Video activism as technology, text, testimony – or practices?

Doing Visual Activism. A Practice-based Approach to the Study of Visual Social Media Use by Kia’i Mauna Kea

“…Visual social media is a substantial advantage for activists in the image battlefield, giving social activists utilizing camera witnessing the ability "to become 'a kind of editor, and thus an active shaper of the story of what happened" [21]. Thus, commercial and public mass media no longer have a monopoly over the visual representation of protests [14] as social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube form a 'wild zone of representation' [17] where the affordances of image production and broadcast allow activists to overcome "The intrinsically divisive nature of media's symbolic power, the division of the social between those with access to media's vast concentrations of representational power and those without such access" [3].…”

“…This research would suggest that Visual Cross Platform Analysis can be used to examine the visual vernacular of Kia'i Mauna Kea. Furthermore, it is the purpose of this research to develop this methodology to implement a practice-based approach and uncover practices of visual social media that anchor [1] and overlap practices of social movement activities [3].…”

“…It is important to explain the importance of visual social media practices for social movements. When media is seen as practice, visual media practice becomes seamless and inseparable from all other practices [3] involved in social protest. Kia'i use of visual social media will be explored here in terms that transcend content analysis and media-centrality.…”

“…This research asks What do Kia'i do with visual social media? To answer this question, the visual methodology of Pearce et al [2] will be used to revel and unpack practices of social movements that are bundled [3] into the practice of using visual social media. Building on Pearce et al's methodology, image plotting will be used to exemplify how practice presents itself in the visual vernacular [2] of Kia'i use of Instagram.…”

Digital activism: After the hype

“…However, there are only rare attempts to historicize the role of digital media for political activism. Prior to social media, mobile phones, video-handheld cameras and personal computers had changed the way social movements self-organized and documented their activities (Askanius, 2012). In an attempt to historicize digital activism, Trebor Scholz (2010) links political practices to the history of the Internet, going back to the 1970s.…”