WHAT IS DIGITAL ACTIVISM ANYWAY? SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF THE “DIGITAL” IN CONTEMPORARY ACTIVISM

Abstract

In recent decades, digital activism has received a lot of scholarly and journalistic attention. Even so, there remains no firm consensus on its precise definition and scope. This paper addresses this conceptual haziness and contends that there are analytical issues and conceptual implications in the openness of the term and its description as digital, as 'digitality' is neither the sole nor the primary feature along which activism has changed. Drawing on extant practices of digital activism and conceptual approaches to its scope, the paper aims to (1) critically discuss & highlight a range of conceptual obscurities in digital activism scholarship, (2) provide a glimpse into the concept’s evolution, and, through these (3) suggest that the term (incl. synonyms) suffers from myriad conceptual and epistemological fallacies: omissions of the concept’s complexity (e.g. hybridity, rhizomatism, multi-mediality), implications of digital dualism and therefore potentially technological determinism, and the invitation of stigma, luddite sentiment, and other social constructions of the technologies to which the term is attached.