Climate change activism & social media

In their early development phase, social media technologies have commonly been labelled as agents of political empowerment, for example through opportunities for digital activism. More recent literature (e.g. on algorithms, personalisation, and fake news) has questioned these assumptions, suggesting that social media platforms influence activist activity online. Using case studies of climate change activism, this guest lecture will illustrate (a) the spectrum of opportunities social media offer for digital activism, and (b) the ways in which they restrict and shape it. 

Speaker

• Suay Melisa Oezkula, Scuola di Studi Iternazionali Unitn

Suay Melisa Oezkula is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow on the project Digi-EMP at SIS Trento. She is a digital sociologist interested with a focus on digital activism, technological determinism, empowerment through social technologies. As part of DIGI-EMP, she is now exploring whether and how users taking part in crowdsourcing initiatives on climate change experience political empowerment. Previously, she was a Junior Lecturer and post-doctoral Research Fellow on "Making Climate Social" at the Dept. of Sociological Studies at the University of Sheffield.