The Ugandan LGBT+ community - arguably one of the most marginalized in the world given domestic homo-hostile legislations - is understudied when it comes to their own agency. This is particularly interesting when it comes to their use of digital media, given that they are also systematically excluded from Ugandan mainstream media. We therefore zoom in on Ugandan LGBT+ organizations themselves, and their self-controlled digital media.

Analytically the research departs from theories of rationalities of participation, suggesting that with whom a user relates, may tell us something about how this user negotiates (political) meaning and identity. We therefore map with whom Ugandan LGBT+ organizations relate online (here Twitter) and through this mapping discuss – not only who/what is deemed important/ listened to/ poke-worthy – but also how these organizations negotiate themselves and how they understand the LGBT+ struggle in Uganda. Careully selecting 46 accounts, tweets from these accounts were downloaded and then mapped and visualized using the Gephi software.

Our preliminary conclusion is that the LGBT+ community understands themselves and their struggle as deeply connected to international funding and addressing an international audience rather than domestic one.

At the time of AoIR2023 the preliminary conclusion will be complemented by a retweet analysis, a Facebook analysis, qualitative readings of the tweets/ posts (also given authors extensive knowledge, having conducted studies of the Ugandan LGBT+ community for over 10 years) and qualitative interviews (on the ground in Kampala, scheduled for April 2023).

After the Arab Spring in 2011, digital engagement increased in the whole Middle East, including the rich Arab Gulf States. Consequently, security and surveillance increased. As a result, many people decided to flee their homeland country and migrate to other countries. This study examines the digital activism of people who migrated from the Arab Gulf States to London. It shows how people use different social networking sites for digital activism. The method of this paper is an ethnographic study based in London in 2019. The polymedia theory is applied for the study

This paper shows that Twitter is the most common digital platform used for digital activism. While Youtube is used by activists as an archival platform. Facebook was less popular because it closed many accounts for the opposition. Telegram was preferred more than WhatsApp because it is more secure. A major finding is that activists in London do not trust American social networking sites and believe that American firms are colluding with the governments of the Arab Gulf states.

This study analyzed over 1 million tweets emanating from the #defundthepolice movement during the June to December 2020 time period to examine how the publics advanced the goals of the movement. Digital publics advanced a message that was largely abolitionist by fully embracing abolishing and defunding the police. The #defundthepolice movement framed the movement alongside protests uprising in various US cities, with associated hashtag assemblages that included efforts by protesters to defund the local police departments. The movement took on a global appeal when protest movements died down in the summer 2020, with spotlights being shone on human rights abuses by army, police, and military in Chile, Columbia and Nigeria, but also Canada and France. Reimaging policing to other structures in society led to policy emphasis on criminal justice reform through abolishing ice, environmental justice through the Green New Deal and health care justice with medicare for all, to name the most prominent reimaginings. Data is still being analyzed for the links, images, and sources of viral elevated content in tweets and in exploring the relationship between #defundthepolice and other black digital collectives like #blacktwitter and #blacklivesmatter.

This paper investigates how social media users advocate for women's issues in China, focusing on the activism against menstrual shaming on the social media platform Xiaohongshu, a culturally significant but understudied platform used primarily by women. With women accounting for 90.41% of active users, Xiaohongshu provides a unique social media environment that shapes the way users engage with feminist issues. However, despite the growing literature on digital feminism in China and the surging popularity and significance of Xiaohongshu in the Chinese social media ecosystem, no studies so far have examined the feminist activism on this platform.

Our study contributes to this gap by exploring the discourse around menstrual shaming on Xiaohongshu, as a lens into the dynamics of activism on this female-oriented platform. Analyzing 329 posts and 10,336 comments under the hashtag #StopMenstrualShaming on Xiaohongshu, our study foregrounds the salient role of Xiaohongshu in helping women express their feminist values in an online space that they perceive as safe and intimate. In doing so, we employ the conceptual framework of hashtag activism, which refers to the development and spread of online activism with tangible results in the physical and digital worlds. Shining a spotlight on this significant but understudied platform, we illuminate the dynamics of Chinese digital feminism, especially the formation of solidarity, relatability and collective identity on a female-oriented social media platform.