Digital Activism is a form of political activism that generally takes place online and has at its core the defence of digital rights, however it may also refer to activism of any kind from the material world, such as Human Rights movements, that may be using digital tools to enhance or augment their real-world activism. What is activism? Comes from the word – ‘active’ – the opposite of passive, sitting idly by while things happen around you. Outrage. That is a word associated with activism. It is the notion that, as an individual, you may see something happening around you that makes you feel uneasy in your bones, you don’t agree with it, but you’re not sure why. Eventually, this things keeps happening around you – you’re letting it happen and you feel a sense of outrage that ‘enough is enough’ – you can’t allow this to continue – you want to do something about it, there may be something you can do to stop it. But what? Direct intervention? Going up to someone and physically restraining them or even assaulting them in some way to get them to stop what they’re doing? Or rallying together with a group of other like-minded individuals who also believe that this person or organization needs to be stopped from continuing to do what they’re doing – to behave in such a way that causes outrage to so many people. What are they doing that’s so bad? Behaving ‘unethically’? According to who? Infringing on people’s rights? Causing damage to people, animals or perhaps the environment? Abusing people in some way? Acting unfairly – abusing positions of authority – making money illegitimately or by exploiting others? Committing social, legal or otherwise injustices? What is unjust? If enough people feel offended or outraged enough by someone’s actions to protest about it in some way, then there’s obviously something to it.
But in what ways may people protest? Civil disobedience. Peaceful protests. Verbal and physical protests. Media campaigns. Self defence. Fighting back. Counter-strike. War. There are many ways to protest, but in terms of digital activism, these may variously take the form of electronic civil disobedience, spamming online forums and comment sections, hacking websites and changing homepages, putting up fake websites that look real, sending parody domain names to legitimate sites, fake videos, posters, radio interviews, any kind of digital media that is intended to act as a form of protest. Why protest? To ultimately get someone to stop doing something, start doing something, do more of something or do less of something else – it’s about changing behavior. Trying to persuade or even force someone to behave differently.
CriticalRemix.com
Dr. Owen Gallagher, SFHEA
