Online Activism & its Presence in Participatory Culture

Overview
In the world of the Internet, social activism goes by many names such as cyberactivism, electronic advocacy, non - traditional activism, online organizing,and  e - campaigning. A criticism of this movement goes by the term clicktivism, coined by Micah M. White, in which it states that internet-based activism which include signing online petitions and hashtag usage that White argues is damaging to the probability of political change occurring. In this study, I would like to investigate how Twitters and its followers use hashtags and retweets to make a social movement.

[[File:Twiiter.jpg|thumb|left|330px|Our prayers are with the missing Nigerian girls and their families. It's time to #BringBackOurGirls. -mo

(https://twitter.com/flotus/status/464148654354628608)]]

Project Focuses
Goals:

1. The aim is to define the relationship participatory media culture plays to social activism -> Primary Focus will be Twitter and its use of hashtags

2. To look into Twitter users and how tweets communicate with people around the world -> Use of hashtags and retweets (i.e. #bringbackourgirls)

3. To investigate few past events where Twitter was used to express a political movement and to see whether a movement was successful or not.

4. To do a short structured questionnaire consisting of a mixed set of open and closed ended questions to obtain data regarding political change, peoples' beliefs and knowledge of online activism to 10-15 UTM students (preferably those who use Twitter).

Information
1. http://en.reset.org/knowledge/digital-and-online-activism

2. http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/ethics_online/0099