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False equivalencies: Online activism from left to right

Deen Freelon https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5055-0316 [email protected], Alice Marwick https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0837-6999, and Daniel Kreiss
Science • 4 Sep 2020 • Vol 369, Issue 6508 • pp. 1197-1201 • DOI: 10.1126/science.abb2428
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Abstract

Digital media are critical for contemporary activism—even low-effort “clicktivism” is politically consequential and contributes to offline participation. We argue that in the United States and throughout the industrialized West, left- and right-wing activists use digital and legacy media differently to achieve political goals. Although left-wing actors operate primarily through “hashtag activism” and offline protest, right-wing activists manipulate legacy media, migrate to alternative platforms, and work strategically with partisan media to spread their messages. Although scholarship suggests that the right has embraced strategic disinformation and conspiracy theories more than the left, more research is needed to reveal the magnitude and character of left-wing disinformation. Such ideological asymmetries between left- and right-wing activism hold critical implications for democratic practice, social media governance, and the interdisciplinary study of digital politics.
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Volume 369 • Issue 6508 • 4 September 2020
Pages: 1197 - 1201

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Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.
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Deen Freelon* https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5055-0316 [email protected]
Hussman School of Journalism and Media, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
View all articles by this author
Alice Marwick https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0837-6999
Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Department of Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
View all articles by this author
Daniel Kreiss
Hussman School of Journalism and Media, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
View all articles by this author

Notes

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

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