Online Political Activism Research Articles

Palestinian Youth Engagement with Online Political Contents Shared by Citizen Journalists—The Case of Save Sheikh Jarrah

AbstractInitial research on online political activism reveals that new information and communication technologies (ICTs) have increasingly become a growing and supportive space for political participation, which has influenced the conception of political activism. Furthermore, ICTs have become a facilitator for the formation of online political networks and communities. The shocking images of young children killed in the latest genocidal onslaught by Israel against Gaza in 2021 and the clashes that broke out in Sheikh Jarrah and Al Aqsa Mosque dominated the global news and online media platforms. Online political activists, such as Muna El Kurd, who represents the phenomenon of “Citizen Journalism” in Palestine, took to the internet and social media channels to ardently express their discontentment about the unhumanitarian actions and human rights violations being committed. This article aims to map out the Palestinian youth engagement with online political content disseminated by Muna El Kurd' Instagram and Twitter accounts, by employing an empirical approach using a quantitative research method to collect primary data while relying on the literature review to discuss in‐depth online activism and the concept of Citizen Journalism in the Middle East. An online survey, in Arabic language, was conducted following the simple random sampling technique, targeting one hundred college‐educated and technologically advanced Palestinian youth respondents (18–29 years old). The data collected was used to examine and address specific research questions related to what information sources the youth use to acquire political information and to what extent they rely on social media platforms belonging to citizen journalists. The study concluded that Palestinian youth participate in many online activities and rely on social media platforms for information; their interests and knowledge of politics are growing; the surveyed youth in Palestine are highly interested in political matters and are moderate participants in online political discussions.

Evaluating and Revising the Digital Citizenship Scale

Measuring citizen activities in online environments is an important enterprise in fields as diverse as political science, informatics, and education. Over the past decade, a variety of scholars have proposed survey instruments for measuring digital citizenship. This study investigates the psychometric properties of one such measure, the Digital Citizenship Scale (DCS). While previous investigations of the DCS drew participants exclusively from single educational environments (college students, teachers), this study is the first with a survey population (n = 1820) that includes both students and the general public from multiple countries. Four research questions were addressed, two of which were focused on the validity of the DCS for this wider population. Our results suggest refining the 26-item five-factor DCS tool into an abbreviated 19-item four-factor instrument. The other two research questions investigated how gender, generation, and nationality affect DCS scores and the relationship between the different DCS factors. While gender was found to have a minimal effect on scores, nationality and age did have a medium effect on the online political activism factor. Technical skills by themselves appear to play little role in predicting online political engagement; the largest predictor of online political engagement was critical perspective and a willingness to use the Internet in active ways beyond simply consuming content.

Political campaigns on YouTube: trade unions’ mobilisation in Europe

Trade unions are called to increase their influence on policy‐making by becoming more politically active and use social media, but only a few studies investigate unions’ online political activism. We propose that industrial relations regime of a country relates to unions’ perceived opportunities for mobilisation and thereby also unions’ online political activism. We test this argument with the help of data about European trade union confederations’ political mobilisation on YouTube, 2007–2017. The results showed, expectedly, that resource‐rich confederations in the organised corporatist regime (Scandinavia) use YouTube for political activism to lesser degree than in other regimes; when these confederations do pursue political activism, such videos are often related to elections and reflect the political party‐union relationship. Unexpectedly, the resource‐poor confederations in the transitional regime (Central and Eastern Europe) mobilised politically on YouTube to the same extent as have the confederations in the social partnership, liberal and state‐centred regimes.

Do social media matter? Examining social media use and youths’ political participation during the 2019 Nigerian general elections

ABSTRACT Since their arrival at the intersection of media as political landscapes social media have received tremendous attention among scholars and political actors, given their presumed information democratisation potential. This study contributes to the ongoing debate on the belief that social media provide expressive and mobilisation resources for youths’ political engagement and the counter-argument that the platforms attenuate offline political participation as a side effect of enhancing online political activism. The authors sampled youths in Kwara State of Nigeria, considered one of the hotspots of the Nigerian 2019 general election, to explore the significant contributions of social media use to youths’ political participation in a society craving political change. The findings reveal that the youths are more active in online political participation than offline politics, even after civic activism, political education and political efficacy have been controlled for. These results imply the need to motivate and mobilise the youths for offline political participation as an essential requisite for guaranteeing the future of Nigerian democracy, which has ebbed into a gerontocratic regimentation since 1999.

From virtual space to public space: The role of online political activism in protest participation during the Arab Spring

This study examines the relationship between online social media use and protest participation during the Arab Spring, pro-democracy movements that swept across vast parts of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). What role did online communication media play in individual decisions to participate in these high-risk political activities? We address this question by drawing on microdata from the Arab Barometer Wave III (2012–2014), a large cross-national survey of citizens nested in administrative divisions across a dozen Muslim-majority countries. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we investigate the multilevel associations between online activities and the likelihood of getting involved in anti-government protests. Adjusting for individual- and regional-level confounders, as well as country fixed effects, we find that online political activism specifically, rather than Internet and social media use in general, is associated with higher odds of protest involvement during the Arab uprisings. In addition, we find that the positive linkage between individual online activism and protest is weaker in communities with a higher proportion of politically cyberactive residents.

The democratic consequences of online media consumption in post-revolutionary Egypt

Considerable academic focus has been directed towards exploring the roles played by online media in initiating and shaping Egypt’s uprisings experienced since 2011. However, little is known about whether electronic media outlets remained a political agent in post-revolutionary Egypt or not. The current work seeks to redress this gap, relying on unique data collected in April 2016 from a representative sample of 1200 Egyptian adults. Findings show that electronic media consumption leads to increased demands for democratic regimes and negative positions towards Islamic governments. Furthermore, online media use enhances citizens’ protesting behaviour rather than voting action. In the online domain, electronic media exposure instigates more online political activism among online media users. Arguably, the current work concludes that online media have still been a potent democratizing actor in today’s Egypt as it had been during the 2011 and 2013 insurgencies, yet taking different forms and diverse degrees.

Internet e ativismo político na América Latina e Caribe: recursos individuais e oportunidades de acesso

O artigo trata dos efeitos da internet sobre a forma como os cidadãos latinoamericanos e caribenhos se relacionam com a política. Dialogando com a literatura que aponta para a redução dos custos e para o favorecimento do protagonismo político individual supostamente promovido por essa rede mundial de computadores, analisa o papel que recursos individuais e estruturais desempenham no compartilhamento de conteúdo político por redes sociais nesse contexto regional. Testa principalmente a hipótese de que existe uma interação entre a disponibilidade de acesso nas unidades nacionais e a escolarização (nível individual), com efeitos democratizantes sobre o ativismo político online. Utilizando dados do projeto Barômetro das Américas, aponta que tal interação não é relevante para o aumento do ativismo online.

Chronotopes, entextualization and Syrian political activism on Facebook

AbstractThis article discusses the intersection of language choice, identity and online political activism in the context of the 2011 Syrian uprising by bringing together the notions ofentextualizationandchronotopes. The data is drawn from a longitudinal analysis of two Syrian dissidents’ Facebook pages between 2010 and 2012 as part of a study of Syrian dissidents’ digital practices. Through an analysis of their status updates and their friends’ comments, I show how the repertoire of these two Syrian dissidents changed abruptly with the onset of the 2011 uprising. The shift in repertoire underlies the emergence of distinct chronotopic identities, through which both subjects re-positioned themselves vis-à-vis the sociopolitical context: cosmopolitan identities before and dissident identities after the uprising. The article contributes to the study of chronotopic identities by showing how processes of entextualization are chronotopically informed, particularly in a context of socio-political upheaval. Additionally, it sheds further light on the role of technology in social and political change.

Encounter Facebook: An Appraisal on the Making and Unmaking of Ethiopian University Students’ Socio-politics

The general objective of this research is to assess the effects of Face book on the making and unmaking of University students socio-political activities. To achieve the objective, both primary and secondary sources of data were collected and interpreted using mixed research approach. As far as primary sources of data were concerned, first hand information collected from 500 University students via questionnaires, interviews and focus group discussions. Furthermore, the primary data were substantiated by secondary sources. Using the data the researchers reached upon the following conclusions; the general assessment of facebook usage among Ethiopian public University students is in perspectives. The effects of facebook usage on Ethiopian university students’ academic performances, is in perspective. Majority of the university students explain the positive contribution of facebook on students’ academic performance while some others tudents are explain as facebook usage affects their academic performances negatively. In similar manner, facebook usage has both positive and negative effects on University students’ social interactions. Facebook helps students to deliver message accurately at all time, contact with relatives and friends at distance with less cost and easily while it deteriorated social gathering and discussion, and promote individualism. However, in relation to facebook usage and political activism, the finding shows that majority of Ethiopian University students are passive in overtly participating in online political activism. Generally, it is possible to conclude that facebook has both positive and negative effects on Ethiopian university students’ socio-politics, which seek attention to create awareness among university students in order to exploit the fruits of facebook absolutely and reduce its negative impacts.

Lifestyle politics and the concept of political participation

Van Deth’s comprehensive ‘conceptual map of political participation’ has reinstated a lively debate about the concept of political participation, and provides some compelling solutions to it. However, an important question that has been raised is whether van Deth’s map actually achieves its main goal of unambiguously identifying and classifying emerging, complex types of participation, like online political activism – or lifestyle politics. To contribute to this debate, this article aims to evaluate the usefulness of van Deth’s approach for the analysis of lifestyle politics. Such an evaluation requires a clear classification of lifestyle politics. This, however, is still missing from the literature. The second aim of this article, therefore, is to identify and classify different types of lifestyle politics. On the basis of a literature review, this article argues that lifestyle politics are often enacted throughout different private, public and institutional arenas, and that they are often targeted at various social, economic and political actors at once. Applying van Deth’s conceptual map to these empirical realities, then, suggests that it cannot always account for their complexity sufficiently. Therefore, this article proposes a modification of van Deth’s framework that increases its usefulness for analyzing emerging, complex political participation repertoires.

Online loyalist resistance: struggles for recognition in contested Northern Ireland

ABSTRACTThis paper uses the political theories of recognition to assess the online political activism which constitutes the informal, political participation of working-class Loyalists in post-ceasefire Northern Ireland. The satirisation of the flag protesters and loyalists more broadly stimulated a competition of narratives regarding the capacity of loyalism and its contributions to a post-conflict social setting. The impact of satire on marginalised groups creates new spaces for those groups to offer alternative perspectives and to resist negative stereotyping from without. In response to the ritual derision which loyalists faced following the flag protests, some engaged in the production of grassroots media which attempted to transform the recognition relations of the group. In examining the relationships between groups in contested societies, particularly those emerging from conflict, theories of respect and esteem offer innovate insights into the role of status and social equality. The deliberative and moral capacities of ‘others’ can be undermined in processes of stereotyping and intra-group esteem generation is a counter to such slights.

Demographics and Internet behaviors as predictors of active publics

This study explicates online political activism (OPA); provides a short, reliable, and valid index for measuring OPA; and examines correlates that predict such active publics. A national probability sample of adult American Internet users was surveyed using random digit dialing. The study found OPA is more frequent among older, wealthier, and more liberal respondents. OPA increases with Internet self-efficacy and search engine usage.

Government surveillance disclosures, bilateral trust and Indonesia–Australia cross-border security cooperation: Social network analysis of Twitter data

Trust/distrust in the citizens of a foreign country may affect the nation's strategic decisions to continue/discontinue security cooperation with the foreign country. This paper employs Twitter data to examine the impact of government surveillance disclosures on bilateral trust and international security cooperation. This study demonstrates the impact of social media on possible trust and security cooperation between two countries. Social network analysis method captures emergent patterns of bilateral trust-related communications. In the aftermath of the disclosures on Australia's secret surveillance of Indonesian government leaders, Indonesian citizens used Twittersphere via #ganyangaustralia (“Crush Australia”) to mobilize online political activism against Australia for its perceived injustice and lack of transparency in security policy. Our social network analysis of Twitter data shows evidence that citizens' distrust could affect bilateral security cooperation negatively. Unilaterally, Indonesia decided to halt Indonesia–Australia cross-border security cooperation. More generally, we highlight the need for new citizen-centric e-governance mechanisms for open and transparent international communications on government surveillance policies to safeguard the potential fragility of bilateral trust, when cross-border security cooperation generates discernible mutual benefits.

Collective attention in the age of (mis)information

In this work we study, on a sample of 2.3million individuals, how Facebook users consumed different information at the edge of political discussion and news during the last Italian electoral competition. Pages are categorized, according to their topics and the communities of interests they pertain to, in (a) alternative information sources (diffusing topics that are neglected by science and main stream media); (b) online political activism; and (c) main stream media. We show that attention patterns are similar despite the different qualitative nature of the information, meaning that unsubstantiated claims (mainly conspiracy theories) reverberate for as long as other information. Finally, we classify users according to their interaction patterns among the different topics and measure how they responded to the injection of 2788 false information. Our analysis reveals that users which are prominently interacting with conspiracists information sources are more prone to interact with intentional false claims.

Hacktivism and the male-only stereotype

This research explores hacktivism as a new form of online political activism. It uses qualitative interviews with a gender-equal sample of 10 self-defined hacktivists to address issues of gender and the discursive strategies used by males and females to handle the hacktivist community’s male-only stereotype. The semi-structured interviews are analysed using Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA). The analysis indicates that male hacktivists relate to this dominant male-only representation through discursive techniques such as the suppression of gender (Male Oblivious Discourse) or mechanisms of vindication (Male Justification Discourse). Female hacktivists use the accentuation of gender and sexism to counteract male-dominant discourses and establish Female Discourses of Resistance (Emphasis Discourse; Negation Discourse). These gender-related argumentative positions and rhetorical mechanisms demonstrate how the male-only stereotype is created and maintained and how it affects not only hacktivists’ talk and sense-making but also their identity and the hacktivist actions they perform.

The economy of attention in the age of (mis)information

Abstract In this work we present a thorough quantitative analysis of information consumption patterns of qualitatively different information on Facebook. Pages are categorized, according to their topics and the communities of interests they pertain to, in a) alternative information sources (diffusing topics that are neglected by science and main stream media); b) online political activism; and c) main stream media. We find similar information consumption patterns despite the very different nature of contents. Then, we classify users according to their interaction patterns among the different topics and measure how they responded to the injection of 2788 false information (parodistic imitations of alternative stories). We find that users prominently interacting with alternative information sources – i.e. more exposed to unsubstantiated claims – are more prone to interact with intentional and parodistic false claims.

‘Žít Brno’: Czech online political activism from jokes and tactics to politics and strategies

The paper presents a case study of the Czech online activist group Žít Brno. The group that challenges local representatives and employs tactics of political satire, parody and culture jamming, evolved from a spontaneous one-off event to an ongoing political project and eventually became an institutionalized political actor. The case study, based on interviews with group members, content analysis of the project website, longitudinal observation of the group's activities and other additional material, enables us to research the limits and the potential of online tactics and the way online practices are intertwined with a more traditional repertoire of collective action. Building on debates about online political participation and the broadening concept of the political, we interpret the group's protest as a reaction to the crisis of institutionalized local politics and we discuss the actual role of new media in such a protest. The conclusion is that online protest and new media, despite their criticized action-less character, could enable a functional bridge to “real” politics but at the same time they do not play an exclusive role in successful protest politics and have to be interpreted within the context of a particular political action.

THE CONTRIBUTION OF WEBSITES AND BLOGS TO THE STUDENTS’ PROTEST COMMUNICATION TACTICS DURING THE 2010 UK UNIVERSITY OCCUPATIONS

This paper examines the use of websites and blogs during the 2010 UK anti-cuts protests, where students across the UK occupied more than 35 universities in a symbolic act of opposition to government plans to cut education funding and increase tuition fees. Although social media have largely monopolized the debate on online political activism in recent years, students did not limit their online e-tactics to the use of social media, but used websites and blogs extensively to describe and contextualize their views, demands, protest experiences and actions. This study assesses which of the website features that are usually found in social movement organization (SMO) websites are adopted by websites constructed by loosely organized groups, such as those of the occupying students, and how they differ from SMO websites. The findings show that informational, interactive and mobilizing features were not equally prominent in all occupation websites. Although all standard SMO website features could, to some extent, also be found on the occupying students' websites, the features were emphasized differently. Mobilizing (and some interactive) features played a more prominent role in the occupying students' websites, which tended to lack other customary SMO website functions such as establishing lateral links with other occupation websites. This study discusses the differences in website features and suggests avenues for further research.

Online Journalism and Political Activism in Lebanon

In Lebanon, within the spread of digital technology, online journalism has entered the local media landscape. The diffusion of several kinds of newspapers online in English and French has contributed to the creation of a new kind of journalism addressing both an international audience and the Lebanese diaspora. While 'traditional' newspapers in Arabic address mainly Lebanese and Arab readers, online newspapers direct their attention not only to the metropolitan upper middle class, but to the diaspora and to a foreign audience. The online Lebanese press is not simply the web version of traditional newspapers. The de velopment of digital technologies gave rise to new forms and styles of communi cation and led to radical transformations in the idea of information itself. As pointed out by Gonzales-Quijano (2003: 67):

Whose e-democracy? The democratic divide in American electoral campaigns

This study examines whether a democratic divide (a gap in political participation via the Internet) exists among demographic segments during the campaign season of the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Five different types of online political activity are compared in terms of the divide pattern: conversation, mobilization, information consumption, information production, and activity on social networking sites. Demographic and socioeconomic characteristics such as age, gender, race, education and income are determinants for the degree of online political activism. Although political users of social networking sites mostly fall into the Y generation (DotNets), a high proportion of senior citizens who already use the Internet frequently communicate about politics by email and get political information through the Internet. The occurrence of more active online political participation by the better educated and more affluent is magnified for White males in comparison to non-Whites or females.