New Media : Challenging the Establishment

Abstract

Individual citizens can effect social change through mediated action. There has been a paradigmatic shift in how social networks coalesce online for collective action. The Internet, and especially the creation of open and accessible social media networks, has facilitated and significantly accelerated the generation and mass awareness of social categories, such as people with grievances about government corruption. It has also provided the means to create and share an abundance of content—images, videos, and stories— that feed the narratives around which networks for action coalesce.