During my qualifying exams one of my questions was the following:

Each successive generation of “new” technologies brings with it new potentials for collective action as well as mechanisms for reaffirming the existing social order. What structural factors suggest that contemporary new media represent a tactical advantage for social movements today? How may we frame an understanding of activist media that avoids the pitfalls of technological determinism while also accounting for the undeniable impact of shifts in technology on the deployment of these technologies within social movements? How would you theorize the relationship between the specific affordances of networked media and activist networks as a social phenomenon?

I’m uploading my response to the question here, in order to more easily share it and get feedback from students in my Multimedia for Social Change class. Enjoy!

Link to document: New Media Activism: beyond the last 5 minutes (pdf)