Digital Activism Decoded

Themedia have recently been abuzz with cases of citizens around theworld using digital technologies to push for social and politicalchange from the use of Twitter to amplify protests in Iran andMoldova to the thousands of American nonprofits creating Facebookaccounts in the hopes of luring supporters. These stories have beenpublished, discussed, extolled, and derided, but the underlyingmechanics of this practice of digital activism are little understood.This new field, its dynamics, practices, misconceptions, and possiblefutures are presented together for the first time in Digital ActivismDecoded. Topics include: how to think about digital activism: thedigital activism environment: infrastructure, social, political, andeconomic factors: digital activism practices: two researchperspectives and the danger of destructive activism: digital activisms value: balancing optimism and pessimism: building the future ofdigital activism.