Today’s networked citizen is a beacon of critical consciousness, as seen during Arab Spring and other mediated demonstrations of public and private activism. Social justice crises that were once buried within hegemonic public information campaigns are now thrust tweet-first into the online public sphere, especially by new civic media curators who successfully crowdsource news. In this project, we look at how protest groups use the loosely-bound media ecology of Facebook, Twitter, and other short-word public platforms. Through a factorial analysis of messages by and about Idle No More and other initiatives, we explore how activist groups are using public relations strategies, not only to create dialogic relationships with key publics but to also facilitate important organization and funding opportunities. Public relations strategies grounded in social networking have the potential to transform small activist groups, previously on the margins of formal government, into powerful agents of change. Data used for this study are part of a larger project about activist public relations; specifically, how activist groups use memes, texts, video, and social media as platforms for eyewitness accounts of protest and police activity. This project also explores how the strategic use of social media facilitates important tangible connections with key public such as the signing of petitions, protest/event attendance, fundraising, and mobilizing volunteers to ‘street action’ in real time.
Activist P.R. 