"There is a growing public and academic debate on the societal impacts of the internet and, in particular, social media. For its proponents, social media is a force for change, which can challenge entrenched hierarchies, redistribute power, democratize information, support mass mobilization and cont
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ribute to the building of global movements. Increasingly such positivist arguments are being questioned. Critics argue that it has become a sinister force, facilitating the spread of ‘fake news’, providing an instrument for citizen surveillance and re-enforcing neoliberal hegemony. The community development literature has barely engaged in those debates around social media that appear urgent in other disciplines. Social media has been seen as a value-free tool for broadcasting and dissemination, and neither evaluated as a force for change nor examined as an instrument of neoliberal intents. Although there is a community development literature on neoliberalism and globalization, it often accepts these, rather than critiques them, as the contexts within which community development operates. Challenging established power imbalances and enhancing citizen participation in democratic processes are purposes central to community development values. Analysis of wider literature raises questions with regard to the values embedded in the technologies from which enhanced levels of participation and engagement are expected to flow. It also raises questions about who benefits most from the affordances of these technologies. This article, drawing on an extensive literature review, presents the case for community development values to be asserted in these debates." (Abstract)
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"This study used Twitter advertisements to solicit survey participation from the most-influential members of pro-Ukraine and pro-Russia communities of Twitter users identified in an analysis of 25 million Russian language tweets emanating from Eastern Europe. Survey results suggest that pro-Ukraine
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activists are eager to counter Russian influence. Large percentages of respondents reported using Twitter to help counter Russian influence, and they take this activism to other social media accounts and offline channels, including talking to family members or friends and - to a lesser extent - participating in advocacy groups. At least half of the sample reported being open to receiving additional social media training, and most did not seem opposed to taking this support from the European Union, United States, or Ukraine. However, a hypothetical agreement to receive funding or participate in training does not mean that participants actually would do so. Following a brand ambassador model would help connect influential users with training and content. This model would involve reaching out, building an initial relationship, and establishing trust with these activists. It might be possible to help such users join together to advocate for a unified and democratic Ukraine, increase awareness of particular Russian influence campaigns, disseminate memes or video content addressing media literacy, or identify Russian bots and trolls." (Key findings)
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"Civil society technology, or civic tech, is one of the novel notions introduced by the digital age – a new form of social interaction and implementation of fundamental human rights. The dominating discourse that civic tech is about optimising and digitising public services is challenged by the ex
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amples of autocracies, like Belarus, where the rise of civic tech initiatives pre-, mid-, and post- the 2020 presidential election present examples of digital resistance to repressive state policies. In this paper, we seek to analyse the notion of civic tech in Belarus, identify its distinctive features, the role it plays as a tool of digital resistance, and the impact it has on human rights." (Page 1)
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"Hear #metoo in India examines the role media platforms play in anti-rape and sexual harassment feminist activism in India. Including 75 interviews with rural and subaltern feminist activists and journalists working in urban and rural regions of India, the book proposes a nuanced framework of agenda
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building on rape and establishes a theoretical framework to examine media coverage of issues in the digitally emerging countries of the Global South. In 2017, TIME announced The Silence Breakers, individuals who set off an international movement against sexual harassment, as its Person of the Year, amplifying the #Metoo movement. The intersection of issues of gender violence and activism receives inconsistent focus from the media, policymakers and the citizens. Some rapes and sexual harassments become the focus of mainstream and social media attnetion, while others are relegated to the background. Hear #metoo in India emphasizes the interdependent association between social media networks and mainstream mass media which can strengthen anti-rape and sexual harassment activism. It provides a contextual framework to the relationship between subaltern anti-rape feminist activists in India and transnational anti-rape cyberfeminism and investigates why hashtags may or may not be successful in digitally emerging countries." (Publisher description)
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"This article discusses activists’ need to reflect on how achieving social media visibility might translate into vulnerability. In order to provide activists with a tool for this reflection, the Stepping into Visibility Model has been developed and applied to two case studies: (a) an activist grou
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p in a Brazilian favela using social media for protection against police brutality and (b) a Kenyan photographer, affiliated to an art-ivist (artistic and activist) collective, producing images of Nairobi at night to tackle social anxiety issues. The research draws from sociological insights on the concept of ‘visibility’ and adopts a case study methodology combined with ethnographic approaches. By adopting a Global South perspective, it discusses counter surveillance efforts in ways that go beyond techno-legal solutionism (Dencik et al, 2016) and in periods outside that of big-scale protests (McCosker, 2015). By devising this model, we hope to offer a contribution on how marginalised communities can be better informed when they encounter unintended negative visibility." (Abstract)
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"Public protests, including women-led struggles, are increasingly gaining a foothold in many parts of the world in response to multiple crises and growing exclusion, in a context of fragility. In the global South, most public protests involve temporary, informal coalitions where people come together
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and participate in a one-off event. The fluid nature of political space makes sustaining protests elusive because of protest fatigue. Yet, the #BringBackOurGirls (#BBOG), a women-led movement, headed a long-term protest that focused on the rights of the girl child to education – a direct response to Boko Haram’s gendered terror tactics, in which girls were abducted, forced t o abandon school, and get married. This article examines when and how movements crystallise into long-term programmes of action in fragile and conflict-affected societies where state–society relations are weak and government is considered to be unresponsive. We use the case of the #BBOG movement, one of Nigeria’s intense social media-driven and womenled action, to examine the mix of pressures it faced, its characteristics, and strategies in situations of fragility, conflict, and closed political spaces. We identify four key strategies that the #BBOG has deployed to keep members coming, garner international support and sympathy, keep pressure on the elite in a safe manner for the movement members, and ensure an independent funding regime for durability and impact. This article finds that #BBOG was able to navigate fragility and the closing civic space in Nigeria by challenging the failure of government to address insecurity in the country, transcending societal barriers including gender, religion, and political class, transnationalising their movement, self-funding, and using social media strategically." (Abstract)
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"This policy brief maps how activists are using technology to pursue public interests in human rights, democracy and a livable environment. It begins with a look at how cell phone tech has upped the outreach and mobilising game for campaigns, dives into digital storytelling and fundraising, explores
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key digital tools for collaboration and training, covers cybersecurity considerations and closes with a broad look at topical creative tech-based nonviolent activist success stories. Though digital tech is no silver bullet for successful campaigns, there are clear uses and recommendations to build power and win with digital technology." (Abstract)
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"In the last two decades, amid the global spread of smartphones, state killings of civilians have increasingly been captured on the cameras of both bystanders and police. Screen Shots studies this phenomenon from the vantage point of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. Here, cameras have
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proliferated as political tools in the hands of a broad range of actors and institutions, including Palestinian activists, Israeli soldiers, Jewish settlers, and human rights workers. All trained their lens on Israeli state violence, propelled by a shared dream: that advances in digital photography-closer, sharper, faster-would advance their respective political agendas. Most would be let down. Drawing on ethnographic work, Rebecca L. Stein chronicles Palestinian video-activists seeking justice, Israeli soldiers laboring to perfect the military's image, and Zionist conspiracy theorists accusing Palestinians of "playing dead." Writing against techno-utopianism, Stein investigates what camera dreams and disillusionment across these political divides reveal about the Israeli and Palestinian colonial present, and the shifting terms of power and struggle in the smartphone age." (Publisher description)
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"Media Culture in Nomadic Communities examines the ways that new technologies and ICT infrastructures have changed the communicative norms and patterns that regulate mobile and nomadic communities' engagement in local and international deliberative decision making. Each chapter examines a unique com
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municative event, such has how the Maasai of Tanzania have used online petitions to demand government action. How Mongolians in northern China have used micro blogs to record and debate land tenure. And how herding communities from around the world have supported the Lakota Sioux protests at Standing Rock. Through these case studies, Hahn argues that mobile and nomadic communities are creating and utilizing new communicative networks that are radically changing local, national, and international deliberations." (Publisher description)
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"Citizen Media is a fast-evolving terrain that cuts across a variety of disciplines. It explores the physical artefacts, digital content, performative interventions, practices and discursive expressions of affective sociality that ordinary citizens produce as they participate in public life to effec
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t aesthetic or socio-political change. The seventy-five entries featured in this pioneering resource provide a rigorous overview of extant scholarship, deliver a robust critique of key research themes and anticipate new directions for research on a variety of topics. Cross-references and recommended reading suggestions are included at the end of each entry to allow scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds to identify relevant connections across diverse areas of citizen media scholarship and explore further avenues of research." (Publisher description)
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"This book reflects on the role of social media in the past two decades in Southeast Asia. It traces the emergence of social media discourse in Southeast Asia, and its potential as a "liberation technology" in both democratizing and authoritarian states. It explains the growing decline in internet f
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reedom and increasingly repressive and manipulative use of social media tools by governments, and argues that social media is now an essential platform for control. The contributors detail the increasing role of "disinformation" and "fake news" production in Southeast Asia, and how national governments are creating laws which attempt to address this trend, but which often exacerbate the situation of state control. From Grassroots Activism to Disinformation explores three main questions: How did social media begin as a vibrant space for grassroots activism to becoming a tool for disinformation? Who were the main actors in this transition: governments, citizens or the platforms themselves? Can reformists "reclaim" the digital public sphere? And if so, how?" (Publisher description)
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"This volume explores how, over the past decade, social media platforms have deeply penetrated the fabric of everyday life. The author considers South Africans’ use of wearable tech and use of online health and sports tracking systems via mobile phones within the broader context of the digital dat
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a economy. The author also focuses on the dating app Tinder, to show how people negotiate and redefine intimacy through the practice of online dating via strategic performances in pursuit of love, sex and intimacy. The book concludes with the use of Facebook and Twitter for social activism (e.g. Fees Must Fall), as well as networked community building as in the case of the #imstaying movement." (Publisher description)
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"The OPTIMA workflow is a compilation of new and existing resources, guides, methodologies, and more to assist individuals and activists before, during and after an Internet shutdown. The following repository is organized into four categories:
ADVOCACY RESOURCES. Designing effective advocacy campaig
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ns around Internet shutdowns can be challenging. This section provides guidance and examples to support you in building impactful messaging and getting the word out even during a crisis.
CIRCUMVENTION RESOURCES. Understanding how to continue your work and maintain communications can be a daunting task. This section outlines some of the tools that you can use, and guides to help you determine which is best for your specific needs.
LITIGATION RESOURCES. Sometimes the most effective way to challenge or prevent a shutdown is to do so through the courts. This section includes resources, strategies, and legal landscape reviews to help you build and argue strong litigation.
NETWORK MEASUREMENT RESOURCES. A key element to fighting against shutdowns is understanding when and how they happen in your country. Network Measurement is a critical tool to reinforce advocacy with data." (Publisher description)
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"This report examines how use of newer and emergent technologies affects nonviolent action campaigns. It identifies two significant related challenges and presents evidence of these dynamics at work in two digital autocracies, China and Russia." (About the report)
"Digital Anthropology 2nd Edition explores how human and digital can be defined in relation to one another within issues as diverse as social media use, virtual worlds, hacking, quantified self, blockchain, digital environmentalism and digital representation. The book challenges the moral universal
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of the digital by exploring emergent anxieties about the global spread of new technological forms as well as highlighting the productive contribution of the digital to new concepts and practices. In this fully revised edition, Digital Anthropology reveals how the intense scrutiny of ethnography can overturn assumptions about the impact of digital culture and reveal its profound consequences for everyday life around the world. Combining the clarity of case studies with an engaging style that conveys a passion for new frontiers of enquiry within anthropological study, this will be essential reading for students and scholars interested in theory of anthropology, media and information studies, communication studies and sociology. With a brand new introduction from editors Haidy Geismar and Hannah Knox, as well as the original introduction by Heather Horst and Daniel Miller, in conjunction with new chapters on hacking, and digitizing environments, amongst others, and fully revised chapters throughout, this will bring the field-defining overview of digital anthropology fully up to date." (Publisher description)
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"As media environments and communication practices evolve over time, so do theoretical concepts. This book analyzes some of the most well-known and fiercely discussed concepts of the digital age from a historical perspective, showing how many of them have pre-digital roots and how they have changed
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and still are constantly changing in the digital era. Written by leading authors in media and communication studies, the chapters historicize 16 concepts that have become central in the digital media literature, focusing on three main areas. The first part, Technologies and Connections, historicises concepts like network, media convergence, multimedia, interactivity and artificial intelligence. The second one is related to Agency and Politics and explores global governance, datafication, fake news, echo chambers, digital media activism. The last one, Users and Practices, is finally devoted to telepresence, digital loneliness, amateurism, user generated content, fandom and authenticity. The book aims to shed light on how concepts emerge and are co-shaped, circulated, used and reappropriated in different contexts." (Publisher description)
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"Deriving from innovative new work by six researchers, this book questions what the new media's role is in contemporary Africa. The chapters are diverse - covering different areas of sociality in different countries - but they unite in their methodological and analytical foundation. The focus is on
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media-related practices, which require engagement with different perspectives and concerns while situating these in a wider analytical context. The contributions to this collection provide fresh ethnographic descriptions of how new media practices can affect socialities in significant but unpredictable ways." (Publisher description)
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"To advance interdisciplinary understanding, Shifting Dynamics of Contention in the Digital Age outlines a communication-centered framework that articulates the intricate relationship between technology, communication, and contention. It systematically explores the influence of mobile technology on
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political contention in China, the country with the world's largest number of mobile and internet users. Using first-hand in-depth interview and fieldwork data, Shifting Dynamics of Contention in the Digital Age tracks the strategic choice of mobile phones as repertoires of contention, illustrates the effective mobilization of mobile communication on the basis of its strong and reciprocal social ties, and identifies the communicative practice of forwarding officially alleged "rumors" as a form of everyday resistance. Through this groundbreaking study, Shifting Dynamics of Contention in the Digital Age presents a nuanced portrayal of an emerging dynamics of contention--both its strengths and limitations- through the embedding of mobile communication into Chinese society and politics." (Publisher description)
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