The Role of Social Media in Social Justice Movements: Views of Social Activists in Pakistan

Abstract

The role of social media in social justice movements is gaining prominence in both scholarship and advocacy practice. Social media has served as a tool for amplifying the voices of the marginalized, enabling public discourse and the organization of movements over the last ten years. Social media has disrupted elements of traditional media, and gatekeeping institutions and has broadened the opportunities for social activism and social change in participatory democracy. In activism work in Pakistan, where a large proportion of the work is political, social, and media-state controlled and social media used is politically repressive, social media serves activists as a strategy of predominantly unoppressed channel for marginal advocacy work. This research examines the impact of social media on the construction of social justice movements in Pakistan, focusing on social activists who leverage the internet for social advocacy. The study, employing ethnographic methods, examines the ways activists’ interface with social media for the purposes of awareness, support mobilization, and collective action for social transformation. The study investigates the ways activists utilize social media to organize protests, how to communicate with activists, and to respond to dominant narratives and structures that foster social injustices. The study also addresses some of the social media challenges activists face, including misinformation, cyber bullying, government censorship, and police surveillance.  Using the Public Sphere theory, the study conceptualizes social media as an electronic means of public sphere, that is, a sphere of public and open discourse that mass citizens, especially the marginalized and under-represented citizens, that allows discourse and contestation for social change. The study recognizes the role of social media, and its power activism social media activism brings in social justice. It encourages and constitutes the importance for the marginalized to enter and interrupt the hegemonic discourse establish socio-political activism and transform power relations. It is the researcher attempt to provide insights for social activists, scholar activists and social change advocates, particularly in the context of digital activism and the use of social media to achieve activism goals. It intensifies the understanding of social justice activism and the role social justice activism in Pakistan. It also focuses on the role of digital technology for advocacy on behalf of the marginalized. This study advocates the use of social media including social justice in the contemporary world. This study examines social media and its power on collective action for social reasons.