Yes / This special issue on feminisms and social media is published at a unique point in time, namely when social media platforms are routinely utilised for communication from the mundane to the extraordinary, to offer support and solidarity, and to blame and victimise. Collectively, social media are online technologies that provide the ability for community building and interaction (Boyd & Ellison, 2007), allowing people to interact, share, create and consume online content (Lyons, McCreanor, Goodwin, & Moewaka Barnes, 2017). They include such platforms as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Tinder, and Snapchat among others.

This thesis is a netnographic study of Save Bugoma Forest Campaign and digitally enhanced environmental activism in Uganda. Save Bugoma Forest Campaign is a crusade run by a loose coalition of Ugandan environmentalists who oppose a planned sugarcane plantation project in Bugoma Central Forest Reserve, western Uganda. By examining who the activists envisage as their audiences, what online platforms they use and how, what messages they intend to send, and how the forest is represented in online narratives, I attempt to find out how Ugandan environmental activists use digital technologies as part of their campaigning strategies, and what the digital narratives created in these practices can reveal about their relation to nature. The study is built as a netnography, a research method developed by Robert E. Kozinets, which combines online participant observations, online interactions, and semi-structured online interviews. I highlight how digital platforms, social media in particular, should be understood as a tool for campaign activities or as an infrastructure within which the struggle takes place. I also show how nature receives multiple and dynamic meanings in digital narratives which are affected by the audience of choice. The findings indicate that, in addition to better understanding movements’ online practises, netnographic research methods can also give valuable insights into understanding culturally and socially bound phenomena and lend to a deep and rich reporting of the results.

No description available.

Social media have long been sites for political discussion and ideological conversations. Connecting geographically-dispersed individuals around ideologically-salient conversations, Instagram users who hold feminist ideals talk in a discursive environment formed by their discussions, a space I call “feminist Instagram.” As a community connected by affective gestures, intensities, and textures (Papacharissi, 2015), this work seeks to understand the affective nature of the “prevailing practices,” and “avenues for engagement, agency, and power,” (Papacharissi, 2015, p. 126) that circulates in feminist digital spaces, both for what they reveal about the nature of negotiating the boundaries of authentic feminist identities, and about the ways digital feminists experience these negotiations. Approaching feminist Instagram as an affective public, this dissertation examines “how affective processes are enabled in the online environment by examining the form and texture of communication” (Papacharissi, 2015, p. 27) through an ethnography of feminist digital spaces. This dissertation’s findings carry implications for the online ideological organizing futures, and forward a mindful orientation to social media use, especially in ideologically-salient learning environments like feminist Instagram. / Media & Communication

Recent developments in communications technology have transformed how social movements might mobilize, and how they can organize their activities. This thesis explores some of the geographical consequences of the use of digital media for political activism. It does this by focusing on the transnationalization of protests. The aim is to analyse how movements with different organizational structures and political scopes are affected by their use of digital media. This is done with a specific focus on how digital media use influences or enables transnational modes of organization and activism. The thesis comprises four different case studies where each study examines a social movement with a specific organizational structure. There are, however, also important similarities between the movements. In each study, somewhat different perspectives and methodological approaches are used. Some of the methods used are semi-structured interviews, content analysis of written data (retrieved from Facebook as well as Twitter), and social network analysis. The analysis indicates that digital media do have a role in the transnationalization of protest. This role, however, differs depending on what type of social movement one studies. The organizational structure of social movements, together with their specific forms of digital media use, influences how the transnationalization of protests and movements is articulated and formed. In cases where a social movement has a hierarchical organizational structure, there is less transnationalization, whereas in social movements with a more non-hierarchical organizational structure one sees more transnationalization. The thesis concludes that the transnationalization of protests is affected by social movements’ organizational structure. The more decentralized the social movement, the more vibrant the transnational public. In order to explain how transnational social movements, using digital media, can emerge in cases where geographical distances might make such coalitions unlikely, the thesis introduces the notion of affectual proximity. This concept helps us understand how transnational social movements, connecting actors from all over the world, can emerge through digital media.

nÃo hà / Este projeto de pesquisa tem o objetivo de analisar a produÃÃo sociopolÃtica do ativismo digital negro por meio da observaÃÃo do uso do aplicativo Whatsapp pelo grupo âJuventude Negra Kalungaâ, grupo formado por jovens negros que tem como objetivo discutir as relaÃÃes raciais, dando Ãnfase à prÃtica do empoderamento juvenil e à identidade da juventude a partir de sua criaÃÃo nesse aplicativo. Pretende-se observar como o grupo interage neste ciberespaÃo e os desdobramentos que esse ambiente virtual desenvolve nas relaÃÃes presenciais e na construÃÃo de espaÃos de discussÃo para o exercÃcio da cidadania da juventude negra. / This research project aims to analyze the sociopolitical production of black digital activism by observing the use of the Whatsapp application by the group "Black Youth Kalunga", a group formed by young blacks that aims to discuss racial relations, with emphasis on the practice of youth empowerment and the identity of youth from its inception in this application. It is intended to observe how the group interacts in this cyberspace and the unfolding that this virtual environment develops in face-to-face relationships and in the construction of spaces of discussion for the exercise of black youth citizenship.

In just a few years, cancel culture has become the topic on everyone's lips. It's an exciting, but also to a certain extent a treacherous phenomenon that has etched into our society, both online and offline. It moves quickly and is constantly changing, but where does it come from, and what drives it?  In this study, I map out how cancel and call-out culture are constructed by conducting a research overview. The theoretical framework consists of theories about the scapegoat mechanism, the public sphere, and digital activism. The material consists of 33 peer-reviewed articles.  The results show that research has been conducted across several research areas, with the majority of the articles falling under the field of media and communication studies. There are divided opinions about the impact of cancel culture on the public debate. Some scholars define cancel and call-out culture on one hand as political tools that promote public debate and that can help access fundamental problems such as racism and sexism. On the other hand, the phenomena are defined as threats to democracy as the resurrection that arises when these phenomena are exercised can draw attention away from more important and more acute societal issues. Furthermore, the results show that cancel culture depends on a cross-platform engagement. Since the majority of the articles examine Twitter, this indicates that more studies need to be conducted to fully understand how cancel culture works.

This research builds on the social movements theory of networks and coalition building, the theory of digital activism, and the social networks theory of organizations to study the rich case of online mobilization for the 2011 Egyptian revolution. I use the analytical tools of social network analysis to study Twitter networks of activists of the Egyptian revolution in early 2011, when solidarity characterized the movement, and late 2014, when schism spread it apart. In this, I investigate how the repertoire of online activism relates to the on-the-ground movement. The social movements theory of networks states that activists’ ideological congruence, the presence of bridge builders who bring the movement together, and the presence of previous ties among the activists are all factors of coalition building and movement solidarity. This dissertation tested the role of these factors in the Twitter networks of Egyptian activists. The results suggest that digital activism complements rather than mirrors on-the-ground activism. While all three factors influence the network, they manifest somewhat differently than research has suggested they do in offline networks. This dissertation contributes to social movements theory of coalition building through adding validity to its application to digital activism, and suggests modifications to be made while applying this theory to the repertoire of online mobilization. The research has a methodological contribution through using cutting edge techniques of social network analysis to study Twitter networks of activists. Unlike earlier studies on the Egyptian revolution, this methodological approach revealed new findings that could not have been studied through other methods of research. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Gen Z is a considerably politically active generation. However, Gen Z differs from previous generations in their methodology, campaigning for change through both in person and digital activism. While both forms of activism are effective in their own way, digital poses a unique challenge. When people can be activists from the comfort of their phone, they become “slacktivists”. People whose activism does not contribute to any significant action outside of the internet (Serup Christensen). Through interviews and focus groups, my documentary explores how Gen Z participates in activism, and what that means for the future of activism. After these discussions, I have concluded that Gen Z occupies a spectrum, with some people maintaining strong ties to traditional, community-based activism, some people being both activist and slacktivist, and those who remain as passive bystanders. While social media has the potential to support real, effective action, an over-reliance creates a too-comfortable, uninformed bystander population.

Prenant pour point de départ les controverses contemporaines sur la liberté d’expression et la vie privée à l’ère numérique, cette thèse propose de revisiter l’histoire d’Internet au croisement de l’histoire du droit, des théories politiques et de l’histoire des sciences et des techniques. À travers une enquête de temps long sur l’affrontement des stratégies de pouvoir et de résistance associées aux techniques de communication, elle se veut une contribution à l’histoire de l’espace public et de l’activisme numérique. À partir de la « naissance » de l’imprimerie, la première partie retrace les formes de contrôle de l’espace public qui se structurent en même temps que l’État moderne, et la manière dont elles sont reconduites dans le cadre des régimes représentatifs-libéraux (XVe-XXe siècle). Dans un deuxième temps, l’étude suit l’émergence des projets antagonistes qui ont présidé au développement des réseaux informatiques, et ce afin d’expliquer la profonde ambivalence des appropriations politiques de ces technologies, à la fois instrument de la domination technocratique et outil d’émancipation (1930-1990). La troisième partie revient sur les premières controverses autour des libertés sur Internet et la structuration de l’activisme numérique, Internet étant bientôt investi comme un espace et un objet de luttes politiques, dans une période marquée par la mondialisation néo-libérale (1990-2001). La quatrième illustre, à travers les mesures de contrôle d’Internet adoptées au nom de la « guerre contre le terrorisme » et à travers la répression de certaines franges de l’activisme numérique, les mutations illibérales des États (2001-2017). L’étude entend ainsi contribuer à une réflexion collective sur l’un des en jeux identifiés par Michel Foucault dans ses écrits sur le pouvoir, à savoir : « comment déconnecter la croissance des capacités » – en l’espèce, les capacités associées aux « techniques de communication » – « et l’intensification des relations de pouvoir » ? / Taking contemporary debates on freedom of expression and privacy in the digital age as a starting point, this thesis revisits the history of the Internet at the intersection of legal history, political theory and history of science and technology. Through a long-time study of the clash between power and resistance strategies associated with communication technologies, it aims to contribute to the history of the public sphere and of digital activism. From the inception of the printing press on, the first part provides an overview of the forms of control of the public sphere developed under the modern state power, and of their extension under liberal-representative regimes (15th 21st century). In the second part, the study follows the antagonist utopias that shaped the development of computing technologies to explain the pro found ambivalence of their political appropriations, these technologies being construed both as an instrument of technocratic domination and a tool for emancipation (1930-1990). The third part analyses early controversies around the protection of civil rights online and the growth of digital activism, as the Internet becomes a locus of political struggles in a period marked by neoliberal globalization (1990-2001). Finally, the fourth part surveys recent Internet control measures adopted in the name of the "war on terror" and the repression of some segments of digital activism to illustrate the illiberal drift in state practices (2001-2017). The study thus aims to advance a collective thinking on one of the key questions identified by Michel Foucault in his writings on power: "How can the growth of capabilities" – and more specifically those brought about by "techniques of communication" – "be disconnected from the intensification of power relations?"