UNIT 5- Media activism and pressure groups

Question 1

Media activism:

Answer 1

a broad category of activism that uses media and communication technologies for social and political movements.

Methods of media activism can include:
- posting news on websites
- creating video and audio investigations
- disseminating information about protests
- organizing campaigns related to media and communication policies
…

Question 2

Media activism serves as…

Answer 2

a catalyst for social and political transformation.

This form of activism harnesses the power of various media channels to:
- raise awareness
- challenge established norms (whether legal or ethical)
- mobilize communities

Question 3

Purpose of media activism

Answer 3

Can be used for many different purposes. It is often a tool for grassroot activists and anarchists to spread information that is not available through mainstream media or to share censored news.

Certain forms of politically motivated piracy (Wikileaks) and web-based campaigns (hashtag activism) it is considered media activism.

Typically, the purpose of media activism is to spread an idea or raise awareness through media communications, which, later on, can subsequently lead to action.
Media activism encompasses a broad spectrum of activities aimed at using media platforms to advocate for social, political, or environmental causes.

Question 4

Key approaches:

Answer 4

1. Citizen journalism
2. Social media campaigns
3. Meme culture
4. Culture jamming
5. Hacktivism
6. Storytelling and testimonials
7. Digital art and graphic design
8. Documentaries and short films

Question 5

1. Citizen Journalism

Answer 5

Activists capture and share news independently through blogs, social media, and independent websites, providing alternative perspectives and covering stories that mainstream media might overlook.

Question 6

2. Social Media Campaigns

Answer 6

Hashtags, viral posts, and coordinated messaging on platforms like X (Twitter), Meta (Facebook), and Instagram are used to spread awareness, mobilize support, and create digital activism movements.

Question 7

3. Meme Culture

Answer 7

Activists use memes to satirize issues, spread ideas humorously, and engage a broad audience (Pepe the Frog). Memes are powerful in simplifying complex issues and making them accessible to a wide audience.

Question 8

4. Culture Jamming

Answer 8

A form of subvertising, culture jamming involves repurposing mainstream media and advertising to disrupt and critique corporate or political messages, often through satire or parody.

Question 9

5. Hacktivism

Answer 9

A blend of hacking and activism, hacktivists target websites and digital platforms to make political statements, expose information, or disrupt systems they consider unethical. Notable examples include website defacements, data leaks, and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

Question 10

6. Storytelling and Testimonials

Answer 10

Activists use personal stories and testimonials to humanize social issues, building empathy and understanding by allowing individuals to share their lived experiences with a wider audience.

Question 11

7. Digital Art and Graphic Design

Answer 11

Activists create visually striking posters, infographics, and digital art pieces to communicate complex issues quickly and effectively, often shared widely on social media and at protests.

Question 12

8. Documentaries and Short Films

Answer 12

Documentaries can provide deep dives into issues, revealing systemic injustices and giving voice to those impacted. Short, shareable videos are often used to raise awareness on social media.

Question 13

One criticism of media activism:

Answer 13

Since everyone has a voice, radicals sound as loud as the average person, whether one person or not, which can undermine the movement entirely (during the Occupy Wall Street protests, fringe voices promoting extreme anti-government rhetoric sometimes overshadowed the core message of economic inequality, causing some to dismiss the entire movement as unfocused or too radical).

Question 14

Goals of culture jamming:

Answer 14

Critique Consumerism:
- Culture jammers aim to disrupt the pervasive culture of consumerism by revealing the ways in which advertising manipulates desires and promotes materialism.

Expose Corporate Power:
- They often target large corporations, highlighting issues such as labor exploitation, environmental damage, and monopolistic practices.

Promote Media Literacy:
- By dissecting and reimagining media messages, culture jamming encourages viewers to think critically about what they consume.

Empower Social Change:
- It acts as a catalyst for broader conversations about capitalism, inequality, and environmental sustainability.

Question 15

An often used form of media activism:

Answer 15

Social media, such as Facebook and Twitter- can reach a much larger audience than traditional media

Question 16

Online culture jamming:

Answer 16

Takes on forms like memes, digital art, and satirical videos, which remix well-known images to produce new, often critical
meanings.

Question 17

Culture jamming - Psychological Impact: Creating Cognitive Dissonance

Answer 17

A key feature of culture jamming is its ability to create cognitive
dissonance in viewers. When people see a familiar logo or symbol
—often associated with trust or quality—transformed into something
critical or absurd, it forces them to reevaluate their assumptions.

For instance, a mock McDonald’s ad with the tagline “I’m hatin’ it” encourages viewers to question the fast-food industry’s impact on health and the environment. This dissonance disrupts the comfortable familiarity that brands often cultivate, making the viewer more receptive to questioning the messages and products pushed by corporations.

Culture jamming seeks to challenge the normalization of consumer culture by breaking these comfortable associations. In doing so, it aims to “wake up” consumers who may otherwise passively accept advertising and corporate branding as part of everyday life.

Question 18

Visual Techniques in Culture Jamming:

Answer 18

Culture jamming relies on various visual strategies to communicate its messages.
Some of the most common techniques include:

Parody:
- Creating fake ads that mimic the look and feel of real ones but carry critical messages. A famous example is Adbusters’ spoof of a Marlboro cigarette ad, replacing the cowboy with the tagline “Cancer country” to criticize tobacco companies.

Juxtaposition:
- Placing a corporate logo next to a disturbing image—like an oil spill next to an Exxon logo—forces viewers to associate the brand with environmental harm or unethical practices.

Subvertising:
- Altering a brand’s slogan or image to expose underlying truths, such as modifying the Starbucks logo to highlight issues of global labor exploitation or environmental harm.

By transforming familiar symbols and slogans, culture jammers challenge the viewer’s perception and understanding, disrupting the corporate narrative and fostering critical awareness.

Question 19

Political and Social Commentary Beyond Consumerism:

Answer 19

While culture jamming often targets consumerism, its scope is far broader, addressing various social and political issues. For example, artists like Banksy use street art to critique war, inequality, and political corruption. Banksy’s work reinterprets well-known symbols, like police officers or military figures, to question authority and expose power dynamics, often in satirical ways that resonate widely.

Culture jamming also critiques media censorship and surveillance. For instance, activists may use modified social media logos to comment on privacy concerns, portraying tech giants like Facebook and Google as Big Brother figures from George Orwell’s 1984.

Question 20

Ethical and Legal Controversies of culture jamming:

Answer 20

• Culture jamming frequently raises ethical and legal issues. Corporations often see it as trademark infringement or defamation, arguing that altered logos or slogans harm their reputation.
• However, culture jammers view it as a legitimate form of free expression and social critique. This tension highlights a debate between protecting intellectual property and enabling critical speech.
• High-profile lawsuits, like those between Adbusters and major corporations, exemplify this struggle over the right to critique in a highly branded world.

Question 21

Activism

Answer 21

The ability to act and make or change history.

Question 22

Forms of activism that are less driven by direct action:

Answer 22

Judicial activism: challenging the state and companies through the courts

Lobbying: trying to influence legislators or governments.

Question 23

Direct action

Answer 23

Civil disobedience, demonstrations, protests, actions

Question 24

“Non-institutional” politics:

Answer 24

The need to strategically essentialize and defragment often disconnected struggles.

Non-institutionalized politics often involves bringing together different and disconnected struggles into a unified effort. This means focusing on shared goals and common identities, even if the groups or issues involved are diverse or fragmented, to create a stronger and more strategic movemen

Question 25

netroots organizations

Answer 25

rganizations that emerged online

Question 26

netizens

Answer 26

active online citizens

Question 27

Data activism

Answer 27

which refers to activism that particularly addresses the role of data in both political engagement and everyday life.

• practices that use big data for political purposes

Question 28

We can divide med activism into activism that:

Answer 28

• has the media as an object to revolutionize or reform, for example, the media reform movement (Pickard 2015) and hacktivism (Coleman 2014). This is what we call media-centric media activism.
• strategically uses the media to present its political causes, for example Occupy, Squares Movement or movements against austerity. This is what we call non-media-centric media activism.

Question 29

Definition of activism in media activism

Answer 29

Yang argues that activism itself is an ambiguous term that has slowly replaced the use of other, more radical terms for political action, such as revolution, both in academia and more generally.

Activism, he argues, is now used for both radical revolutionary action and non-revolutionary community action.

It therefore potentially encompasses action both in the service of the nation-state and in opposition to it.

Question 30

We should analyze media along three types of transformation that appear in the context of media:

Answer 30

Amplification that refers to everything from the megaphone to the most advanced direct transmitted radio technologies.

Duration (storage) that relates to the direct physical resources to store media content, such as a sound recording.

Alternative symbolic production that expands the conventional use or transformation of physical objects as signs, development of writing, graphics and the means of their reproduction.

Question 31

Four waves of digital activism:

Answer 31

First wave. Starting in 1994 with the Zapatista and anti-globalization movements, including alternative media such as Indymedia.

Second wave. From 2001 to 2007 and is mainly constituted by the rise of digital activism linked to the mobilizations against the Iraq war.

Third wave. After 2007, digital activism spread to the BRICS and other countries beyond the global north.

Fourth wave. Taking place between approximately from 2010 on, it marks the incorporation of digital activism sparked and dominated by discussions about large-scale digital state surveillance.

Question 32

Two waves o digital activism (different theory):

Answer 32

First wave. The mid-1990s, characterized by cyberautonomism within the anti-globalization movement that was characterized by attempts to build independent digital platforms and infrastructures such as the Indymedia project.

Second wave. It begins in the 2010s and alludes to cyberpopulism as constituted within the mass mobilizations of Occupy, square movements, and anti-austerity movements.