A talk by: Kasia Elliott-Maksymowicz, PhD candidate in Communication, Culture and Media

With the emergence of the Internet and new technologies, social movements – formerly reliant primarily on printed materials, traditional media coverage, word of mouth and social networks of their members – gained a valuable tool for not only spreading their message, extending its reach, and gaining support, but also for organizing participants and facilitating offline engagement. The datafied nature of the digital environments in which emergent social movements function makes it possible for researchers to track the digital trace they leave or, in the other words, the data which is generated throughout the communicative practices of movements.

With the latest advances in data processing and machine learning, new avenues of research are open to scholars of activism. I seek to utilize these new methods to get a better understanding of the dynamics and foundational aspects of grassroots activism: