Media Activism

The term media activism refers to activist campaigns that are created and maintained through digital information communication technologies, such as social networking sites, blogs, instant messaging, or websites. Most media activist campaigns have a prosocial impetus, for example, human rights such as gender or racial equality, environmental rights such as climate change, or political rights such as democracy or anti-corruption. Conversely, media activism can be exploited for antisocial purposes by extremists on both the right (e.g., anti-immigration, nationalism, or sexism) and the left (e.g., authoritarian communism). Within the scope of equality-driven advocacy, media activism might be geared at politics/policy, economy, specific industries or stakeholders, as well as individuals or groups. This entry provides an overview of media activism by exploring specific media activist campaigns and ...