media activism? What are the positive and negative effects? Additionally, what legal challenges arise from the use of social media? These are the questions explored in this study. Instances such as the release of perpetrators of violence against women, protracted legal processes, or defendants benefiting from lenient sentences deeply disturb public conscience, erode confidence in the justice system, and propel social media activism, which spreads rapidly among the masses. To examine the legal aspects of the issue, in-depth interviews were conducted with fifteen lawyers. The findings reveal that social media posts seeking justice for femicides have a significant impact on large audiences. The study demonstrates that social media serves as a mechanism of social pressure accelerating the process of justice and plays a crucial role in the pursuit of justice. Nevertheless, it also highlights the potential legal risks associated with social media activism.

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]

The question of what constitutes solidarity (and what does not) has been a persistent concern for feminist scholars. In this conceptual article, we develop a distinction between superficial feminist solidarity and substantive feminist solidarity, grounded in illustrations of digital resistance during the transnational "Woman, Life, Freedom" feminist movement. The categories of superficial feminist solidarity and substantive feminist solidarity provide a framework for critically distinguishing between the range of actions in the movement and understanding their respective logics, practices, and implications. Superficial feminist solidarity actions may raise awareness, but often do so in the service of building consensus for Western feminism. In contrast, substantive feminist solidarity manifests as anti-colonial praxis that advances demands for social justice through a horizontal dynamic with people subjected to inhumane conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses activist perceptions of the beneficial potentialities of new media for environmental campaigning as investigated in Australia, due to its high level of environmental activism and Internet usage. Drawing upon literature on communication theory, environmental politics, digital activism, and social movement theory, this study explores new media use for activism in two large Australia-wide environmental campaigns: contestation of old-growth forest logging and unconventional gas mining (fracking) development. From March to May 2017, 34 environmental activists involved in these campaigns were interviewed for this study. They shared their opinions on what it meant for them to use new media, the difficulties they encountered, but also the beneficial potentialities they identified in using these media for their activism. The study findings show that new media built significantly on more 'traditional' forms of activism, including stalls and non-violent street demonstrations, but also enabled extended activist outreach, enhanced engagement with supporters, and boosted campaign mobilisation. As such, despite an array of quite challenging limitations they also referred to, and to which they responded strategically, Australian environmental activists found new media highly beneficial to their activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital information and communications technologies like social media are critical for trade union renewal. Yet, although many unions now use social media, there remain ongoing debates as to what effective digital activism looks like. This question is even more pressing for the Global Unions, as international labour movement organizations without grassroots members. Drawing on social movement and networked communication theories, this article interrogates Global Unions’ social media practices through a mixed‐method analysis of 19,009 Facebook posts created between 2017 and 2022. Based on this analysis, we find that Global Unions that adopt crowd‐focused communication styles and post on broader social issues have more success in engaging with online crowds than those that emphasize workplace or organizational issues and adopt top‐down communication styles. At the same time, our findings challenge assumptions in the literature that crowd‐led, connective communication styles associated with engagement are necessarily the most effective in today's digital society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore the impact of the digital age on the transformation or advancement of Caribbean feminism, examining whether the digital age has strengthened or hindered global and/or regional solidarities in reaching feminist goals of transcending borders through intersectionality and expansion of virtual feminist platforms. Drawing on global literature and examples, and paying special attention to research and initiatives in the Caribbean, the paper explores whether the concepts of the personal is political, consciousness raising, and safe spaces that sustained feminist activism during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are still central to the modern feminist movement, and whether the range of social media formats we refer to as digital activism on Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, and Instagram have added dimensions that serve to energize feminism in the twenty-first century and cross different borders. This article aims to contribute to our understanding of how digital tools shape and influence the unique sociocultural context of Caribbean feminism and is provided with the intention of evoking critical dialogue on how digital tools serve or hinder foundational goals of the Caribbean feminist movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In what ways can we understand the productive tensions and complexities of digital feminist activism? This paper explores the increase of networked feminism, which focuses attention on digital activism and its relation to transformative social change. It suggests that we need a better understanding of how digital feminist activism might be changing the shape of transnational feminist resistance and praxis, and how feminist politics are created and enacted in digitally mediated environments. These result in new forms of feminist consciousness built on affective and embodied engagements. The paper explores the complex and ambivalent role of affective politics and embodied ethics to explore conditions of vulnerability. Using illustrative, global cases to show the nuances across digital activism, the paper contributes to understanding the complexities and differential effects of online environments, the mediation of feminist politics through digital knowledge cultures and the possibilities, challenges, and productive tensions that lie in the ever‐increasing use of digital environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To better understand the interplay between digital activism and feminist infrastructure, this study investigates #MeToo activism in the Swedish construction industry and green industry. Both are industries in transition characterized by a dissonance between formal incentives, that encourage women and others to work in environments previously dominated by white men, and the informal power structures hosting a toxic masculinity. Based on media texts and interviews with key persons from the industries, the article situates #MeToo in a local context and shows how it was embedded in a supportive social, cultural, and technical infrastructure. In both industries, at the time of #MeToo this feminist infrastructure was already in place consisting of: an awareness of the problem of sexual harassment and abuse, knowledge of feminist explanatory models, established feminist online networks, and a supportive feminist culture, which together with widespread digital and feminist literacy became instrumental in the organization of the movement. Social media connected activists and created a critical mass by supporting the uniting of conflicting identity positions around shared differences. The established feminist infrastructure meant that the #MeToo activism, by articulating a widespread affective dissonance, pushed open doors that were already half open and forced them wide. This can explain some of the movement's success in Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2019, Greta Thunberg launched a movement called "Fridays4Future" (FFF). This demonstration movement became the largest climate change demonstration movement in the world, where approximately 4 million people spread across 150 countries, participated in demonstrations on the issue of climate change. Greta Thunberg also uses social media to mobilize her followers. As the third largest carbon emitter in the world after the United States and China, Indonesia is faced with its commitment to reduce its carbon emissions by 29% by 2030 in accordance with Indonesia's commitment in the Paris agreement. Through a study on the implications of Greta's transnational movement on Indonesia's environmental politics, this research draws primary data from limited discussions with environmental activists affiliated with Teens Go Green, 350.org, Beecoms Indonesia and Free Fossil UKI. Secondary data will be obtained through newspapers, electronic media, journals and books as well as other official publications. The findings produced by this study reinforce the positive impact of Greta's transnational movement on Indonesia's environmental politics. The first positive impact is the increase in the number of Greta fans in Indonesia as shown by Salsabilla Khairunisa. Second, Greta inspires youth organizations in Indonesia to adopt a confrontational strategy towards companies and countries within the commitments of the Paris Agreement. The third positive impact is that digital activism is a strategy that is more widely used by youth organizations in Indonesia in fighting for environmental issues inspired by the transnational movement Greta. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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