The youth-led March For Our Lives is founded on the idea of young people forced into advocacy by unthinkable tragedy. The movement exists in a digital age where the lines between the physical and digital have become increasingly blurred. By using the work of scholars such as Manuel Castells and Henry Jenkins as a foundation to analyze this movement, we can gain a deeper understanding of why MFOL has succeeded and failed in the ways that it has. These noted digital activism academics will be used to explore how collective anger is expressed and created through the use of personal stories about gun violence to create unity across the United States in the hopes of fueling legislative action. These concepts will then collide with classic film theory, utilizing scholars such as Bertolt Brecht, Walter Benjamin, and Bela Balazs to examine how this physical protest is immortalized in a digital format, using film conventions to translate the emotional impact online. This analysis points to the unique structure of a movement fueled by emotion and run by a digitally native generation. It will also point out ways in which the original research on digital social movements can be updated to reflect changing models of social activism.

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The influence of ideology and attitudes on the decision-making process of Supreme Court justices has been well documented, such that the attitudinal model has emerged as the dominant paradigm for understanding judicial behavior. When ideology and personal preferences seem to eclipse legal factors, such as adherence to precedent and deference to the democratically-elected branches, outcries of 'judicial activism' have occurred. Previous studies (Lindquist and Cross 2009) have operationalized judicial activism and have provided measures for studying behavior that may be considered activist (as opposed to restrainist), further supporting the premise that ideology trumps other extra-attitudinal and legal factors in the judicial decision-making process. While the attitudinal model indicates that ideology is the strongest predictor of judicial decision-making, this research will include a number of legal variables that have significantly influenced justices' votes. As previous studies have demonstrated, an integrated model that combines a number of critical variables can have more explanatory power than one that relies on attitudinal reasons alone (Banks 1999; Hurwitz and Stefko 2004; Mishler and Sheehan 1996). As such, the purpose of this research is to examine individual level decision-making of the most ideological justices on the Burger and Rehnquist Courts (1969-2004) in regards to their activist behavior to overrule legal precedents and invalidate federal statutes. This research will employ multivariate regression analysis to assess the effects of attitudinal, legal and extra-attitudinal factors in the judicial decision-making process.

Abortion remains a controversial contemporary social issue, spawning disparate and strongly held opinions among the American public. Pro-life activists play a central role in opposing abortion, mobilizing a disinterested public to public activism, and collectively working to restrict abortion access. This study focused on pro-life activism in Mississippi, the state with the most restrictive laws governing abortion, abortion clinics, and abortion doctors. Contrary to previous studies and media portrayals that homogenize pro-life activists and public pro-life activism, I find that diversity, rather than consensus, characterizes Mississippi pro-life activists who engage in public activism and direct action to stop abortion. Specifically, this study focuses on the diversity in turning points that propel activists into public activism, the multivalent ways activists construct abortion as a moral problem, and the ways activists create and use strategies of action to disseminate their worldviews and to stop abortion.

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