Media activism

Media activism could be seen as an example of the ‘new’ in social movement, since it not only challenges the codes of communication but the social relations and practices through which the codes are produced and distributed (Carroll & Hackett, 2006:95). However, while some kinds of activism focus on issues of content others present “…not just a ‘symbolic challenge’ to elites but a challenge to the system of symbolic production…”(Carroll & Hackett, 2006: 99).

The question is if media activism should only be seen as a compliment to other activism or simply as another tool for development.

Dunbar-Hester (2010) argues that even if media activism sometimes can be the goal, most often people drawn to media activism are engaged in other issues and use media as a main tool to fight for other causes (Dunbar-Hester, 2010:123). This is supported by Carroll and Hackett (2006) that say that “media activism thrives, and can only thrive, in conjunction with other democratic movements. As it thrives, it facilitates those movements” (Carroll & Hackett, 2006:92). However, other movements can pursue their objectives without requiring media activism. The question then becomes if media activism should only be seen as a compliment to other activism or simply as another tool for development. This will be further explored in the section on online versus offline activism.

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Information and communication technologies (ICT) can be viewed as an important tool for development and social change. New media activism is a part of the ICT discourse and since the rise of internet this type of activism has both developed and increased, giving way to both opportunities and challenges (Hemer and Tufte, 2005). Because of its increasing influence and impact, we are going to discuss the topic of new media activism in relation to issues such as gender, online versus offline public-sphere activism, surveillance, privacy and security, copyright and private/public issues.

This will be done through reviewing existing literature and theories. We believe that by discussing and exploring these critical questions and themes, we can contribute by giving a better understanding of the concept. We will start off by defining the concept of new media activism, explore, review and discuss the mentioned themes and finalize our paper with a summary.