Sasha Costanza-Chock writes, “My book about transmedia organizing is now available for free, Creative Commons licensed download from the MIT Press!”
“In this impassioned, eye-opening study Costanza-Chock tracks the world-shaking power of transmedia organizing. Required reading for organizers and activists and scholars of social media.” – Junot Diaz
For decades, social movements vied for attention from the mainstream mass media–newspapers, radio, and television. Today, some say that social media power social movements, from the so-called Arab Spring to Occupy, #Ferguson and beyond. Yet, as Sasha Costanza-Chock reports, activists and organizers agree that social media enhances, rather than replaces, face-to-face organizing. The revolution will be tweeted, but tweets alone do not the revolution make.
Drawing on extensive interviews, workshops, and media organizing projects, Costanza-Chock presents case studies of transmedia organizing in the immigrant rights movement between 2006 and 2012. Chapters focus on the mass protests against the anti-immigrant Sensenbrenner Bill; coverage of police brutality against peaceful activists; efforts to widen access to digital media tools and skills for low-wage immigrant workers; paths to participation in DREAM activism; and the implications of professionalism for transmedia organizing. These cases show us how transmedia organizing helps strengthen movement identity, win political and economic victories, and transform broader consciousness.
Out of the Shadows, Into the Streets!
(Thanks, Sasha!)