Social Media Activism

From Tweets and the Streets- social media and contemporary activism:

"Because of the availability of contemporary social media, activists like Penny argue, social movements can finally become leaderless, horizontal, and spontaneous. They no longer have to face the question of unity so obsessively important for dinosaurs like the Socialist Workers Party, which seems to be stuck in the era of Gutenberg. Much of the scholarship produced in the last few years about the impact of new media on contemporary society, and on activism in particular, has followed a similar line of reasoning. It asserts that the internet allows for more flexible relationships, enabling individuals to interact without the need for central coordination or a sense of unity in the display of collective action. "

Does social media and its quick and easy accessibility give us the opportunity to form larger and stronger groups than we ever would have been able to in the past? Activist groups no longer have to meet in person to form an alliance.

Research the terms Horazontalism and networks

"Social media in particular are characterised by a high degree of interactivity, and by a focus on user-generated content. Practically speaking, this means that users are also to a great extent ‘producers’ in communicative interactions."

"Castells has described this media landscape as dominated by a paradigm of ‘self mass-communication’ in which individuals and groups can broadcast their messages to large audiences (Castells, 2009: 416). For Castells, the advent of mass self-communication carries the promise of autonomy from bureaucratic structures and increasing scope for political and social engagement from below."

- using social media in which were essentially the authors and producers, can we reach a larger audience than those activists that have come before us? Does it also mean were moving away from the rigid social and political structures meaning that anyone who wishes to discuss politics and their personal views has a platform on which to do it?

No network has a centre? - online networks mean theres less of a "chain of command" type attitude with all instructions coming from one "leader", maybe means people can take action how they see fit?

"Networks are ‘an emerging ideal’, the pre-figuration of a society which is ‘self-produced, self-developed, and self-managed’, a model for re-organising society in the direction of an ‘informational utopics’ (Juris, 2008: 15)"