CFP: Handbook on Digital Activism Overview & Scope

https://paromitapain.com/call-for-chapter-proposals-digitalactivism/

Proposal Guidelines

Each proposal should include:

1. Title & Abstract (up to 600 words): Clear outline of the chapter’s focus, research questions, and central argument. Clearly state the theme and focus area it falls under.
2. Relevance & Originality: Explanation of how the chapter advances understanding of digital activism
3. Theoretical & Empirical Foundations: Summary of relevant literature, case studies, or methodological basis
4. Proposed Structure: Brief outline of sections or subtopics
5. Author Bio (150 words): Including institutional affiliation, expertise, and selected publications

Submission Details:

• Proposals should be submitted as a single PDF to ppain@unr.edu by December 1, 2025.
• In the subject area of the email please indicate: CPF: Digital Activism Handbook
• Notifications of acceptance will be sent by December 30, 2025.
• Full chapters (maximum 8,000 words) will be due by Fall 2026.

We invite chapter proposals for the forthcoming Handbook on Digital Activism, a comprehensive collection that examines the theories, tactics, and transformations of activism in digital contexts. From hashtag campaigns and hacktivism to algorithmic bias and augmented reality interventions, this volume aims to capture the breadth and depth of digital activism across global contexts.

Digital activism is viewed as a social movement shaped by digitalization—where communication technologies and social networks (smartphones, websites, social media) allow for more efficient mobilization, broader coordination, and the linking of local and global activist efforts (Herawati, Marom, & Widowati, 2023). Özkula (2021) says digital activism is a broad and evolving concept, involving political activism on internet-based networks and being shaped by the tension between what is “digital” and what is political.

Scholarship on digital activism has grown significantly in recent years, but the field remains diverse and without a single unifying framework. Broad approaches treat digital activism as any political or social activity that uses digital tools. This can include everything from signing an online petition to organizing a global protest via Twitter. Narrower definitions emphasize explicitly political mobilization—protests, resistance, and direct action—excluding lighter forms such as “clicktivism.”

There are often tensions between whether “low-threshold” participation (e.g., liking, sharing, hashtagging) should be considered activism, or whether activism requires more sustained, risk-bearing practices. For example, Gladwell (2010) famously dismissed online activism as “slacktivism,” while others (e.g., Tufekci, 2017) argue digital affordances enable new forms of collective power.

While research continues to expand, many contributions still adopt ahistorical perspectives or assume a universal model of the digital. Following Kaun & Uldam (2018), this handbook seeks to examine digital activism along two intersecting dimensions: the technologies that make action possible and the activist practices they support.

Digital activism is a global phenomenon, though its development is uneven. Movements in the Global North often attract disproportionate attention, while activists in the Global South have created innovative digital practices under conditions of repression, infrastructural scarcity, and heightened risk. We therefore especially welcome chapters that highlight the international dimensions of digital activism, with an emphasis on comparative, cross-cultural, and transnational perspectives.

At the same time, the digital age has blurred the boundaries between journalism and activism. Citizen journalists, live-streamers, and social media reporters now play a critical role in documenting injustice and mobilizing communities. Professional journalists, too, increasingly adopt activist roles in areas such as climate justice, racial equity, and human rights, even as they face questions of credibility, neutrality, and professional risk.

The growth of digital activism also raises important ethical concerns. While digital tools create new opportunities for mobilization, they also bring dilemmas related to surveillance, privacy, performativity, and co-optation by states, corporations, and platforms. Activists and scholars alike must negotiate the balance between visibility, security, and accountability in these rapidly shifting contexts.

We welcome contributions that are empirically grounded, conceptually innovative, and interdisciplinary in approach. Submissions may draw on case studies, comparative perspectives, theoretical interventions, or methodological innovations.

We are committed to amplifying diverse voices and strongly encourage proposals from early-career researchers, scholars and practitioners from underrepresented groups, and authors working in or on the Global South. Contributions that foreground intersectionality, marginalized communities, and emerging forms of activism are particularly welcome.

Themes & Focus Areas

Conceptual Foundations & Historical Trajectories

• Debates over definitions and frameworks of digital activism
• Periodization of digital activism (e.g., pre-social media, Arab Spring, platformization, surveillance era)
• Theoretical approaches: digital rhetoric, technofeminism, data activism, digital ethnography

Tactical Innovations & Platforms

• Social media campaigns, hashtag activism, and connective/collective action
• Hacktivism, electronic civil disobedience, DDoS tactics, and virtual sit-ins
• Emerging tools: AR activism, AI-driven advocacy, infographic politics, and activist-oriented platform design
• Authoritarian Contexts: Activism under repressive regimes, censorship circumvention, and digital security risks
•  

International Activism

• Cross-Border Mobilizations: Transnational solidarity via digital platforms (e.g., climate justice, diasporic activism, feminist and LGBTQ+ alliances)
• Global South Innovations: Strategies developed under constraint—low-bandwidth organizing, encrypted messaging, use of non-Western platforms
• Comparative Case Studies: Regional contrasts (e.g., MENA uprisings, Latin American feminist mobilizations, Sub-Saharan African youth activism, South and East Asian protests)
• Language, Culture & Accessibility: Translation, multilingual hashtags, and cultural practices shaping mobilization
• NGOs & Transnational Media: How global organizations amplify—or eclipse—local activist voices
• Digital Colonialism: Power asymmetries in infrastructure, algorithms, and platform governance

Ethics in Digital Activism

• Ethical Dilemmas: Privacy, surveillance, performative or tokenistic activism, commodification of dissent
• Cross-Border Ethics: Complexities of transnational campaigns and global solidarity initiatives
• Comparative Perspectives: Ethical challenges across the Global South and Global North, shaped by political and infrastructural contexts
• Case Studies: Practical negotiations of anonymity, visibility, co-optation, and accountability

Gender and LGBTQ+ Digital Activism

• Feminist and queer frameworks for analyzing activism online
• LGBTQ+ organizing for visibility, resistance, and community-building
• Intersectional dynamics: the interplay of race, gender, class, and sexuality in digital activism
• Challenges of harassment, trolling, algorithmic bias, and platform moderation

Movement-Specific & Demographic Perspectives

• Youth-led environmental activism and intergenerational mobilization
• Conservative and right-wing digital activism, including asymmetries of resources and influence
• Diaspora activism, migrant solidarity, and digitally mediated humanitarian efforts

Critiques, Challenges & Future Directions

• Performative activism, “clicktivism,” and the limits of online action
• Platform governance, surveillance capitalism, and commodification of resistance
• Future trajectories: decentralized activism, blockchain technologies, activist uses of AI

References

Kaun, A., & Uldam, J. (2018). Digital activism: After the hype. New Media & Society, 20(6), 2099–2106.

Herawati, A. R., Marom, A., & Widowati, N. (2023, September). Digital Activism. In Fourth International Conference on Administrative Science (ICAS 2022) (pp. 458-470). Atlantis Press.

Özkula, S. M. (2021). What is digital activism anyway? Social constructions of the “digital” in contemporary activism. Journal of Digital Social Research, 3(3), 60–84. https://doi.org/10.33621/jdsr.v3i3.44 

About the editor: I am an Associate Professor, Global Media Studies, & Cybersecurity Center Affiliate Faculty, University of Nevada, Reno. I am also an Affiliate Faculty at the Ozmen Institute.

My research focuses on alternate media and global journalism practices from feminist perspectives. International communication and newsroom norms is an abiding area of interest.  I have researched journalism and news practices in India, Taiwan, the USA and Venezuela.  

More about my research and teaching:

https://paromitapain.com/research/