Twitter As A Medium For Activism

The reading for Mediums goes into great length about the different affordances a medium can have. I wanted to explore Twitter and how Twitters affordances get used for activism.  The reading gives an example of printing and how its affordances affected how it was used:

“To observe these types of potential media effects-whether in the past, present, or future-one needs to shift the focus from the content of media as the prime source of influence and look to the nature and capacities of each medium itself…..Printing, for example, differed dramatically from handwritten manuscripts in that it allowed for relatively inexpensive, rapid, and widespread sharing of identical texts. Printing facilitated a shift from a focus on copying and preserving existing “authoritative” documents to a focus on broad distribution.” (518)

TWITTERS AFFORDANCES

• Twitter conveys written word and images/video via links
• high amounts of ‘verisimilitude’ as each account has an IRL person behind it
• Multidirectional communication – has the ability to communicate to more than 1 person and everyone has the ability to respond.
• Has full control over reception and transmission to “create their own paths through Internet news via hyperlink options”
• The physical requirements are limited to wifi availability, and whether your device is mobile (cell phone v desktop computer)
• Messages last as long as you want (until you delete) (or forever through a screen shot), Messages can be transferred all around the world in a manner of second 

   

HOW DO THESE AFFORDANCES LEND TOWARDS ACTIVISM

Twitter in recent years has been known for ‘hashtag activism’ whether it’s #OscarsSoWhite, or the spreading of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement. Twitter has also contributed to organizing protests in the US and around the world i.e. the Egyptian Revolution. 

Twitter works so well with political and social movements (IMO) because the medium affords itself to ‘spreading the message’ so well via retweets and being able to communicate live from any event (as what happened in Egypt).

REFERENCES

Joshua Meyrowitz (2009), ‘Medium Theory: An Alternative to the Dominant Paradigm of Media Effects’ in The Sage Handbook of Media Processes and Effects, Ed. R. L Nabi and M. B. Oliver (Sage)