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.

Following the Arab Spring events in 2011, a number of important women's social movements, as well as female figures and online communities, emerged to create positive change and demand equality with men. In Women's Activism and New Media in the Arab World, Ahmed Al-Rawi discusses and maps out new feminist movements, organizations, and trends, assessing the influence of new media technologies on them and the impact of both on the values and culture of the Middle East. Due to the participation of many women in the events of the Arab Spring, he argues, a new image of Middle Eastern women has emerged in the West. As a result of social media, women have generally become more effective in expressing their views and better connected with each other, yet at the same time some women have been inhibited since many conservative circles use these new technologies to maintain their power. Overall, however, Al-Rawi argues that social media and new mobile technologies are assisting in creating changes that are predominately positive. Often assisted by these new technologies, the real change makers are women who have clear agencies and high hopes and aspirations to create a better future for themselves.

"The media has recently been abuzz with cases of citizens around the world using digital technologies to push for social and political change: from the use of Twitter to amplify protests in Iran and Moldova to the thousands of American non-profits creating Facebook accounts in the hopes of luring supporters. These stories have been published, discussed, extolled, and derided, but have not yet been viewed holistically as a new field of human endeavor. We call this field "digital activism" and its dynamics, practices, misconceptions, and possible futures are presented together for the first time in this book."--Pub. desc.

A firsthand account and incisive analysis of modern protest, revealing internet-fueled social movements’ greatest strengths and frequent challenges To understand a thwarted Turkish coup, an anti–Wall Street encampment, and a packed Tahrir Square, we must first comprehend the power and the weaknesses of using new technologies to mobilize large numbers of people. An incisive observer, writer, and participant in today’s social movements, Zeynep Tufekci explains in this accessible and compelling book the nuanced trajectories of modern protests—how they form, how they operate differently from past protests, and why they have difficulty persisting in their long-term quests for change. Tufekci speaks from direct experience, combining on-the-ground interviews with insightful analysis. She describes how the internet helped the Zapatista uprisings in Mexico, the necessity of remote Twitter users to organize medical supplies during Arab Spring, the refusal to use bullhorns in the Occupy Movement that started in New York, and the empowering effect of tear gas in Istanbul’s Gezi Park. These details from life inside social movements complete a moving investigation of authority, technology, and culture—and offer essential insights into the future of governance.

"There is a widespread perception that the foundations of American democracy are dysfunctional and little is likely to emerge from traditional politics that will shift those conditions. Youth are often seen as emblematic of this crisis--frequently represented as uninterested in political life and ill-informed about current-affairs. By Any Media Necessary offers a profoundly different picture of contemporary American youth. Young men and women are tapping into the potential of new forms of communication, such as social media platforms and spreadable videos and memes, seeking to bring about political change--by any media necessary. In a series of case studies covering a diverse range of organizations, networks, and movements--from the Harry Potter Alliance, which fights for human rights in the name of the popular fantasy franchise, to immigration-rights advocates using superheroes to dramatize their struggles--By Any Media Necessary examines the civic imagination at work. Exploring new forms of political activities and identities emerging from the practice of participatory culture, By Any Media Necessary reveals how these shifts in communication have unleashed a new political dynamism in American youth."--Book jacket.

New Media Politics: Rethinking Activism and National Security in Cyberspace explores many of the questions surrounding the new challenges that have arisen as a result of the emergence of cyberspace, including cyber-activism, cyberterrorism, and cyber-security. The chapters in this volume provide case studies that span an array of geographies as they debate questions regarding conceptual issues in cyberspace and the relationship between politics, cyberterrorism and cyber-activism, as well as state and international regulations concerning cyberspace, resistance movements in cyberspace, and media frameworks concerning terrorism, civil liberties, and government restrictions. This collection will provide a venue for discussions on the diverse issues surrounding the theme of new media politics from international and interdisciplinary perspectives. The volume is divided into two parts, the first of which focuses on how cyberspace has been used in activism, acts of resistance and protests. The second part investigates issues related to how online media is used in terrorism and how governments have sometimes perceived cyberspace as a threat, leading at times to regulations which threaten to curtail liberties in the name of protecting the “security” of the state against enemies that may be seen as “internal” or “external.”

The Arab Spring, chat forums, political leaders tweeting, online petitions, and protestors in the Occupy Movement - new media public spheres have without doubt radically altered social and political activism in society. But to what extent is this new activist public sphere stifled by the neoliberal economy and workfare state? Have we in fact become transformed into subjects of online consumption and orderly surveillance, rather than committed social and political campaigners? In this highly topical book, John Michael Roberts employs a political economy perspective to explore the relationship between financial neoliberal capitalism and digital publics. He assesses the extent to which they provide new forms of radical protest in civil society and offers an indispensable guide to understanding the relationship between the state, new media activism and neoliberal practices.

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.

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.

Using the 2012 Delhi Nirbhaya rape case as a case study and keeping gender discourses at its core, this book explores the use of digital media for gender activism in India demonstrating how it has formed an alternate platform for dissent.