Media Activism in the Digital Age captures an exciting moment in the evolution of media activism studies and offers an invaluable guide to this vibrant and evolving field of research. Victor Pickard and Guobin Yang have assembled essays by leading scholars and activists to provide case studies of feminist, technological, and political interventions during different historical periods and at local, national, and global levels. Looking at the underlying theories, histories, politics, ideologies, tactics, strategies, and aesthetics, the book takes an expansive view of media activism. It explores how varieties of activism are mediated through communication technologies, how activists deploy strategies for changing the structures of media systems, and how governments and corporations seek to police media activism. From memes to zines, hacktivism to artivism, this volume considers activist practices involving both older kinds of media and newer digital, social, and network-based forms. Media Activism in the Digital Age provides a useful cross-section of this growing field for both students and researchers.

Performing Media Activism in the Digital Age breaks new ground by conceptualizing activism as a performance extending beyond public space and the moment of public gatherings to consider the more extended view of social or political movements as mediated social connections. The book utilizes primary data extracted from social media platforms by applying a social network analysis (SNA) approach to the people, organizations, and media that are trying to advance their particular agendas, with an eye toward a better understanding of the ways in which social movements operate in a networked society. The goal of social network analysis is to identify social structures within a movement such as communities or clusters and it seeks to locate influence within those structures. Social network analysis as applied to media activism represents an interdisciplinary field that encompasses social psychology, sociology, as well as graph theory, which should suggest this book will be of interest to scholars and students in these and related fields. In the digital age, social network analysis represents a paradigm shift as analytical and data visualization tools can be applied in an interdisciplinary manner. By combining data science and sociology or cultural anthropology, one has the means to visualize networks of individuals and organizations engaged in a social movement, to see how movements are organized (structured) into communities, clusters, and niches, and to visualize power structures within social movements to see who is influencing a network over extended periods of time.

As media environments and communication practices evolve over time, so do theoretical concepts. This book analyzes some of the most well-known and fiercely discussed concepts of the digital age from a historical perspective, showing how many of them have pre-digital roots and how they have changed and still are constantly changing in the digital era. Written by leading authors in media and communication studies, the chapters historicize 16 concepts that have become central in the digital media literature, focusing on three main areas. The first part, Technologies and Connections, historicises concepts like network, media convergence, multimedia, interactivity and artificial intelligence. The second one is related to Agency and Politics and explores global governance, datafication, fake news, echo chambers, digital media activism. The last one, Users and Practices, is finally devoted to telepresence, digital loneliness, amateurism, user generated content, fandom and authenticity. The book aims to shed light on how concepts emerge and are co-shaped, circulated, used and reappropriated in different contexts. It argues for the need for a conceptual media and communication history that will reveal new developments without concealing continuities and it demonstrates how the analogue/digital dichotomy is often a misleading one.

Technology, Activism, and Social Justice in a Digital Age offers a close look at both the present nature and future prospects for social change. In particular, the text explores the cutting edge of technology and social change, while discussing developments in social media, civic technology, and leaderless organizations -- as well as more traditional approaches to social change. It effectively assembles a rich variety of perspectives to the issue of technology and social change; the featured authors are academics and practitioners (representing both new voices and experienced researchers) who share a common devotion to a future that is just, fair, and supportive of human potential. They come from the fields of social work, public administration, journalism, law, philanthropy, urban affairs, planning, and education, and their work builds upon 30-plus years of research. The authors' efforts to examine changing nature of social change organizations and the issues they face will help readers reflect upon modern advocacy, social change, and the potential to utilize technology in making a difference.

Where we have been and where we are headed -- The look and feel of e-tactics and their Web sites -- Tacking action on the cheap: costs and participation -- Making action on the cheap: costs and organizing -- Being together versus working together : copresence in participation -- From power in numbers to power laws: copresence in organizing -- A new digital repertoire of contention?

From Occupy to Uncut, from the Arab Spring to the Slutwalk movement, few questions about recent activism raise as much controversy as the role of the internet. This book suggests that the internet is a tool, not a cause, of social change. It has profoundly affected the way people communicate, making it easier to find the truth, to learn from activists on the other side of the world, to co-ordinate campaigns without hierarchy and to expose governments and corporations to public ridicule. But it has also helped those same governments and corporations to spy on activists, to disrupt campaigns and to create illusions of popular support. Focused on the real-life experiences of activists rather than theory or abstract statistics, Digital Revolutions asks how the internet has affected activism, how it has allowed movements to go global more quickly and what the future holds for corporations and social movements that are doing battle online. Symon Hill has campaigned on the arms trade, religious liberty, same-sex marriage, disability rights, and economic injustice. He has worked with the Campaign Against Arms Trade and the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and was a founding member of Christianity Uncut. He has trained hundreds of activists in campaigning skills and media engagement. In February 2012 he was dragged by police from the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral during the eviction of Occupy London Stock Exchange. He is associate director of the Ekklesia think tank and associate tutor at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre. He writes for The Guardian, Morningstar, The Friend, and Third Way. His first book was The No-Nonsense Guide to Religion.

In this book established researchers draw on a range of theoretical and empirical perspectives to examine social media’s impact on American politics. Chapters critically examine activism in the digital age, fake news, online influence, messaging tactics, news transparency and authentication, consumers’ digital habits and ultimately the societal impacts that continue to be created by combining social media and politics. Through this book readers will better understand and approach with questions such as: • How exactly and why did social media become a powerful factor in politics? • What responsibilities do social networks have in the proliferation of factually wrong and hate-filled messages? Or should individuals be held accountable? • What are the state-of-the-art of computational techniques for measuring and determining social media's impact on society? • What role does online activism play in today’s political arena? • What does the potent combination of social media and politics truly mean for the future of democracy? The insights and debates found herein provide a stronger understanding of the core issues and steer us toward improved curriculum and research aimed at a better democracy. Democracy in the Disinformation Age: Influence and Activism in American Politics will appeal to both undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as academics with an interest in areas including political science, media studies, mass communication, PR, and journalism.

Leading authority on media literacy education shows secondary teachers how to incorporate media literacy into the curriculum, teach 21st-century skills, and select meaningful texts.

This “well-researched, nuanced” study of the rise of social media activism explores how marginalized groups use Twitter to advance counter-narratives, preempt political spin, and build diverse networks of dissent (Ms.) The power of hashtag activism became clear in 2011, when #IranElection served as an organizing tool for Iranians protesting a disputed election and offered a global audience a front-row seat to a nascent revolution. Since then, activists have used a variety of hashtags, including #JusticeForTrayvon, #BlackLivesMatter, #YesAllWomen, and #MeToo to advocate, mobilize, and communicate. In this book, Sarah Jackson, Moya Bailey, and Brooke Foucault Welles explore how and why Twitter has become an important platform for historically disenfranchised populations, including Black Americans, women, and transgender people. They show how marginalized groups, long excluded from elite media spaces, have used Twitter hashtags to advance counternarratives, preempt political spin, and build diverse networks of dissent. The authors describe how such hashtags as #MeToo, #SurvivorPrivilege, and #WhyIStayed have challenged the conventional understanding of gendered violence; examine the voices and narratives of Black feminism enabled by #FastTailedGirls, #YouOKSis, and #SayHerName; and explore the creation and use of #GirlsLikeUs, a network of transgender women. They investigate the digital signatures of the “new civil rights movement”—the online activism, storytelling, and strategy-building that set the stage for #BlackLivesMatter—and recount the spread of racial justice hashtags after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and other high-profile incidents of killings by police. Finally, they consider hashtag created by allies, including #AllMenCan and #CrimingWhileWhite.

This surprising study of online political mobilization shows that money and organizational sophistication influence politics online as much as off, and casts doubt on the democratizing power of digital activism. The internet has been hailed as a leveling force that is reshaping activism. From the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, digital activism seemed cheap, fast, and open to all. Now this celebratory narrative finds itself competing with an increasingly sinister story as platforms like Facebook and Twitter—once the darlings of digital democracy—are on the defensive for their role in promoting fake news. While hashtag activism captures headlines, conservative digital activism is proving more effective on the ground. In this sharp-eyed and counterintuitive study, Jen Schradie shows how the web has become another weapon in the arsenal of the powerful. She zeroes in on workers’ rights advocacy in North Carolina and finds a case study with broad implications. North Carolina’s hard-right turn in the early 2010s should have alerted political analysts to the web’s antidemocratic potential: amid booming online organizing, one of the country’s most closely contested states elected the most conservative government in North Carolina’s history. The Revolution That Wasn’t identifies the reasons behind this previously undiagnosed digital-activism gap. Large hierarchical political organizations with professional staff can amplify their digital impact, while horizontally organized volunteer groups tend to be less effective at translating online goodwill into meaningful action. Not only does technology fail to level the playing field, it tilts it further, so that only the most sophisticated and well-funded players can compete.