Online social movements are organized efforts to push for a particular goal [1] through the use of new communications and information technologies, such as the Internet. [2] In many cases, these movements seek to counter the mainstream public, claiming there is a wrong that should be righted. [3] Online social movements have focused on a broad range on social and political issues in countries all around the world.
Since then, online social movements gained momentum into the early 21st century and are now one of the most prevalent forms of social movement. [4] The organizational structures and strategies behind social movements have changed as a result of the online world. Online communities on social media build off social movements, enabling the connection of persons worldwide to develop a base and gain awareness of issues. The internet supports the mobilization of a larger group of people within a shorter period of time.
The ubiquity of online social movements has resulted in varying attitudes. Both proponents and critics have raised valid points about the potential and the shortcomings of online social movements, which have been increasing evident in the numerous examples around the world.
The earliest social movements were minimally related to the internet. For instance, Charles Tilly recognizes the first social movements in Britain and the US in the 1750s and 1760s, after the 7 Years War. John Wilkes led the "Wilkes and Liberty" movement to achieve legal and parliamentary reform. Across the Atlantic, the Boston merchants and the activists in the Sons of Liberty initiated the opposition to the British that eventually lead to the Declaration of Independence in 1776. [5]
The mentality behind these was spurred on by sovereignty within British politics through the Reformation and informed John Wilkes and his followers about alternative societal rule. Thus, in 1768, members of the English lower class began to mobilize underneath Wilkes’ movement against the sovereignty of the ruling class. [6] On May 10, 1768, Wilkes’ supporters and the king’s soldiers at St. George’s field began fighting, resulting in about six to eleven protesters dead. [7] This event sparked speculation about where sovereignty lies. The rise of the Wilkes movement marked the beginning of a new phase in British politics where the notion of popular sovereignty became dominant. [6] Wilkes and his followers consistently challenged the leading authority through actions taken outside of parliament and on the basis of contesting laws. They created something that was so new that it laid the groundwork for political struggles to come: social movements. [7]
These situations, while different in nature from social movements we experience today, started the idea of mass-gathering to contest an issue. Modern examples of social movements include the Movement of the Unemployed in the 1930s, the Free Speech and Civil Rights Movements in the 1960s, the lower-profile 1990s movements, and the many digital movements in the 21st century. [5]
Social movements have evolved to a more widespread and integral state than ever before, in part due to social movements presence on social media. The earliest online social movements began right after the Internet revolution. While the Arab Springs are commonly associated with the earliest online movements, in reality, social movements began through email. In 1990, software company Lotus and credit bureau Equifax gained access to names, addresses and purchasing behavior of 120 million Americans in CD-ROM format. In response, nearly 30,000 consumers organized through emails and message boards in protest, halting the release of the database by 1991. [8]
In the Second EDSA Revolution in the Philippines in 2001, SMS messaging was popularly used to mobilize citizens and coordinate protests, with an estimated 70 million messages (including via email and the Web) exchanged during the event of president Joseph Estrada's impeachment. [9]
Since the late 2000s, there has been an increasing use of commercial social media platforms by social movements. According to Lopes, "Social Media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the various online blogs have arguably given a voice to individuals that otherwise would not be heard." [1]
Many people have conflicting views on social media and its effectiveness when put to the task of activism. The Pew Research Center found that some 64% of Americans feel that the statement ‘social media help give a voice to underrepresented groups’ describes these sites very or somewhat well. But a larger share, 77%, say social networking sites distract people from issues that are truly important, and 71% agree with the assertion that ‘social media makes people believe they're making a difference even when they really are not really making change.' [10] The debate on whether social media has added or retracted to the function of social movements as compared to historical precedence remains at the forefront of modern discussions on these issues.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced social movements to reinvent their protest strategies. Strict social distancing measures prevented traditional physical demonstrations in several countries, such as Italy, or limited the number of people that could gather, as in France and Germany. [11] [12] [13] [14] Many movements were forced to campaign online. Moreover, with the concept of people-less protests, first described by Yunus Berndt, a form of political activism at the intersection of online and offline spheres emerged. [15]
The use of the Internet in attempts to change society can be understood through different mechanisms, which have redefined traditional social movements. The Internet can be utilized through emails and social media, as well as online forums and petition platforms, which is unique in the context of traditional social movements.
The Internet has supported the spread of information about movements through rapid dissemination so that there is greater traction and more individuals are exposed to the cause. [16] The communication costs of the social movement also decline, allowing for cheaper and better communication with audiences. In addition, the Internet serves as a forum where people can openly discuss grievances and inequalities. Improved communication becomes important in creating rational understanding of social injustices and inequalities, which are typically critical to driving social movements. [17]
With better communication, the Internet facilitates the development of collective understandings that encourages wider participation in movements. Physical constraints, such as geography and resources, can be overcome through online organizing. [3] Social networks have assembled individuals of different backgrounds to create social movements that are widespread and global. Collective identity can be emphasized through this gathering of geographically disparate people and the diffusion of a common narrative. [18] For instance, Twitter hashtags, Facebook pages and Tumblr blogs have all played roles in organizing protests all around the world, with nearly 100,000 different hashtags related to the movement. [19] There is also potential for cross-movement influence, where the Occupy Movement that begun in the United States enabled the sharing of ideas with the Occupy Gezi protests in Turkey through digital exchange. [18]
The presence of the Internet supports the coordination of movements and the recruitment of resources. Grievances and public awareness alone are insufficient in driving social movements, but in addition require extensive coordination and resources. [20] The online world also helps improve the different levels of engagement possible, such as sharing opinions and engaging in forums, signing online petitions and participating in decision-making processes. To an extent, movements are able to establish legitimacy through content distributed through the Internet, without relying on mass media or in-person organization. [18]
The Internet provides a means to raise funds for campaigns. The Tibet Fund was one of the more prominent online funding raising platforms in support of Tibetan independence. The website provided detailed information for potential donors, as well as clear indications of how the funds will be used. [2] The low cost of access to communicate using the Internet also freed up financial resources for other activities, especially where the campaigns are operating under limited budgets. [18] This strategy can also free up resources to supplement online movements with in person organization, making goals for expansion more tangible.
Online social movements advance their work primarily through media, traditional or digital. It is easier, less costly as well as less time-consuming to link collective behavior as real-time communication can occur vastly and simultaneously via social media. [21] These movements exist in a range of different locales covering a wide breadth of topics, and the extent of their eventual offline action varies from case to case.
2009 Iranian presidential election protests: Protests against the highly controversial 2009 Iranian presidential election results in support of opposition candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, occurred in major cities nationwide from 2009 into early 2010. The protests were titled Iranian Green Movement by its proponents, reflecting Mousavi's campaign theme, and Persian Awakening, Persian Spring or Green Revolution, reflecting the "Persian identity" of Iranians and the so-called "colour revolution" theme. Protests began the night of 12 June 2009, following the announcement that incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won nearly 63% of the vote, despite several reported irregularities. [22] [23] [24]
Egyptian revolution of 2011: The Egyptian revolution of 2011, also known as the January 25 Revolution, started on 25 January 2011 and spread across Egypt. The date was set by various youth groups to coincide with the annual Egyptian "Police holiday" as a statement against increasing police brutality during the last few years of Mubarak's presidency. It consisted of demonstrations, marches, occupations of plazas, non-violent civil resistance, acts of civil disobedience and strikes. Millions of protesters from a range of socio-economic and religious backgrounds demanded the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Violent clashes between security forces and protesters resulted in at least 846 people killed and over 6,000 injured. [25] Protesters retaliated by burning over 90 police stations across the country. [26]
Arab Spring: The Arab Spring was a series of anti-government protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in response to oppressive regimes and a low standard of living, starting with protests in Tunisia. [27] The protests then spread to five other countries: Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain, where either the regime was toppled or major uprisings and social violence occurred, including riots, civil wars or insurgencies. Sustained street demonstrations took place in Morocco, Iraq, Algeria, Iranian Khuzestan, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan. Minor protests occurred in Djibouti, Mauritania, the Palestinian National Authority, Saudi Arabia, and the Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara. [28]
#BlackLivesMatter: Black Lives Matter (BLM) is an international activist movement, originating in the African-American community, that campaigns against violence and systemic racism towards black people. BLM regularly holds protests speaking out against police killings of black people, and broader issues such as racial profiling, police brutality, and racial inequality in the United States criminal justice system. [29] In 2013, the movement began with the use of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin in February 2012. The movement became nationally recognized for street demonstrations following the 2014 deaths of two African Americans. [30] [31]
#MeToo: The Me Too (or #MeToo) movement, with a large variety of related local or international names, is a movement against sexual harassment and sexual assault. [32] [33] [34] The phrase "Me Too" was initially used in this context on social media in 2006, on Myspace, by sexual harassment survivor and activist Tarana Burke. [35] Similar to other social justice and empowerment movements based upon breaking silence, the purpose of "Me Too", as initially voiced by Burke as well as those who later adopted the tactic, is to empower women through empathy and strength in numbers, especially young and vulnerable women, by visibly demonstrating how many women have survived sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace. [35] [36] [37] Following the exposure of the widespread sexual-abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein in early October 2017, [38] [39] the movement began to spread virally as a hashtag on social media. [37] [40] [41] The Time's Up movement is in part a supplemental movement to #MeToo focused on taking equitable action and organization against inequality and sexual harassment in professional settings. [42] [43] The movement was created in 2018 and consists of more than 300 prominent women in Hollywood, including Natalie Portman and Rashida Jones, and work with a legal fund to lobby and get protective laws passed. [44] Time's Up is an example of how online movements can become a segway into more goal-oriented, action-forward work. The movement gained momentum in Egypt following the significant rise in the number of sexual harassment, molestation, and rape cases. However, the rights of some of the witnesses and victims who came forward with their complaints were abused. Seif Bedour is one such student who became the victim of Egypt’s flawed law enforcement after being arrested for accompanying one of his friends to the Cairo police station as a witness in her rape case. Bedour was arrested in August 2020 and has been held in detention for four months on charges of morality despite not having any connections to the alleged rape case or having been present at the crime scene in 2014. The detention of witnesses in the case has cast shadow over the ‘Me Too’ movement started in the region and passed out a message that social morality is held above the rights of the Egyptian women. [45]
#MarchForOurLives: The March for Our Lives (MFOL) was a student-led demonstration in support of legislation to prevent gun violence in the United States. [46] It took place in Washington, D.C., on March 24, 2018, with over 880 sibling events throughout the United States and around the world, [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] and was planned by Never Again MSD in collaboration with the nonprofit organization. [52] The event followed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting a month earlier, which was described by several media outlets as a possible tipping point for gun control legislation. [53] [54] [55] Protesters urged for universal background checks on all gun sales, raising the federal age of gun ownership and possession to 21,[ citation needed ] closing of the gun show loophole, a restoration of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban, and a ban on the sale of high-capacity magazines and bump stocks in the United States. [56] Turnout was estimated to be between 1.2 and 2 million people in the United States, [57] [58] [59] making it one of the largest protests in American history. [60]
#MMIW Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women was created over ten years ago by the Sisters in Spirit group and Native Women's Association in Canada, where research began towards the violence against Indigenous women. This campaign has moved into the United States and has become a worldwide movement for Indigenous cultures. A majority of the movement and gatherings are led by those personally impacted by a missing or murdered indigenous woman in their lives. In 2014, Holly Jarret started the social media campaign with the #MMIW hashtag along with #ImNotNext, #NativeLivesMatter, #AmInext in a twitter campaign to bring attention to the Canadian Prime Minister to create an inquiry to MMIW where it was later acknowledged. [61]
#EveryChildMatters is a grassroot movement to support and bring awareness to the Indigenous children of Canada and United States who never made it home and for the survivors and families who were impacted by the treatment of their children in the boarding schools. #EveryChildMatters is connected to the hashtag #WearOrangeDay, a campaign for people to wear orange shirts in remembrance of the survivors and those who didn't make it home. [62]
The impact of online movements has seen a lot of growth since the introduction of the internet. With the accessible medium of social media, internet activism has reached the forefront of the internet. Through the use of social networking sites such as Facebook and content-sharing sites as YouTube, the opportunity for wide-scale, online social participation has increased. [63]
Online social movements have been celebrated for their ability to amass large amounts of success. The online world provides the power to organize without any formal organisations, which speeds up the process of mobilization and allows for greater scale in rapid time frames. [64] This can be understood as New Power, which supports informal leadership and radical transparency, conducive for large amounts of participation by people on social media. [65] Previously, the dominant form of old power limited participation in movements and leadership to a small group. [65] Rapid mobilization helps people overcome pluralistic ignorance, where individuals believe that they are the only person with a particular view. Instead, the online networked sphere helps reveal otherwise preferences to each other in order to discover common ground. [66] The increased visibility of a movement on the internet supports a sense of camaraderie, setting and maintaining a cause, even if it is otherwise decentralized. Social media can overcome pluralistic ignorance, [16] which is the belief that your opinions are not shared by others, when in reality, they tend to be. The online world enables the synchronization of opinions across disparate geographies, creating new norms of behavior and belief through regular repetition and affirmation of messages. [16] In the political sphere, active online groups increase political participation by providing a framework for discussion, leading petitions, and collecting donations in order to further a political agenda. [67] This alignment of values has often results in the potential to organize, such as fund raising in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge that raised $100 million in just 30 days. [68]
Online movements are able to sustain attention across boundaries, physical and temporal. For instance, during the Egyptian Revolution in 2011, Facebook’s event function allowed for people to organize protests, which would then be acted out upon in real-life. Similarly, the Occupy movement was able to gather an online following around the world through the Tumblr blog, titled “We are the 99%”. The function of being able to post on a shared website supported the gathering of different narratives, unifying people. In fact, online social movements epitomizes the notion of “many yeses, one no”. [3] This motto highlights how the online world brings together diverse voices against something they all feel strongly about by acting as integrating screens since people use these devices to connect with others, rather than to isolate themselves. In many ways, social media has created networks conducive for unification across different identities, supporting intersectional approaches to fighting injustice. People can inform themselves on the most equitable practices and gain insight on how best to accommodate everyone while fighting for a particular issue. For instance, the Zapatistas attempted to emphasize their inclusivity of the movement, which had begun as somewhat of a peasants revolt. The leader of the movement, Marcos, was famously presented in numerous identities, of different exploited and marginalized minorities who are saying “Enough” to their situation: [69]
“Yes, Marcos is gay. Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal, a Jew in Germany, a Gypsy in Poland, a Mohawk in Quebec, a pacifist in Bosnia, a single woman on the subway at 10pm, a peasant without land, a gang member in the slums, an unemployed worker, an unhappy student and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains. Marcos is all the exploited, marginalised, oppressed minorities resisting and saying 'Enough.' He is every minority who is now beginning to speak, and every majority that must shut up and listen. He is every untolerated group searching for a way to speak. Everything that makes power and the good consciences of those in power uncomfortable—this is Marcos.” -Subcommandant Marcos, from Social Justice E-Zine #27 [69]
Social media is also able to provide a creative milieu that is conducive for narrative building. Memes, in particular, have proven to be a useful tool when it comes to circulating certain ideas. They enter the public consciousness and are able to pique interest through a dual purpose of entertainment and awareness. In addition, the large numbers of people online allow for intentional overproduction. [3] Amanda D. Lotz noted that this is a key strategy, where multiple shows and commercials are created in order to compete, so that the most effective version can succeed, while the others disappear. [3] In online social movements, hashtag culture functions by having many people copy each other and come up with new permutations, allowing for the most successful version to spread. [16]
Social media platforms are harder to censor than real-life organization of movements. Ethan Zuckerman advanced the Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism, which explains the relative lack of censorship online. Zuckerman posits that the web is used primarily for innocuous purposes, such as connecting with families and friends and posting pictures of cats. [70] While the affordances that social media provides activists nurtures a community that engages in political criticism, these activists are able to hide behind the largely mundane uses of the internet and cause censorship by governments to appear especially draconian. For instance, the Twitter ban in Turkey by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan who intended to “wipe out” the social media platform was met with furious outrage from the population, experts and the global community. [71] Similarly when ex-Tunisian President Ben Ali attempted to ban Facebook in 2010, his move backfired because so many Tunisians used Facebook to connect with family, friends and acquaintances. [72]
There are numerous critiques posed against online social movements that populate the discourse.
Most frequently, the limited capacity for tangible change is often raised. For social movements to be successful, there need to be network internalities, which are durable networks ideal for organised action. [3] These networks are the result of long-term challenges that are collectively overcome, which supports trust building. This process requires the investment of time and energy in order for members of a social movement to learn how to cooperate to achieve their goals.
Zeynep Tufekci introduces the Mount Everest metaphor in her comparison of the Civil Rights Movement’s achievements with the Arab Spring’s relative limited scope of change, especially in Egypt. [3] Zeynep draws a comparison between social media and Sherpas. Previously, climbing Mount Everest was a challenging task. However, with Sherpas, more people were capable of doing so, and this led to a spike in mountaineering tourism. These individuals remained unprepared for the reality of scaling the mountain, resulting in a spike in deaths. Similarly, social media has enabled more social movements to spread and enter the public sphere. However, there has not been long-term training and building of network internalities which is necessary to sustain these movements. [3] The Civil Rights Movement had undergone strenuous planning and organisation, which has resulted in leaders who were able to represent the cause, such as Martin Luther King. In contrast, online social movements tend to be more short-lived. For instance, Kony 2012 brought attention to child soldiers being forced into Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army. [73] However, the small organization that directed the video, Invisible Children, was incapable of managing the sheer volume of attention received. The director Jason Russell thereafter had a major breakdown and the social movement dissipated, which can be owed to lack of strong organization and network internalities. [74] Related to this is the theory of tactical adaptation by Doug McAdam, which can apply to movements with a lack of strong organizational power and cause opposing forces to easily adapt to tactics employed by social movements. [75] If mobilizing action on social media is a sole or primary tactic of a social movement and no consistent tactical innovation poses a direct threat to government or institutions, the movement may have trouble gaining traction long-term.
There is also the concern of a lack of clear leadership in online social movements. This means that there might be a challenge in finding representatives to negotiate within the movement and with adversaries. These individuals might have little in common beyond the initial movement. For instance, Tahrir Square protesters could not deviate tactically from their initial demand, which was to overthrow the Hosni Mubarak regime. Hence, there was a tactical freeze, where tactics could not be adjusted and new demands were not articulated by the social movement. Even the creator of “We are All Khaled Said”, the main Facebook page of the Egyptian Revolution, Wael Ghonim was in no position to concede anything. Ghonim was neither an elected leader, nor an informal one, which denied him legitimacy to engage in negotiations. [3] Similarly, in the Occupy movement, there was an attempt to empower all protestors to be leaders of the movement. However, as a “leaderful” movement, there was a lack of ability to identify a clear representative to negotiate since there were too many perspectives. [76]
Online social movements, while effective in unifying people, might also amplify the tendency to tribalism. In particular, more people having access to social media might democratize the risk of promoting violence, especially where institutions are not stable and there can be large amounts of distrust and disinformation. For instance, while social media had helped Sri Lanka ease the path to its first democratic elections in 2015 after years of civil war, communal hatreds began to overrun the news feeds, which are the primary portal of news and information for many users. [77]
Some critiques, specific to online social media activism, have been raised about the power mechanisms and organisational structure. This transition highlighted asymmetrical relationships between the for-profit aims of social media and the copy-left values that drive many online movements. According to Fenton, "Claims for the extension and re-invention of activism need to be considered in the context of the material social and political world of inequality, injustice and corporate dominance." [3] For example, "in his analysis of the Purple Movement (Popolo Viola) in Italy and its extensive use of Facebook, Coretti (2014) [78] demonstrates that, while the myth of the network as open and inclusive persists, it acts as a disguise for the communication protocols of commercial social networking platforms that may well enable large-scale mobilization but ultimately, through their very functionality, encourage organizational centralization and fragmentation in social movements". [79] The proprietary nature of the design of platforms, such as Facebook pages, possibly fails to provide movements with the necessary instruments in a shared democratic management of their resources. Moreover, the inability to manage Facebook pages and groups according to commonly agreed values promotes vertical power structures within movements, contributing to a controversial management of Facebook pages and to internal divisions that significantly hinder the potential of protest. [78]
Social movements have existed before the Internet, but the nature of social movements has been modified through the Internet. The online world's beneficial impacts are clear, but these impacts are accompanied with detriments. [80] Online movements are able to scale up dramatically and more quickly, but these horizontalist movements come at the expense of weathering risks and responses from the government. [80]
In comparing past social movements to social movements today, it is clear that many of them have heavily utilized online social media platforms to advance their agendas. With the help of many open source media platforms, such as Creative Commons and P2P Foundation, the public can easily gain access to the essence of these social movements. The prevalence of these platforms also allows for an easier way to market, while simultaneously reaching a wider range of audience. While many more social media tools are available today and as a result granted faster and easier preparation of a movement, it is up to debate whether this change has been good for the success of current movements. [66] It is essential to continue to monitor this shift in culture in social movements and understand the advantages and drawbacks of having access to social media as a means to advance a movement. With the continued rapid evolution of the internet, the future of online movements is hard to predict.
Vanessa DiMauro, a community builder and researcher in decision-making, believes that the biggest trend concerning online communities is the formation of private online communities. While these large networks that we encounter and use on a daily basis have provided us with a productive and collaborative experience, they have also increased to unmanageable sizes. To become a learning environment, these groups need to be much smaller and manageable, which reflects DiMauro's belief. This is where the idea and trend of private online communities could potentially be the future of online communities. [79]
The traditional role of actors, such as social media organizations and governments, have also changed with online social movements. In these online communities, social movement organizations have been less necessary for online participation. [81] While these organizations have continued to play a role in offline engagements, social media organizations have begun to find new avenues for their contribution to social change. [81] Similarly, governments have found new ways to respond to online social movements. They have done this by developing new methods to adapt to social media threats, as well as by developing new methods of repression. [80] As governments have evolved, dissidents have continued to adapt with the new technological affordances. In an online space, uncertain times continue to remain for social activists and governments.
A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of group action and may involve individuals, organizations, or both. Social movements have been described as "organizational structures and strategies that may empower oppressed populations to mount effective challenges and resist the more powerful and advantaged elites". They represent a method of social change from the bottom within nations. On the other hand, some social movements do not aim to make society more egalitarian, but to maintain or amplify existing power relationships. For example, scholars have described fascism as a social movement.
Youth activism is the participation in community organizing for social change by persons between the ages of 15–24. Youth activism has led to a shift in political participation and activism. A notable shift within youth activism is the rise of “Alter-Activism” resulting in an emphasis on lived experiences and connectivity amongst young activists. The young activists have taken lead roles in public protest and advocacy around many issues like climate change, abortion rights and gun violence.
Internet activism involves the use of electronic-communication technologies such as social media, e-mail, and podcasts for various forms of activism to enable faster and more effective communication by citizen movements, the delivery of particular information to large and specific audiences, as well as coordination. Internet technologies are used by activists for cause-related fundraising, community building, lobbying, and organizing. A digital-activism campaign is "an organized public effort, making collective claims on a target authority, in which civic initiators or supporters use digital media." Research has started to address specifically how activist/advocacy groups in the U.S. and in Canada use social media to achieve digital-activism objectives.
Slacktivism is the practice of supporting a political or social cause by means such as social media or online petitions, characterized as involving very little effort or commitment. Additional forms of slacktivism include engaging in online activities such as liking, sharing or tweeting about a cause on social media, signing an Internet petition, copying and pasting a status or message in support of the cause, sharing specific hashtags associated with the cause, or altering one's profile photo or avatar on social network services to indicate solidarity.
Media activism is a broad category of activism that utilizes media and communication technologies for social and political movements. Methods of media activism include publishing news on websites, creating video and audio investigations, spreading information about protests, or organizing campaigns relating to media and communications policies.
A hashtag is a metadata tag that is prefaced by the hash symbol, #. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services such as Twitter or Tumblr as a form of user-generated tagging that enables cross-referencing of content by topic or theme. For example, a search within Instagram for the hashtag #bluesky returns all posts that have been tagged with that term. After the initial hash symbol, a hashtag may include letters, numerals, or underscores.
Twitter Revolution is a term used to refer to different revolutions and protests, most of which featured the use of the social networking site X, formerly and colloquially known as Twitter, by protesters and demonstrators in order to communicate.
Networked feminism is a phenomenon that can be described as the online mobilization and coordination of feminists in response to sexist, misogynistic, racist, and other discriminatory acts against minority groups. This phenomenon covers all possible definitions of what feminist movements may entail, as there have been multiple waves of feminist movements and there is no central authority to control what the term "feminism" claims to be. While one may hold a different opinion from another on the definition of "feminism", all those who believe in these movements and ideologies share the same goal of dismantling the current patriarchal social structure, where men hold primary power and higher social privileges above all others.
Feminist Digital Humanities is a more recent development in the field of Digital Humanities, a project incorporating digital and computational methods as part of its research methodology. Feminist Digital Humanities has risen partly because of recent criticism of the propensity of Digital Humanities to further patriarchal or hegemonic discourses in the Academy. Women are rapidly dominating social media in order to educate people about feminist growth and contributions. Research proves the rapid growth of Feminist Digital Humanities started during the post-feminism era around from the 1980s to 1990s. Such feminists’ works provides examples through the text technology, social conditions of literature and rhetorical analysis. Feminist Digital Humanities aims to identify and explore women's digital contributions as well as articulate where and why these contributions are important.
Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived common good. Forms of activism range from mandate building in a community, petitioning elected officials, running or contributing to a political campaign, preferential patronage of businesses, and demonstrative forms of activism like rallies, street marches, strikes, sit-ins, or hunger strikes.
Hashtag activism refers to the use of social media hashtags for Internet activism. The hashtag has become one of the many ways that social media contributes to civic engagement and social movements. The use of the hashtag on social media provides users with an opportunity to share information and opinions about social issues in a way that others (followers) can interact and engage as part of a larger conversation with the potential to create change. The hashtag itself consists of a word or phrase that is connected to a social or political issue, and fosters a place where discourse can occur. Social media provides an important platform for historically marginalized populations. Through the use of hashtags these groups are able to communicate, mobilize, and advocate for issues less visible to the mainstream.
The role of social media in the Arab Spring, a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests in the Middle East and North Africa between 2010 and 2012, remains a highly debated subject. Uprisings occurred in states regardless of their levels of Internet usage, with some states with high levels of Internet usage experiencing uprisings as well as states with low levels of Internet usage.
Fourth-wave feminism is a feminist movement that began around the early 2010s and is characterized by a focus on the empowerment of women, the use of internet tools, and intersectionality. The fourth wave seeks greater gender equality by focusing on gendered norms and the marginalization of women in society.
In the United States, LGBT youth of colour are marginalized adolescents in the LGBT community. Social issues include homelessness; cyberbullying; physical, verbal and sexual abuse; suicide; drug addiction; street violence; immigration surveillance; engagement in high-risk sexual activity; self-harm, and depression. The rights of LGBT youth of colour are reportedly not addressed in discussions of sexuality and race in the larger context of LGBT rights.
#MeToo is a social movement and awareness campaign against sexual abuse, sexual harassment and rape culture, in which women publicize their experiences of sexual abuse or sexual harassment. The phrase "Me Too" was initially used in this context on social media in 2006, on Myspace, by sexual assault survivor and activist Tarana Burke. The hashtag #MeToo was used starting in 2017 as a way to draw attention to the magnitude of the problem. "Me Too" is meant to empower those who have been sexually assaulted through empathy, solidarity and strength in numbers, by visibly demonstrating how many have experienced sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace.
Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest is a 2017 non-fiction book written by Zeynep Tufekci about protest in the age of the internet, social networks, and social media. Tufekci describes the internet as a new type of digital public sphere and compares protest movements throughout history to modern movements that used the internet. The book is freely available under a Creative Commons license.
#HimToo is a social movement supporting male victims of sexual assault and false rape allegations. The reaction to the #MeToo movement started in October 2018 after a tweet from a mother about her son being afraid to date because of a climate of false rape allegations. It rose to greater prominence during the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination. The #HimToo movement was a response to the sexual assault allegations from the #MeToo movement.
Internet activism in South Korea originated in 2002, when an Internet user named Angma proposed a candlelight vigil for two girls who were killed by a U.S. military vehicle in the Yangju highway incident. Angma's post circulated widely online, mobilizing ordinary people to demand SOFA reform and an apology from President George W. Bush with peaceful candlelight protests in Kwanghwamun. Since then, the Internet has been a space for open discussion of sociopolitical issues and grassroots activism in South Korea. Other examples of Internet activism in Korea are the 2008 U.S. beef protest, anti-Chosunilbo protests, and online feminist and LGBTQ movements with hashtags.
The 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests happened as a result of the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill. Some observed that it is an extension to the 2014 Umbrella Movement, and there are other underlying issues that amounted to such explosive protest, which cover the economic, social and environmental aspects. With the Chinese Government's attempt in turning Hong Kong to a semi-authoritarian regime, it sparked Hong Kong people's dissent as the Chinese Government's intervention would threaten the Rule of Law in Hong Kong. Thus, people in Hong Kong shown their resistance through protesting, and planning through the use of social media have facilitated the social movements..
The #MeToo movement emerged in China shortly after it originated in the United States. In mainland China, online MeToo posts were slowed by government censorship. On Weibo, #Metoo and #MetooinChina were both blocked for a period of time. To avoid the censorship, Chinese women using the #MeToo hashtag on social media began using bunny and bowl-of-rice emojis; "rice bunny" is pronounced mi-tu in Chinese. Feminist activist Xiao Qiqi originated the use of rice-bunny emojis for the movement. Another alternative is “River Crab” which indicates censorship. Generally, the #Metoo movement was only accessible to elite women and urban women.
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