Media activism

Media activism is a broad category of activism that utilizes media and communication technologies for social and political movements. Methods of media activism include publishing news on websites, creating video and audio investigations, spreading information about protests, and organizing campaigns relating to media and communications policies.

Media activism can be used for many different purposes. It is often employed by grassroots activists and anarchists to spread information not available via mainstream media or to share censored news stories. Certain forms of politically motivated hacking and net-based campaigns are also considered media activism. Often, the focus of media activism is to change policies relating to media and communications.

Social media is often used as a form of media activism. Because of the interactive features and widespread adoption users can quickly disseminate information and rally supporters. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter can reach a much larger audience than traditional media. Although often only a small percentage of people who express interest in a cause online are willing to commit to offline action, social media interaction is viewed as "the first step in a ladder of engagement"."Social media has helped us organize without having leaders," said Victor Damaso, 22, demonstrating on São Paulo's main Paulista Avenue on Thursday night. "Our ideas, our demands are discussed on Facebook. There are no meetings, no rules".

Live streams applications or websites such as Livestream is an other media form which can replace TV when there is a kind of censorship. The protests in Istanbul can be an example of this way of broadcasting in terms of the lack of the objectivity of the actual media and the television. On the other hand, a lot of protestors used Whatsapp or Walkie-Talkie application with their smartphones in order to improve communication between protestors during the manifestations thanks to its quick and instantenious information share. Moreover, the usage of applications such as Whatsapp can increase the organisation of the protestors due to the group messages.

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Wikipedia