Year: 2017
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Recently, many claims about the potential of new and social media to enhance civic engagement have been issued. In relation to this potential for pressuring governments, organisations, and institutions for enhancing environmental protection and sustainability, the focus of this paper lies on ‘digital environmental activism’. Three meta–themes are explored: (i) ‘new and social media as enabling environmental activism’, (ii) ‘engaging in the environmental activist terrain’, and (iii) ‘potential constraints to digital environmental activism’. It is found that digital environmental activism focuses substantially on chronic technological disasters and protest campaigns. Potential constraints to enhanced digital activism include expanding corporate control of new and social media, and digital surveillance. In conclusion, and informed by new and social media’s main conduit of horizontal (or many–to–many) communication, we find a robust potential of new and social media to enhance activism tempered by potential constraints of increasing corporate control and surveillance.
Source: Griffith Research Online
Authors: Richard Hindmarsh, Diletta Luna Calibeo
Language: English
Topic: Social Media and Politics
Subfield: Communication
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2772180642