ABSTRACT
What is the relevance of public protest in an age of social media? Increasingly, campaigns take shape in an online environment through Facebook, Twitter and online petitions. An example is the campaign by Caroline Criado-Perez on the representation of women in public life. An element of this campaign in 2013 was to try to persuade the Bank of England to retain a female historical fi gure on UK banknotes. This campaign took place largely online, though it also involved face-to-face lobbying and a threat of a legal challenge under the Equality Act 2010. It was successful, and the image of Jane Austen on the £10 note in your pocket (from 2017 onwards) is a direct result of this protest.
