Digital Activities Research Articles

Feminist Identity and Online Activism in Four Countries From 2019 to 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic heightened burdens on caregivers, but also the visibility of caregiving inequalities. These grievances may activate a feminist identity which in turn leads to greater civic and political participation. During a pandemic, online forms of participation are particularly attractive as they require less effort than offline forms of participation and pose less health risks compared to collective forms of offline activism. Using survey data from four countries (Canada, France, the United States, and the United Kingdom) collected in 2019 (prior to the pandemic), 2021 (during the pandemic), and 2023 (post-pandemic), we examine the relationship between self-identifying as a feminist and signing online petitions ( n = 18,362). Our multivariate analyses show that having a feminist identity is positively related to signing online petitions. We consider the differential effects of this identity on participation for men, women, non-binary people; caregivers versus non-caregivers; and respondents in different countries with varying levels of restrictions due to the pandemic. A feminist identity is more important for mobilizing caregivers than non-caregivers, whether or not the caregiver is a man or a woman. While grievance theory suggests differential effects by country and time period, we find a consistent role of feminist identity in predicting the signing of online petitions across time and across countries. These findings offer insights into how different groups in varying contexts are mobilized to participate.

‘Cool articles from way back when’: appropriations and reanimations of the New Zealand feminist magazine Broadsheet

ABSTRACT This article addresses ‘transition’ within feminist media activism by exploring how archival material is reanimated and mobilized within contemporary forms of online activism. Recent scholarship examining the ‘archival turn’ in feminism has illustrated the potential of archives to intervene in the political present, yet the uptake of archival material within online media generates ambiguous and contentious outcomes. This article explores the controversial reanimation of the New Zealand feminist magazine Broadsheet (1972–1997) by a Facebook page titled ‘Broadsheet, New Zealand’s Feminist Magazine’ (2015). Using critical discourse analysis to examine comments made by followers of the page, I explore how the promotion of increasingly hostile trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) discourses precipitated contention over the legitimacy of the page’s affiliation with Broadsheet. Conspicuously absent from these discussions is Broadsheet’s archival material itself, despite its recent digitization. Instead, commenters invoke experiences and memories of Broadsheet to either validate the Broadsheet Facebook page or to substantiate claims that it appropriates the magazine’s name and legacy. I argue, therefore, that feminists’ engagement with archival materials is structured by nostalgia, whether remembered, encountered, or culturally learned.

DO SOCIAL MEDIA UNDERMINE STRUCTURES? RETHINKING THE STRUCTURE-AGENCY DEBATE

The study reconsiders the structure-agency debate in a world dominated by internetisation and social media. To answer the question of whether social media weaken the structures embedded in societies, four phenomena are analysed: Dissemination and control of information are the main areas of conflict between actors and structures. The cyber public sphere has emerged as social media has become an important medium for shaping public opinion. Cyber activism, which has made important strides in moving political networks into the virtual world, has become an alternative to activism in the physical world. As individuals engage in human relations in virtual world just as in physical world, cyber identity has entered our lives. The study’s main finding is that although structures have developed new strategies and instruments to monitor, control and regulate the cyber world; social media continues to be a ground that increases the capacity of agencies for actors against structures.

Issue ownership in the online campaign for Dutch general elections

Online political campaigns are often opaque, among other reasons because political parties often target their advertising to specific groups. Therefore, it is challenging for citizens, journalists, and academics to understand what political parties talk about in their campaigns, diminishing the public accountability of political parties. Through the lens of issue ownership theory, this study explores which issues Dutch political parties advertised on Meta during the 2021 national election. The study uses a relatively novel topic modeling process that is meant to limit human bias. We built a model that assigns issues to each ad (based on the ad text), creating a dataset of ad-issues matchings. The study is one of the first to present insights into the issues Dutch political parties communicated about during the national elections of 2021. Our findings show that issue owners are not the biggest advertisers on their issues and reveal that private gifts enable some political campaigns to claim ownership of many issues.

Reaching the Voters: Parties’ Use of Google Ads in the 2021 German Federal Election

Election campaigns during the pandemic showcased the increased use of costly digital campaigning by parties. While many studies focus on the use of Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and other social networking sites during elections, parties’ use of Google Ads remains widely unstudied. This is surprising given that parties spend a substantial proportion of their budget on Google Ads and Google reports on this spending and other details of the ads in its <em>Transparency Report</em>. Based on the equalisation vs. normalisation thesis, we identify party factors (size, age, government/opposition status, and electoral strongholds) that affect parties’ use of this instrument to a different degree in their campaigns. We aim to highlight parties’ use of Google Ads during the campaigns for the 2021 German Bundestag election, relying on the official data provided via Google’s Ad Library. We discuss both empirical work on the factors that determine the use of Google Ads and conceptual work on the merit and perils of such ads in democratic elections, and we present descriptive and exploratory findings of our deep dive into the archive of Google Ads.

Development and Implementation of Health Education Tools for Excluded Areas in the Czech Republic

Abstract Background Reducing health inequalities among population groups is imperative, however, health communication strategies tailored to ethnic minorities remain under-researched. To address this issue, various health communication strategies were developed and tested within the 3 year Saste Roma project, focused on improving health literacy and disease prevention in the excluded Czech Roma population. Methods A planning group comprising of doctors, sociologists, psychologists, NGOs and community health workers was established to create tailored health communication tools. The tools were developed with consideration of the sociocultural specifics of the Roma community, using focus groups, in-depth interviews, and the Delphi method. A PR agency was hired to implement the tools. Reach, engagement and Price Per Click = PPC were measured for online tools; feedback on offline tools was collected via surveys and interviews. Results From April 2021 to March 2024, 12 online and offline tools addressing 10 diseases were developed for various age groups and implemented. These tools, such as health literacy brochures and leaflets (78,500 pcs distributed), music videoclips (viewed 150,000 times), a mobile application (with over 500 users), social media profiles dedicated to health (with 140 followers), preventative events, school-based e-learning modules (implemented in 86 elementary schools in excluded areas), online campaigns (reaching 556,337 people; PPC of 0.85 EUR in case of in-house campaign Vs. PPC of 3.21 EUR by PR agency) or poster campaigns (engaging 3,046 individuals) focusing on excluded areas. Lessons This project represents the first extensive use of diverse communication tools targeting the Roma population. The involvement of community representatives (patients, artists, actors, and residents) in tool development is crucial. Training and support for health community workers are essential to achieve effective engagement with the community. Key messages • Tools must be delivered in a culturally sensitive and comprehensible manner by members of the communities. • Commercial PR agencies failed with this specific campaign. Cooperation with Roma artists and influencers is essential.

Hüquq texnologiyaları və onların vəkillik sahəsinə inteqrasiyası

Since the end of the last century, the wide spread of digital technologies has had an important impact on the development of many fields. Technological innovations, like in other professional fields, are increasing their impact on the field of advocacy day by day. Some legal technologies reduce lawyers' bureaucratic burdens and perform repetitive tasks, while others help citizens or companies solve simple legal problems without the need for a lawyer. This article examines the concept of Legal Tech, the areas of use of legal technologies, their categories and their application in the field of advocacy, and highlights how lawyers can provide more efficient and better quality legal assistance by using legal technologies in the performance of their profession. The article also touched upon the issues of using artificial intelligence in the legal profession, the practice of applying legal technologies in foreign countries and the level of development of these technologies in our country. Thus, the extensive use of legal technologies by a number of advanced countries of the world, especially the application of technologies based on artificial intelligence in international and national legal systems, has made an important contribution to the development of this field. Keywords: legal technologies, lawyer, electronic advocacy, artificial intelligence, e-government, e-court, e-discovery, technological applications, data security.

Copycats? Do right-wing groups emulate left-wing digital advocacy organizations?

ABSTRACT In 1998 MoveOn pioneered a new and powerful form of digitally enabled, multi-issue, member-driven, rapid response, advocacy organization. This model quickly spread around the world as progressive activists emulated it in twenty other countries. These digital advocacy organizations share progressive values and have been influential actors in their national contexts. What is surprising is that right-wing actors have replicated this new organization model. We examine four right-wing digital advocacy organizations: Grassfire (United States), Advance (Australia), Patriot Petition (Germany), and CitizenGo (transnational). We find that all four ‘copycat’ organizations are rapid-response, multi-issue, on-line campaigning organizations, like their left-wing counterparts. However, none appear to be fully-member driven in their funding and decision-making, rather the right has a tendency towards “astroturfing”. We also find that these right-wing organizations explicitly sought to emulate the organizational model of their left-wing counterparts, and there was no evidence of transnational diffusion on the right. This article enriches our understanding of right-wing digital advocacy organizations, and how learning and emulation occur across partisan divides.

Academic Coverage of Online Activism of Disabled People: A Scoping Review

Disabled people need to be activists given the many problematic lived realities they face. However, they frequently encounter obstacles in traditional offline activism. Online activism could be a potential alternative. The objective of this scoping review is to examine the extent and nature of the coverage of disabled people in the academic literature that focuses on online activism. We searched the abstracts in Scopus, Web of Science, and the 70 databases in EBSCO-HOST for the presence of 57 terms linked to online activism or online tools or places for online activism, which generated 18,069 abstracts for qualitative analysis. Of the 18,069 abstracts, only 54 discussed online the activism by disabled people. Among these 54 relevant abstracts, only one contained the term “Global South”. No relevant abstracts were found that contained the terms “Metaverse” or “Democrac*” together with “activis*”. Only two relevant abstracts contained the phrase “digital citizen*”. Out of the 57 terms, 28 had no hits. The thematic analysis identified 24 themes: 6 themes in 30 abstracts had a positive sentiment, 7 themes in 30 abstracts had a negative sentiment, and 11 themes present in 23 abstracts had a neutral sentiment. There were three main themes: the positive role and use of online activism; the technical accessibility barriers to online activism; and the attitudinal accessibility problems arising from ableist judgments. The intersectionality of the disability identity with other marginalized identities and the issue of empowerment were rarely addressed, and ability judgment-based concepts beyond the term’s “ableism” and “ableist” were not used. The study underscores the necessity for further research given the few relevant abstracts found. The study also indicates that actions are needed on barriers to online activism and that examples for best practices exist that could be applied more often. Future studies should also incorporate a broader range of ability judgment-based concepts to enrich the analysis and to support the empowerment of disabled activists.

Youth activism and (de)personalized remix on TikTok

ABSTRACT Social media has provided everyday actors with a platform to share their personal stories and ideas. This has had a profound effect on activism, as movements are increasingly built up and amplified through the circulation of participants’ individualized motivations, experiences, and sentiments. TikTok has emerged as a salient site for studying this turn: it has proven to be a highly successful tool in activist campaigns, strongly affords personalized communication, and supports a main user base of young people known for emphasizing self-expression in their online participation. Since remix is the core form of sharing on TikTok, users are encouraged to insert and articulate themselves not only in the process of content creation, but in the process of circulation as well. Here, we focus on the way remix is exploited as a mode of personalizing activist content on TikTok, particularly among young users. We do so by qualitatively coding and analyzing remixed content associated with the digital activist organization Gen-Z for Change. We find that, despite expectations based on prior research and the observed behavior of older users, young users tended to resist personalization in their remix strategies. Yet, they simultaneously managed to assert their presence in ways that are meaningful on the app. Our results elaborate on digital activist strategies and the role of platform affordances therein, and add important nuance to common conceptions of youth political participation styles.

Digital natives, digital activists in non-digital environments: How the youth in Zambia use mundane technology to circumvent government surveillance and censorship

This study investigates the technological strategies the youth in Sub-Saharan Africa employ to circumvent government surveillance and censorship. Centered on the 2020 Zambian youth protests and informed by interviews with 37 participants, we explore the youth's innovative use of mundane skills to build digital communities, evade government surveillance, and leverage algorithms. The findings indicate that despite limited online access and government restrictions, the Zambian youth creatively employed their local skills to build social networks, disseminate information, and mobilize for social change. However, two contrasting narratives emerge: one celebrating the innovation and resilience of these young people, with the other raising concerns about the broader implications of their actions. Notably, some youth transitioned from influential activists to government insiders, a shift that may have diluted their capacity to champion social justice. The study emphasizes the need to scrutinize the balance between technological cooperation and potential discord, urging a more profound exploration of technology's role in shaping the trajectory of democracy, especially in settings akin to sub-Saharan Africa. We argue for further research into the role of digital influencers in electoral processes and democratic systems.

Canonizing online activism: Memetic iconography in the North Atlantic Fella Organization

Memes are iconic digital artefacts that acquire meaning through their production and circulation among the digitally mediated publics. This visual essay presents an iconographic exploration of the North Atlantic Fella Organization (NAFO) – a vernacular online collective engaged in ridiculing Russian disinformation and rallying support for Ukraine’s defence and recovery efforts. We approach memes as a visual interface between the user and various subgroups within and outside the community. Drawing on a combination of autoethnographic, visual semiotic and computational methods, we demonstrate how memes perform three key functions within the online community: representing the self, maintaining social relations within the group and articulating the group’s values and commitment to its members and the broader public. In doing so, they can be understood as an extension of social and cultural practices surrounding religious iconography. Going beyond short-lived or self-centred engagement, memes constitute a rich yet flexible medium to mobilize social media users in significant international crises such as wars.

Examining TPACK Enactment in Elementary Mathematics with Various Learning Technologies

As schools continue to invest more resources into learning technologies and their infrastructure, there is a need to consider ways to support teachers’ professional learning related to the appropriate uses of learning technologies. The construct of TPACK continues to provide a framework for the field to help make sense of the knowledge and skills related to effectively integrating learning technologies into teaching. The article includes three vignettes that describe research-aligned enactments of TPACK using three different learning technologies: an internet-based activity focused on lower-level fluency, an internet-based simulation/game on budgeting, and an internet-based open-ended tool. The three vignettes suggest that TPACK can be enacted regardless of the learning technologies and that the culture and context of schools greatly influences whether and how teachers integrate technology into their mathematics teaching.

Seeking justice on social media: Funas as a localized form of Latin American youth activism

A funa, a public denouncement aimed at raising moral condemnation of a person accused of perpetrating a crime or injustice, has become a major digital activism instrument in Latin America, particularly in Chile. Originated in the human rights movement in the 1990s, funas re-emerged as a new form of online activism that hybridized with a Latin American and historical form of protest to exert informal justice through social media. Drawing on a face-to-face survey of Chilean youth aged 18–29 years, we examine the factors that explain young people’s attitudes and behaviors regarding funas. We find that funas are gendered, with issues like sexual harassment and misconduct being the primary subject of funas. We also show that women hold more positive views about funas and are more likely to engage in online funas. Finally, our findings indicate that individuals who trust the judicial system are less likely to share funas on social media.

The online exchange of conspiracy theories within an Irish extreme right wing Telegram group during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT While the extreme right wing (ERW) has not gained a foothold in local or national Irish politics, the country has witnessed a growth in online activism and harassment, and physical protest and violence. This paper explores a case study based on 4876 unique posts from one Irish-based Telegram group active during six months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The main findings are that: (a) this group was heavily influenced by foreign content and influencers, in particular, American ERW content and conspiracies associated with QAnon; (b) conspiracy theories were not adopted wholesale but adapted for an Irish audience; (c) Irish actors were not passive receivers of US content, and multi-directional exchanges of ideas were witnessed. While generalising beyond the case study analysed in this paper would require further data, this may suggest that Irish influencers are part of a transnational online ecosystem in which ideas and theories are shared and adapted to local contexts. These findings offer insights into the ERW in Ireland and, more generally, how the ERW communicates and spread conspiracy theories across national borders.

Radios y Cacerolas

This article elaborates a feminist digital activist perspective on the Colombian national strike of 2021 through the work of two women-led collectives (colectivas) in which I participated from afar, as part of the Colombian diaspora. Radio Lila is a collective of women living in Cali’s oriente, and Cacerola Collective is formed by Colombians in the diaspora, mostly people working in the creative industries. Through the study of these colectivas’s praxis, this article argues that women-led collectives use digital tools and the internet not only to set up political actions but also to create online places for care and mourning. This argument makes conspicuous how there is a gap in the research on digital activism, concerning the emotional tools activists seek to transit political uprisals and their aftermaths. In other words, we see here how feminist research on social media can also focus on retreating, going offline, as a way of personal and communal care.

Remembering like a state: Surveillance databases, digital activist traces and the repressive potential of mediated prospective memory

Departing from personal memories of protests in London and Berlin, in this article I make space within the memory-activism nexus to consider how contemporary activists are remembered by that which they conventionally target: the state. To do this, I first recount existing understandings of that nexus and the position of the state therein. I then emphasise how states remember activists via police surveillance databases before discussing the digital activist traces held in such databases via the concept of mediated prospective memory. Thereafter, I empirically ground these conceptual contributions via a discussion of the surveillance databases used in the United Kingdom and Germany and the growing adoption of automated facial recognition technology in these countries. This discussion relies on the work of police monitoring groups whose activism contributes, alongside the various actions of the state and its agencies that I foreground, to the complexity of the memory-activism nexus.

Online monitoring activism: civic surveillance practices as a reaction to the rise of the far-right in the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT The rise of far-right movements during the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted a new form of individual digital activism: online monitoring activism (OMA). During the pandemic, online monitoring activists systematically collected, processed and published information from far-right Telegram channels and groups. Against the theoretical background of concepts like the monitory democracy and surveillance culture, we conducted eight semi-structured interviews with German online monitoring activists, investigating their motivations, roles, and the intricacies of their monitoring practices. Our findings reveal that online monitoring activists are driven by a sense of duty to counteract anti-democratic tendencies, which they perceive as inadequately addressed by institutional power. They gain localized and thematically specialized expertise that they share within loose networks of like-minded others. We highlight the activists’ liminal identity oscillating between virtuous citizenship and vigilantism, as well as the broader societal implications of their actions. On the one hand, they fulfill the role of active citizenship in monitory democracy; on the other, they also reinforce the transparency imperative and the wish for far-reaching security and control inherent to surveillance culture. The transparency potential afforded by their adversaries’ online connective action and mobilizing efforts legitimizes their surveillance and demands surveillance. Further normative work is needed to critically examine the extent and desirability of increased social control introduced to liberal democracy by online monitoring activism.

The meaning of obstetric violence experiences: A qualitative content analysis of the Break the Silence Campaign

BackgroundObstetric violence involves the mistreatment, disrespect, and abuse of birthing people and the problem has been recognized in healthcare systems worldwide. Obstetric violence is a gendered, sex-specific form of violence against women that is a public health problem and a violation of human rights. There are an unknowable number of online posts and social media messages that describe obstetric violence experiences. There are no known studies about self-published experiences of obstetric violence in the US maternity care system. ObjectiveTo understand the meaning of obstetric violence experiences in the US maternity care system from a naturally occurring, purposive sample. DesignA secondary analysis of the textual data from the original Break the Silence social media campaign using qualitative content analysis. The theory of social justice in nursing provided a theoretical framework. A healthcare systems approach was used for a wide-angle view of the multidirectional structure, processes, and outcome of obstetric violence. SettingThe study setting is the public Facebook page where the Break the Silence social media campaign can be seen. Break the Silence was an online activism response to the problem of obstetric violence in the US maternity care system with signboard messages posted from 31 known US states. The setting is bounded by the digital page where the campaign is published. ParticipantsThere were 139 participants, and 11 of them posted more than one signboard message. Most participants were birthing people (n = 125) followed by doulas (n = 10). MethodsKrippendorff's methodology for qualitative content analysis was applied to 156 signboard messages posted on Break the Silence from 2014 to 2016. Qualitative content analysis was supported by Atlas.ti 23. ResultsFour themes illustrated the meaning of obstetric violence in US maternity care: 1) pregnancy and birth as a battle with healthcare providers and the healthcare system, 2) sacrifice of the maternal body normalized and assumed as a gender stereotype, 3) disrupted rites of passage from childbirth, and 4) abuse of fiduciary power by healthcare providers. ConclusionsThis study demonstrated thematic meanings for the experience of obstetric violence in US maternity care with a healthcare systems approach that included structural and organizational considerations to increase understanding. Categories and forms of obstetric violence from the existing literature were expanded and strengthened by findings from this study. Themes were validated in principle with consistency in findings across the international evidence base on obstetric violence.Tweetable abstract: The meaning of #obstetricviolence experiences is interpersonal and structural with thematic consistency across international studies.

The Impact of Social Media on Students' Awareness and Engagement with Social Issues

Aims: This study aimed to investigate the impact of social media on university students' awareness and engagement with social issues. Study Design: The study followed a cross-sectional study design. Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted at G B Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, India, over a period of three months from March 2024 to June 2024. Methodology: A convenience sampling technique was used to select 100 students, predominantly male (74.00%), mostly aged 18-24 years (56.00%), with the majority from the College of Agriculture (75.00%). Data were collected using a structured Google form survey assessing social media usage, awareness of social issues, and engagement behaviors. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. Results: The study found that social media significantly enhances awareness of social issues, with (54.00%) of respondents rating their awareness as high after exposure, compared to (31.00%) before social media exposure. Engagement levels were moderate, with (58.00%) of students participating in online campaigns and (46.00%) moderately likely to engage in social issues after exposure. Key actions taken included sharing posts (53.00%), volunteering (45.00%), attending events and donating (42.00%), and using hashtags (33.00%). Conclusion: The results demonstrate that social media is a powerful tool for enhancing awareness and encouraging civic engagement among university students, suggesting its potential for driving meaningful social change.