By Leah Duncan Associate Editor, Vol. 24
Since its creation, social media has evolved well beyond its initial purpose of social connection. Today, social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter--to name a few--are now being used to promote brands, market products, and foster social connections.[1] Beyond these uses, social media has become a tool to promote social justice and civil rights activism. For example, “hashtagging” on social media has become a popular way to spread awareness. #BlackLivesMatter #SocialJustice #WhyIMarch are but a few hashtags that people have used in developing issue awareness and promoting reform. Even further, social media has been used to facilitate protests and other forms of civic engagement. While social media can be a productive tool for change, it can also be a restricting force. In some ways, it can lead to the tokenization of social justice causes and can hamper further action beyond the internet. With this in mind, it is important that social media activism remain connected to the on the ground causes and be viewed not as an end-goal but as a means to an end. Social media has played and continues to play an important role in helping “users bring greater attention to issues through their collective voice.”[2] Through the use of hashtags, tweets, and other types of social media posts, users are able to both “display solidarity with” and “criticize” different social movements.[3] Moreover, through event and group pages or accounts, social media has played a significant role as a springboard for organizing and planning collective action on the ground. One major example of the power of social media in the context of social justice movements is the 2016 Women’s March on Washington. This movement started with Teresa Shook’s Facebook event invite to forty of her friends, and quickly blossomed into a march of hundreds of thousands of people who took to the streets of D.C., along with many other groups who led their own marches in their own cities.[4] The hashtag “#WhyIMarch” was used in conjunction with the marches to not only facilitate further awareness for those unable to attend but also allowed users to find and join marches in their area.[5] In these ways, social media was used as a productive tool of organizing and promoting awareness of a movement intended to further women’s rights.
