Mediascapes Journal

Influ-Activism: New Forms of Civic Engagement between Digital Activism and Influence Culture

Edited by Maria Francesca Murru (Università degli Studi di Bergamo), Marco Pedroni (Università degli Studi di Ferrara), and Simone Tosoni (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore)

This call for papers aims to explore the relationship between digital activism and influence culture, two themes that are increasingly central in the reflection of social sciences within the framework of contemporary platformization processes. While these two phenomena have been treated separately in the scientific debate so far, in recent years, two concurrent processes have blurred this distinction. On one hand, major "commercial" influencers have begun to take explicit stances on controversial public issues. On the other hand, an increasing number of creators have chosen controversial public issues as their main field of action, with the goal of promoting social change in areas such as intersectional feminism, sustainability, disability, and social justice, among others. This phenomenon, which we define as influ-activism, has sparked a debate in the field of digital activism, which is recognized for its ability to promote non-hegemonic narratives. At the same time, digital activism risks being conditioned by the neoliberal and commodifying logics of communication on social media.