Internet activism
The authors challenge universal access to the Internet as a convenient and cost-free forum for practicing social activism by organizational stakeholders (customers, employees, outside parties).
Progressively, it is hoped that they will begin signing petitions online and graduating to offline contact as long as the organization provides the citizen with escalating steps of involvement (Vitak et al., 2011).
Larry Seiler, a New England–based computer professional, posted a message that was widely reposted on newsgroups and via e-mail: "It will contain a LOT of personal information about YOU, which anyone in the country can access by just buying the discs.
In his campaign memoir, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Trippi notes that: [The Internet's] roots in the open-source ARPAnet, its hacker culture, and its decentralized, scattered architecture make it difficult for big, establishment candidates, companies and media to gain control of it.
While the rule of the country put efforts into trying to hide and downplay the start of what would develop into the pandemic, pressured hospitals were in need of supplies in form of menstrual protection and related products.
The hashtag initially sparked from a post on Weibo where a user sarcastically wrote that exact question, to point out the absurdness in the societal denial of women's biological functions and needs.
[45] One of the most prominent uses of hashtag activism is #BlackLivesMatter, a social justice movement that first began after George Zimmerman was acquitted for the shooting and killing of Trayvon Martin, an African American teenage boy.
The most recent display of how the Black Lives Matter movement has been used as a platform for offline activism is the 2020 BLM protests that occurred after 17-year old Darnella Frazier live-streamed on Facebook the murder of George Floyd by then-police officer Derek Chauvin.
[51] TikTok's platform has been increasingly used for raising up social issues through creative short videos, especially after an allegedly make-up tutorial turned into a call to action on China's treatment of Muslim Uighurs.
Though such activism led to a significant increase in public awareness of the case, it was criticized for spreading misinformation regarding the conservatorship alongside a number of conspiracy theories of varying accuracy.
[59] This endorsement by a grassroots organization, and the ensuing contest, is an example of agenda setting that scholars have been studying ever since social media and digital content began influencing presidential politics.
[60] The idea that digital literacy become a concept taught in school, with educators incorporating blogging, commenting, and creating content as part of their curriculum, has been bandied about among social and political scientists in an effort to turn online enthusiasm from young people into demonstrable results at the ballot box.
[71] The clothing manufacturer, American Apparel is an example: The company hosts a website called Legalize LA that advocates immigration reform via blog, online advertising, links to news stories and educational materials.
[76] More recent examples include the right-wing FreedomWorks.org which organized the "Taxpayer March on Washington" on September 12, 2009, and the Coalition to Protect Patients' Rights, which opposes universal health care in the U.S.[77] Cybersectarianism is a new organizational form which involves: "highly dispersed small groups of practitioners that may remain largely anonymous within the larger social context and operate in relative secrecy, while still linked remotely to a larger network of believers who share a set of practices and texts, and often a common devotion to a particular leader.
It all started with Greta, 15 years of age at the time and influenced by the creation of #MarchForOurLives, giving her opinion on the ongoing climate change, by displaying a large sign in front of the Swedish Riksdag (parliament) in protest.
[86] This act would start the "School Strike for Climate" (SSC) (Swedish: Skolstrejk för klimatet), a movement that would eventually spread, largely through attention in media, across the globe and develop into something that came to be internationally named "Fridays for Future" (FFF).
Through having children miss classes on Fridays to participate in the strike, it has from the moment it started until today, reached and affected leading governments of the world by raising environmental awareness.
[86] In 2020 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the National Trust began the #BlossomWatch campaign, which encouraged people to share the first signs of Spring with one another, in particular images of blossom.
Initially, the activist Tarana Burke created the phrase back in 2006 to "empower women through empathy", but first over a decade later, the actress Alyssa Milano gave birth to the usage of the saying that would lead to the eventual spread of it, after using it in a post on Twitter, in which she acknowledged several accusations of sexual assault against film producer Harvey Weinstein.
The phrase was first used to demonstrate the amount of sexual assault that happens to young actresses and actors in Hollywood, and it was largely due to the early involvement of several well known individuals from the entertainment industry, who used the hashtag in their own posts, that the movement achieved the spread that it did.
[92] However, the same Me Too movement, which also reached Egypt showed the adverse side of the activism where witness detention in one of the high-profile rape cases highlighted the prioritisation of traditional social morality by the government over women's rights in the country.
While the concept is difficult to exactly pinpoint, the phrase "hacktivism" summarizes the act of somehow utilizing hacking capabilities as a means to achieve some type of political goal, and the expression is occasionally also referred to as a variation of "cyberterrorism".
[98] Viral campaigns are great for sparking initial interest and conversation, but they are not as effective in the long term—people begin to think that clicking "like" on something is enough of a contribution, or that posting information about a current hot topic on their Facebook page or Twitter feed means that they have made a difference.
[101] Groups like MoveOn, however, have found that they can raise large amounts of money from small donors at minimal cost, with credit card transaction fees constituting their biggest expense.
The telethon and its broadcast became an effective vehicle to present a plea for support and to collect contributions quickly, facilitating a relationship between entertainment and humanitarian fundraising that has developed in response to historical and economic market conditions.
"[104] These critics warn against the manipulation commonplace to online activism for private or personal interests such as exploiting charities for monetary gain, influencing voters in the political arena and inflating self-importance or effectiveness.
[110] One concern raised by University of California, Santa Cruz professor Barbara Epstein, is that the Internet "allows people who agree with each other to talk to each other and gives them the impression of being part of a much larger network than is necessarily the case."
[111] On the other hand, Scott Duke Harris of the San Jose Mercury News noted that "the Internet connects [all sides of issues, not just] an ideologically broad anti-war constituency, from the leftists of ANSWER to the pressed-for-time 'soccer moms' who might prefer MoveOn, and conservative activists as well.
[116] University of North Carolina professor Zeynep Tufekci has argued that the need to put in significant organizing time in the pre-Internet era is what gave street protests their strength.
The Pew Research Center has found that platforms create distraction resulting in consumers and online activists believe they are making a difference while their sharing their post is only furthering the echo chamber of media.
