Abstract:
In the wake of increasing disillusion with the potential of alternative online media for providing social movements with a virtual space for visibility activists have been adopting online social networking and file sharing sites into their media practices. With their popular appeal and multimodal affordances these sites have reinvigorated hopes for the potential of the internet for providing social movements with new possibilities for reaching wider publics. The increasing use of popular online spaces has brought about the term 'YouTube-ification of Politics'. However, challenges remain: the internet's ephemeral properties have been argued to facilitate 'lazy politics'. This thesis explores how practices of political engagement are played out in the online arena of popular sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube employed by the two London-based social movement organisations: the World Development Movement and War on Want.