Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores and analyzes how media and communications are used in campaigns and movements for social and cultural change. It focuses on the affective dimensions of mediated communication for social change. The book also explores the ways in which political opportunities emerge through individuals coming together as publics through technological platforms. It traces the media use of unions and guilds from the leaflets and newsletters, through broadcasting and cinema, and up to the uses of networked digital media in a time of increasingly precarious labour. The book describes how the mediation of the hostage executions has developed from the implicit authenticity of technically crude, user-generated content to more sophisticated productions involving multiple cameras, jib cranes and complex soundtracks. It considers potential uses of blockchain technologies – distributed public records of digital participation – for activism.