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#HashtagActivism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice
How marginalized groups use Twitter to advance counter-narratives, preempt political spin, and build diverse networks of dissent.
The power of hashtag activism became clear in 2011, when #IranElection served as an organizing tool for Iranians protesting a disputed election and offered a global audience a front-row seat to a nascent revolution. Since then, activists have used a variety of hashtags, including #JusticeForTrayvon, #BlackLivesMatter, #YesAllWomen, and #MeToo to advocate, mobilize, and communicate. In this book, Sarah Jackson, Moya Bailey, and Brooke Foucault Welles explore how and why Twitter has become an important platform for historically disenfranchised populations, including Black Americans, women, and transgender people. They show how marginalized groups, long excluded from elite media spaces, have used Twitter hashtags to advance counternarratives, preempt political spin, and build diverse networks of dissent.
The authors describe how such hashtags as #MeToo, #SurvivorPrivilege, and #WhyIStayed have challenged the conventional understanding of gendered violence; examine the voices and narratives of Black feminism enabled by #FastTailedGirls, #YouOKSis, and #SayHerName; and explore the creation and use of #GirlsLikeUs, a network of transgender women. They investigate the digital signatures of the “new civil rights movement”—the online activism, storytelling, and strategy-building that set the stage for #BlackLivesMatter—and recount the spread of racial justice hashtags after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and other high-profile incidents of killings by police. Finally, they consider hashtag created by allies, including #AllMenCan and #CrimingWhileWhite.
The power of hashtag activism became clear in 2011, when #IranElection served as an organizing tool for Iranians protesting a disputed election and offered a global audience a front-row seat to a nascent revolution. Since then, activists have used a variety of hashtags, including #JusticeForTrayvon, #BlackLivesMatter, #YesAllWomen, and #MeToo to advocate, mobilize, and communicate. In this book, Sarah Jackson, Moya Bailey, and Brooke Foucault Welles explore how and why Twitter has become an important platform for historically disenfranchised populations, including Black Americans, women, and transgender people. They show how marginalized groups, long excluded from elite media spaces, have used Twitter hashtags to advance counternarratives, preempt political spin, and build diverse networks of dissent.
The authors describe how such hashtags as #MeToo, #SurvivorPrivilege, and #WhyIStayed have challenged the conventional understanding of gendered violence; examine the voices and narratives of Black feminism enabled by #FastTailedGirls, #YouOKSis, and #SayHerName; and explore the creation and use of #GirlsLikeUs, a network of transgender women. They investigate the digital signatures of the “new civil rights movement”—the online activism, storytelling, and strategy-building that set the stage for #BlackLivesMatter—and recount the spread of racial justice hashtags after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and other high-profile incidents of killings by police. Finally, they consider hashtag created by allies, including #AllMenCan and #CrimingWhileWhite.
296 pages, Paperback
First published March 10, 2020
23 people are currently reading
546 people want to read
About the author
Sarah J. Jackson
4 books6 followersSarah J. Jackson is Presidential Associate Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 6, 2022
Mildly interesting, and mildly disappointing, primarily for its sole focus on US activism/politics, even though the summary of the book explicitly starts with Twitter as a tool and platform in the 2011 Iranian elections.
Overall, if you’ve been paying attention to how social media, and particularly Twitter, has been used by online activists over the last decade or so, the book ads very little on a conceptual level, specifically because the hashtags discussed are all connected to American socio-cultural issues, not international politics, for which government-mandated control is much more prominent, interesting, and worrisome.
Still, a number of interesting observations:
+ In the foreword, Genie Lauren insightfully states that “Hashtag activism is repeated resistance”. Salient is that she was asked to write the forward due to her activities in promoting particular activist hashtags, but that her Twitter account was taken down through ‘Twitter brigading’, also a kind of hashtag activism, but in this case targeting someone who stands for social inclusion and recognition.
+ The authors point out that, like through the rise of hashtag activism, much of the discourse related to U.S. progress, from the abolition of slavery to the sexual revolution, was rooted in narratives created on the margins of society, underscoring the importance of digital labor of raced and gendered ‘counterpublics’.
In addition, the authors found significant permeability between the mainstream public sphere and counterpublics on the Twitter platform, suggesting radical possibilities for contemporary democracy. (In the US, of course.)
+ Successful hashtag activism leads to ‘crowdsourced elites’, the writer of the foreword of this book being one of those.
+ The six chapters in the book each highlight a hashtag campaign which resulted in real change.
The authors, rightfully, “push back against the notion ... that the real work of change only happens offline”, supported by the importance of the online activities around these hashtags, resulting in real-world change.
But, as the authors point out, picking the hashtags that they picked is an example of selection-bias; how many hashtags failed in achieving anything?
+ As is mentioned in many places elsewhere, professional moderation and editorial review cannot scale up sufficiently to cover the overwhelming quantity of data on social media platforms. This leads to 'publish-then-filter', and, in my opinion, shows the inherent failure of the capitalist model underpinning social media.
+ Something that warrants more investigation is that “hashtags that trended ... were almost always started by a woman”.
+ Hashtags become a shorthand for conveying complex meaning, what psychologists and scholars of public opinion call ‘schemas’; they recall complex, nuanced experiences and claims, histories and presents, and theories of social belonging in a succinct, easy to digest, and repeatable form.
Overall, an easy read, but with its sole focus on US social politics, only mildly interesting for an international audience.
Overall, if you’ve been paying attention to how social media, and particularly Twitter, has been used by online activists over the last decade or so, the book ads very little on a conceptual level, specifically because the hashtags discussed are all connected to American socio-cultural issues, not international politics, for which government-mandated control is much more prominent, interesting, and worrisome.
Still, a number of interesting observations:
+ In the foreword, Genie Lauren insightfully states that “Hashtag activism is repeated resistance”. Salient is that she was asked to write the forward due to her activities in promoting particular activist hashtags, but that her Twitter account was taken down through ‘Twitter brigading’, also a kind of hashtag activism, but in this case targeting someone who stands for social inclusion and recognition.
+ The authors point out that, like through the rise of hashtag activism, much of the discourse related to U.S. progress, from the abolition of slavery to the sexual revolution, was rooted in narratives created on the margins of society, underscoring the importance of digital labor of raced and gendered ‘counterpublics’.
In addition, the authors found significant permeability between the mainstream public sphere and counterpublics on the Twitter platform, suggesting radical possibilities for contemporary democracy. (In the US, of course.)
+ Successful hashtag activism leads to ‘crowdsourced elites’, the writer of the foreword of this book being one of those.
+ The six chapters in the book each highlight a hashtag campaign which resulted in real change.
The authors, rightfully, “push back against the notion ... that the real work of change only happens offline”, supported by the importance of the online activities around these hashtags, resulting in real-world change.
But, as the authors point out, picking the hashtags that they picked is an example of selection-bias; how many hashtags failed in achieving anything?
+ As is mentioned in many places elsewhere, professional moderation and editorial review cannot scale up sufficiently to cover the overwhelming quantity of data on social media platforms. This leads to 'publish-then-filter', and, in my opinion, shows the inherent failure of the capitalist model underpinning social media.
+ Something that warrants more investigation is that “hashtags that trended ... were almost always started by a woman”.
+ Hashtags become a shorthand for conveying complex meaning, what psychologists and scholars of public opinion call ‘schemas’; they recall complex, nuanced experiences and claims, histories and presents, and theories of social belonging in a succinct, easy to digest, and repeatable form.
Overall, an easy read, but with its sole focus on US social politics, only mildly interesting for an international audience.
February 9, 2021
Well-researched recap of effective Twitter activism throughout the past decade. Draws links between on- and off-line movements, as well as relationships between traditional/digital media and in-group and allied network efforts to drive attention to activist organizations, protests, and political and civil interventions. Extensively thorough, bordering on unnecessarily repetitive at times. Likely best for those wholly unfamiliar with the history of Twitter activism and interested in an academic context – excessive for those already "very online." 3.5 stars.
September 9, 2020
Very informative of the why and how of various viral hashtags movements that are still being referenced today. Great and relevant data along with a synopsis of the incidents that sparked such movements and what made these movements unique to computer ethos and social media history. Real life case studies and interviews with the individuals who started the hashtags. Very well done and researched. Found this book very compelling.
August 9, 2020
This book rarely made its own point well and often felt like a recap rather than any sort of coherent argument.
March 5, 2021
An intersting read and insights on Hashtags, especially for us who have been on the forefront of Twitter campaigns for changes and social dialogues for the betterment of a human race.
May 29, 2021
It was a generalized overview but it was a good steppingstone for somebody to introduce themselves to the issues brought up within the book. Further reading would be needed after this.
June 8, 2022
Experienced this one mostly via Audible. Really interesting, smart research about hashtag activisms for social justice. I didn't love the narration, but it was ok in the end.
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October 6, 2022easiest read in the recent month
November 3, 2022
It was okay. Some interesting statistics, but nothing to write home about. The book became quite repetitive and boring over time, and a lot of the things brought up were obvious.
August 3, 2020
The book offers a very helpful look at how discussions on Twitter can help marginalized people connect with others like them. The Introduction is the weakest part, it is heavy with jargon and may turn people off, but the rest of the book is much more accessible. It is organized by type of activism hashtag (e.g., women's sexual harrassment, women of color, trans women, BLM) and flows in a very esay-to-follow way. It's a great chronicling of how hashtags have evolved and have captured important social issues over the past decade
October 27, 2022
I read this for my honors humanities class. I thought it was informative and well-researhced. I like the real life examples.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews