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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, and organizing campaigns relating to media and communications policies.

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Media activism can be used for many different purposes. It is often employed by grassroots activists and anarchists to spread information not available via mainstream media or to share censored news stories. Certain forms of politically motivated hacking and net-based campaigns are also considered media activism. Often, the focus of media activism is to change policies relating to media and communications.

Forms of media activism

Social media is often used as a form of media activism. Because of the interactive features and widespread adoption users can quickly disseminate information and rally supporters. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter can reach a much larger audience than traditional media. Although often only a small percentage of people who express interest in a cause online are willing to commit to offline action, social media interaction is viewed as "the first step in a ladder of engagement"."Social media has helped us organize without having leaders," said Victor Damaso, 22, demonstrating on São Paulo's main Paulista Avenue on Thursday night. "Our ideas, our demands are discussed on Facebook. There are no meetings, no rules". Social media activism is a relatively new platform for organizing. In decades past, communities of people have organized using emotion to motivate action and create a collective identity, allowing the community to stand as one to fight against injustice. Social media offers a new space for people to form communities, motivate each other, and take action using modified organizing practices. Online activism allows people from all over the world to stand in solidarity without leaving their homes, enabling people to have their fight for justice recognized whether they are physically near people of like minded interests. Many who have researched methods of social media activism identify three methods of emotion work as integral to the success of the movement. Personal moral outrage at the injustice in question, inspiration in the form of compassion for individual stories, and interaction between activists and users are almost always involved in social media activism movements.

Live streams applications or websites such as Livestream is an other media form which can replace TV when there is a kind of censorship. The protests in Istanbul can be an example of this way of broadcasting in terms of the lack of the objectivity of the actual media and the television. On the other hand, a lot of protestors used Whatsapp or Walkie-Talkie application with their smartphones in order to improve communication between protestors during the manifestations thanks to its quick and instantaneous information share. Moreover the usage of applications such as Whatsapp can increase the organisation of the protestors due to the group messages.

YouTube is another efficient tool of spreading information. It is generally used with other social media forms such as Facebook and Twitter. The most important example to the media activism through YouTube can be the video of Kony which reached to one hundred million views in 6 days. Manifesting by using videos allows protesters to reach the whole world easier than just publishing in a local language.

Culture jamming, another form of media activism, is a subversive strategy of protest that re-appropriates the tropes of mainstream media "in order to take advantage of the resources and venues they afford".

Use of a hashtag is another tactic of social media activism. In 2007, Chris Messina first recommended using hashtags to follow "trending" topics on Twitter but the idea was rejected by Twitter executives. Messina continued to use hashtags and eventually the idea was picked up specifically due to a political debate surrounding keeping congress in session in order to vote on an energy bill with the sign #dontgo. As with the Occupy Wall Street movement, many social justice movements are utilizing Twitter’s hashtag ability to track the popularity of a movement in what is called “trending.” A person can see if a movement or protest is trending by monitoring a specific hashtag, and often people will create one hashtag for a social movement so others can do just that. Following the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, activists utilized the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter in order to express their feelings about the tragedy. Another common hashtag meant to elicit empathy in Twitter users was #IfTheyGunnedMeDown, challenging media correspondents with the idea that only stereotypical images were used for Michael Brown stories further feeding the idea that he deserved to be gunned down. Following the terrorist attack on satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, in Paris, the hashtag #JesuisCharlie was used to show solidarity. Many other hashtags brought about political and social awareness to topics across the globe including #BringBackOurGirls, #StandWithWendy, #rwanda, #egypt, #aufschrei. Hashtags are an extremely important tool for social media activists because they enable organizers to reach a broader audience and to offer real-time updates.

Media activism has expanded its scope to include fields of study such as journalism and news media. Media activism additionally educates the audience to be producers of their own media. Media activism to be expanded to facilitate action through media production and involvement.

Case studies

Social Media has become a primary organizing tool for political and social movements globally. They serve to strengthen already existing networks of political and social relationships among activists offline. Media activism among youth can be linked to the way youth protest and create communities online over specific issues and social connections.

Venezuela

Today nearly 32 percent of Venezuelan internet-users utilize social media on regular basis.

Most recently, social media has been used politically to achieve success during elections, including the 2012 re-election campaign of President Hugo Chávez and the 2013 presidential campaign between Nicolás Maduro and Henrique Capriles Radonski. Social media was used to organize rallies and political platforms and had an impact on campaign content. Opposition candidate Capriles used social media as an activist approach to "drum up" support and connect with voters politically. This form of media activism connected most dominantly in the Venezuelan youth population—a generation considered to be tech-savvy.

On March 14, 2013, Lourdes Alicia Ortega Pérez was imprisoned by the Scientific Penal and Criminal Investigation Corps of Venezuela for tweeting a message that was considered "destabilizing to the country".

Arab Spring

Protesters in Egypt celebrate in Tahrir Square after President Mubarak announced his resignation.

The 2011 Arab Spring uprisings made extensive use of social media activism within the countries of Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. These nations concentrated on the ability of the society to operate social media and begin organizing a grassroots initiative for a globalized form of democracy. Arab youth population are described as "opening" societies through social media in places where governments are otherwise repressive.

Egyptian protesters utilized social media to reduce the difficulties and cost associated with organizing rallies and a readily-mobilized political force. This facilitation of assembly through social media allowed the creation of new gateways for civic engagement where Egypt had suppressed such opportunities under emergency power for the last 30 years. This facilitation of assembly through social media allowed the creation of new gateways for civic engagement where Egypt had suppressed such opportunities under emergency power for the last 30 years. This uprising led to violent conflict within each of the nations, and can thus media and media activism can be viewed as a fundamental contributor to the nation's new national identity under a new rule.

China

China has strong censorship laws in place, where the press freedoms are not considered free, rather oppressive but improving. Youth in China have worked towards stronger press freedoms online and a dedication to utilizing the principles of media activism. Intensive civic conversation occurs online in China. Youth satirized the government through what came to be known as "the River Crab critique," in turn spurring civic conversation on the internet. Media Activists in China used their online presence and freedom to alter images, such as Marilyn Monroe, to have the face of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong. This image was coined as Maorilyn Maoroe, which in the image is juxtaposed next to a homophone for profanity. "Maorilyn Maoroe" was an opponent to the societal River Crab, which is a pun on "harmonious," a principle that Chinese censorship was created to promote, but has failed to do so.

In China, youth and other media activists have discovered and utilized new methods to indirectly criticize the political and societal environments, going around the government censorship. Social media is among the newest method of critique. Activists use "microblogs" to critique the government. Blogging can therefore be seen as a media activist approach to civic participation within the bounds of government censorship.

Occupy Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park using their laptops, September 2011

Occupy Wall Street

Occupy Wall Street is a movement that began in New York on September 17, 2011 to protest economic injustice stemming from Wall Street’s banking district. Protesters formed a leaderless group that updated their information using social media, most notably with the hashtag #OccupyWallStreet. The Occupy Wall Street movement began in New York and quickly spread to others cities throughout the country, where many people pitched tents and camped for several weeks or months in protest of the government’s bailout of the financial district. The movement was one of the first in the United States to successfully utilize social media as an activism tool, as many received updates regarding the movement’s activity, demands, and whereabouts through Twitter and Facebook. These updates allowed people not currently involved with the movement to keep track of progress in ways that previously were only documented through mainstream media.

Suppression of media activism

States such as North Korea, Venezuela, and China have attempted to curtail media activism through a variety of tactics. The Chinese state engages in media censorship in the name of national harmony, although the Council on Foreign Relations argues that suppression of online activism is to protect authorities' political or economic interests. In North Korea, the state curtails virtually all forms of digital communication, but a few transnational citizen-journalists have used technology like cell phones and thumb drives to communicate accurate news to citizens and abroad.

Safety guides for media activism

Concern exists about the safety of social media activism due to government infiltration and surveillance of these commercial platforms. Issues of privacy that many parents and child safety advocates are concerned are particularly relevant when youth use social media for activism puruposes. For example, default geotagging could make people, particularly youth, vulnerable to being tracked law enforcement. Some organizations have developed guidelines to help would-be online activists stay secure while engaging on social media platforms,. Particular attention has been paid to young people who may not otherwise have access to social media training . Social media safety concerns vary with location, language and culture. The guides in this section focuses primarily on the United States and the United Kingdom.

Criticisms of media activism

A main criticism of social media activism centers around its effectiveness. Teju Cole outlined the way in which his tweets were shared around the world via Twitter, “blogs, Tumblr, facebook and other sites.” Social media platforms undoubtedly reach a large number of people, but power of activism on such sites are contested. Malcolm Gladwell posits that “high risk activism… is a “strong tie” phenomenon.” He argues that social media can only produce weak ties, and thus the platform is incapable of leading to high-risk activism and social change. Some of Gladwell’s assertions are reinforced by the research of Kristofferson, White and Peloza . Their research suggests that people are more likely to provide greater and more meaningful support through action and finance if their initial display of support for a cause was private. Public displays, like social media interactions, are correlated with lower rates of subsequent meaningful action. For example privately signing up for email alerts regarding a cause would more likely indicate sustained advocacy engagement than would liking an organization's Facebook status.

Organizations

• Democracy Now!
• Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
• Free Press (organization)
• Independent Media Center
• Media Alliance
• Youth and Media
• Media Matters

See also

• Alternative media
• Hacktivism
• Internet activism
• Radical Media
• Tactical media
• UNITED for Intercultural Action
• Access

References

Category:Activism by type Category:Alternative journalism Category:Alternative media