Hashtags and Habeus Corpus

Clark writes about the #WhyIStayed movement and discusses how that movement has co ntributed to feminism discourse and feminism in social media. She also highlights other studies done about that she terms “hashtag feminism” and social media activism including: Higgs, Eleanor T. 2015. “#JusticeforLiz: Power and Privilege in Digital Transnational Women’s Rights Activism.” Feminist Media Studies 15 (2): 344–347 Bennett, W. Lance, and Alexandra Segerberg. 2013. The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalization of Contentious Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ‘Hottest 100 Women’: Cross-Platform Discursive Activism in Feminist Blogging Networks.” Australian Feminist Studies 27 (74): 373–387. All these articles may also be of some use to the insights of my paper. However Clark’s study, which analyzed randomly selected #WhyIStayed tweets published between September 8 and September 30, 2014 using the Annenberg Twitter Project at

Andrews and Edwards write in their literature review about advocacy organizations that about the role of networks in legal advocacy organizations. This scholarship is relevant to our understanding of how social media can impact legal advocacy organizations. “There is an inverse relationship between social homophily and networked access to resources whereby the like-attracts-like principle of homophily leads advocacy groups over time to develop more homogeneous memberships that leave them relatively isolated from the surrounding social structure. Network relations can also provide access to key resources needed to sustain advocacy (Lin 2001). Advocacy groups that choose to have organizational members formalize network ties and create institutionalized ties through which resources can be shared. Diverse organizational leaders or participants can provide connections beyond the advocacy organization, thus establishing weak ties that broaden the movement’s capacity (Ganz 2000

Benney quotes  Jonathan Zittrain at the beginning of his article: "The qualities that make Twitter seem inane and half-baked are what make it so powerful." In discussing his year (2009-2010) of quantitative and qualitative analysis of Twitter posts he states that he came to two conclusions: “One is that the Chinese language and the nature of the Chinese Internet make Twitter a substantially different method of communication in China  than it is in the West. The other is that Twitter has provided Chinese legal activists with new ways of disseminating their messages, and that these new forms of communication are broadening the scope of legal activism, both conceptually and geographically.” His discussion of how the Chinese language impacts twitter is interesting but superfluous to my analysis. However, his analysis of the impact of Twitter on legal activists work is incredibly interesting. Benny  makes the point that doing a full analysis of all Twitter

Loffredo presents a case study about the Law Clinic he runs at CUNY law school (clinics are legal services organizations run by law students designed to service poor and other underserved communities ) and the clinic’s relationship with the Welfare Rights Initiative a separate legal advocacy organization. Loffredo has some interesting insights into the interactions between litigation, advocacy, and grass roots organizing, that I think are useful in the discussion of social media activism for legal advocacy organizations. Loffredo calls this “collaborative lawyering” and emphasizes that this collaboration adds significantly to both organization’s mobilization and community organization efforts. He emphasized a campaign where WRI organized female welfare recipients who came to speak to college students about their experience and the types of changes necessary for them to complete their degrees while receiving welfare. As you will see in other posts this sort of narrative advoca

In her article Sandra Levensky discusses how legal advocacy organizations operate in social movements, particularly how they interact with other activist organizations. She argues that "many activists in the movement perceive legal advocacy organizations as operating independently from the rest of the movement, imposing their agendas without consultation with grassroots activists." Pg.2. She examines these interactions through analysis of GLBT legal advocacy organizations relationships to other social movement organizations. Interestingly the primary things other organizations value about "social change" litigation is not the litigation outcomes, rather "the publicity associated with the litigation." Pg. 10. 10. Perhaps, this puts legal advocacy organizations a bit on the outside of other forms of public activism, but also gives them an additional tie into potential hashtag activism. You can find here paper here:  http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/

Using the same examples from the last post, I analyzed how they were using hashtags in their recent posts. Here are the most recent hashtags used in posts on each page: Southern Poverty Law Center: few hashtags, #MuslimBan, #RefugeesWelcome, #blacklivesmatter ACLU: #blacklivesmatter, #netneutrality, #voting rights EarthJustice: #nomorelead, #wearejusttryingtobreath, #ClimateChangeIsReal Environmental Defense Fund: #ActOnClimate, #FourthWave  National Women’s Law Center: #WinsforWomen Here I found two things interesting, 1) a couple of orgs pages, SPLC and the NWLC, used hashtags rather infrequently, every 4 to 8 posts, and 2) most orgs used established hashtags rather than creating their own, the only org that seemed to be making their own was EDF. Thus, while all the orgs are clearly participating in the dialogue created by #activism, it is unclear which is more effective for promoting their own work and getting support for their organizations and projects. I'll c