Cultural Politics

                                ACTIVISM DIGITIZED

The web has become a major site of political and social movement activism.This includes much traditional organizing work -- recruiting members, planning demonstrations and other events, educating publics, writing letters (or in this case often emails) to politicians and so on. Such work is sometimes called "Net roots" organizing, in contrast to the grassroots kind, and has in many cases merged well with traditional modes of movement activism. In addition to augmenting older modes of organizing, digital activism also includes forms unique to cyberspaces, such as alternative online news sites, web meeting/discussion spaces, culture jamming, hactivism and other forms of digital civil disobedience, and the use of tweeting, flash mobbing, and other new media modes during protest events.

Digital activism, or #hashtag activism, has been credited with playing a central role in the Arab Spring revolts of 2010-2011, the #Occupy movement, #BlackLivesMatter and the #MeToo movements, among others. But the role of digital activism has at times been exaggerated, and digital activism has significant perils, both because forces of reaction can also use these tools and because over-reliance on social media can blunt equally important face-to-face organizing. The presidential election of 2016 in the US, the Brexit referendum in the UK, and the rise of Bolsonaro in Brazil, and other authoritarians around the globe has made it clear that the right can use digital activism as well as the left. Both the virtues and the limits of digital activism are discussed in the works cited below.

Featured Sites

• Center for Artistic Activism. Superb resource on art activism and much more.
• HarassMap Example of innovative digital activism against sexual violence and harassment.

Other Useful Online Sites for Activists

• 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action.
• Activism Training Materials and Resources. Archived but still useful resource.
• Beautiful Trouble. Terrific resource on all aspects of activism.
• Center for Artistic Activism. Superb resource on art activism and much more.
• Culture Jammers Encyclopedia. Creative ways to mess with hegemonic media and the Net.
• Democratic Socialists of America's left activism links. Excellent set of links.
• Demonstrating and Civil Disobedience. A legal guide for activists.
• International Action Center. Wide-ranging progressive site founded by former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark.
• Ruckus Society. Longtime leader in non-violent direct action organizing and training.
• Tolerance.org. Southern Poverty Law Center's site dedicated to eliminating white supremacism and other forms of alt-right terrorism.
• The Virtual Activist  Archived site with much still useful info on digital organizing.
• Yes Lab. Resource site from the left's great parodists, the Yes Men.

Some Key Writings on Digital Activism

• Bey, Hakim. The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism. One of the foundational theory texts of the cultural anarchist branch of digital activism.
• Boler, Megan, ed. Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times. MIT Press, 2010. Excellent collection of critical essays examaning the theory and practice of various modes of digital activism.
• Boler, Megan and Matt Ratto, eds. DIY Citizenship: Critical Making and Social Media.MIT Press, 2014. Rich explorations of the often missing political contexts and notions of agency in digitally driven "participatory" culture.
• Brooking, E.T. "Anonymous vs. the Islamic State" Foreign Policy (online edition Dec 2015).
• Castells, Manuel. Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age.
• Polity Press, 2012. Study of Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street and other recent movements by one of the foremost theorists of digital culture.
• Chock-Costanza, S. "Mapping the Electronic Repertoire of Contention," in A. Opel and D. Pompper, eds.Representing Restsance: Media, Civil Disobedience and the Global Justice Movement.. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2003. 173-191,
• Coleman, Gabriella. Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of 'Anonymous.'  London: Verso, 2015. Brilliant, amusing insider's study of the hacker collective.
• Dahlberg, Lincoln and Eugenia Siapera, eda. Radical Democracy and the Internet. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Chapters 4 & 5 deal with Net activism most directly but all 13 essays in the excellent anthology are relevant.
• Diamond, Larry. “Liberation Technologies.” Journal of Democracy 21.3 (July 2010): 69-83. Makes a strong case for the democratizing potential of digital tools.
• Earl, Jennifer, and Katrina Kimport. Digitally Enabled Social Change: Activism in the Internet Age. MIT Press, 2011. Sociological study of the ways in which digital activism differs from earlier forms of social movement organizing.
• Fuchs, Christian. Some Reflections on Manuel Castells’ Book "Networks of Outrage and Hope. Social Movements in the Internet Age." Cognition, Communication, Co-operation 10.2 (2012). Extended critique of Castell's book (see above) on digital media and social movement.
• Gerbaudo, Paolo. The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy. Pluto Press, 2018. Excellent study of the pros and cons of electoral organizing in online environments.
• Gerbaudo, Paolo. Tweets and the Streets. Social Media and Contemporary Activism Pluto Press, 2012. Best study of social media use in movements in the USA, Egypt, Spain, the United Kingdom, Tunisia and Greece.
• Gerbaudo, Paolo. The Mask and the Flag: Populism, Citizenism and Global Protest. Oxford UK: Oxford University Press, 2017. Argues convincingly that the new right-wing populism can best be countered by a progressive citizen's populism that includes direct action and electoral politics, using both online and offline organizing tools.
• Gordon, Steven, ed. Online Communities as Agents of Change and Social Movements. Hersey PA: IGI Global, 2017.
• Hands, Joss. @ Is for Activism: Dissent, Resistance and Rebellion in a Digital Culture. Pluto Press, 2011.
• Ingram, Mathew. “Gladwell Still Missing the Point About Social Media and Activism.” GigaOm. 3 Feb. 2011. Web. 2 April. 2014.
• Joyce, Mary. Digital Activism Decoded: The New Mechanics of Change. International Debate, 2010. A how-to manual for digital activists.
• Juris, Jeff. Networking Futures Duke UP, 2008. Ethnographic and theoretical study that includes much detailed reflection on the role played by digital media in the movement against neo-liberal globalization.
• Kahn, Richard, and Douglas Kellner. "New Media and Internet Activism: From the "Battle of Seattle" to Blogging." New Media and Society 6.1 (2004):87-95.
• Karatzogianni, Athina. Firebrand Waves of Digital Activism 1994-2014: The Rise and Spread of Hacktivism and Cyberconflict. London: Palgrave 2015.
• Lievrouw, Leah. Alternative and Activist New Media. Polity, 2011. Accessible overview of digital activism in news and social movement organizing.
• Marichal, Jose. Political Facebook Groups First Monday 18.12 (Dec 2013).
• MacKinnon, Rebecca. Consent of the Networked. Site for the book of the same name with links to activist groups worldwide fighting for internet freedom.
• Mozorov, Evengy. Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom. Public Affairs, 2011. Offers a clear analysis of the dangers of relying too fully on web-centered activism, and on use of the Net by authoritarian regimes.
• Nagle, Angela. "Paleocons for Porn." Jacobin (Feb 22, 2017). Discusses the roots of the alt-right in the vicious, transgressive online world of "chan culture," a conservatism that is more Marquise de Sade than William F. Buckley.
• Pickerill, Jenny. Cyberprotest: Environmental Activism Online. Manchester UK: Manchester University Press, 2003.
• Raley, Rita. Tactical Media. U of Minnesota P, 2009. Especially strong on "an aesthetic politics of disruption, intervention, and education" via digital media.
• Van der Donk, Wim et al. CyberProtest, New Media, Citizens and Social Movements. Routledge, 2004. Anthology surverying digital activism from around the globe.
• Wolfson, Todd. Digital Rebellion: The Rise of the Cyber Left. Champaign-Urbana. U of Illinois P, 2014. Beginning with the Zapatistas and the rise of Indymedia in the alter-globalization movement, Wolfson uses ethnographic case studies to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of digitally centered organizing.

Further Reading

Cyberactivism Bibliography from the University of Gaziantep.

See also our page on "Politics Digitized."