Social media and political activism

As suggested by the widely used terms “twitter revolutions” and “slacktivism”, the debate about the role and impact of new media technologies—and social media in particular ¹ —on political activism has grown quite polarized, especially in the mass media and popular literature accounts (Esfandiari, 2010; Gladwell, 2010; Morozov, 2009a, 2009b; Shirky, 2008, 2011). Scholarly literature provides a more nuanced debate, less focused on pro-democratic institutional outcomes. Nonetheless, the discussion has remained limited in at least two ways: scholars have tended to emphasize either the mobilizing capacities of social media (Bennett et al., Givens, 2008; Mason, 2012; Tufekci and Wilson, 2012; van Laer and van Aelst, 2010), or the quality of political engagement fostered by those (Aguiton and Cardon, 2007; Castells, 2007; Ellison et al., 2007; Juris, 2012; Lindgren and Lundström, 2011; Stiegler, 2009), without sufficiently contextualizing the use of social media in pre-existing contentious structures and cultures. A consequence of this has been the overemphasizing of the distinction between offline and online activism, overlooking activities other than mobilization (taking people in the streets) and petitioning (political campaigns run exclusively online). In addition, engagement with social media by social movement organizations (SMOs) and individuals are often seen as motivated by contrasting goals and values (Fenton and Barassi, 2011; Gladwell, 2010). Thus, Segerberg and Bennett (2011) criticize scholars’ tendency to confront social media with an obsolete framework of contentious politics. Social media should be approached as organizing mechanisms, and treated as windows through which to view the larger protest ecology. Similarly, Olcese et al. (2012) pointed out that, far from being relevant only for mobilization, social media are used for carrying out a much broader range of activities relevant for social movements.