Digital Media Activism

Overview

This module explores how digital media shapes modern activism and advocacy, emphasizing the strategic, ethical, and organizational considerations required for effective campaigns. Students will learn how digital platforms have transformed communication, audience engagement, and message delivery, and how intentional planning and collaboration are key to successful digital media activism. Through case studies and practical exercises, the module introduces a four-step framework for developing campaigns and examines how brands use digital tools for policy advocacy. By analyzing real-world examples and ethical challenges, students gain the knowledge and skills to design responsible, impactful digital advocacy strategies.

Presentation Files

Lesson 1: What is digital media activism?

Lesson one introduces the concepts of digital media activism by examining how digital media has changed communication and audience engagement. The lesson provides a definition of digital media and an explanation of the speed, personalization, and feedback potential of it. The lesson then defines digital media activism as an intentional and strategic process requiring support throughout the organization.

Because it is easy for organizations to change messages subtly across digital platforms and channels, the lesson plan emphasizes the need for strategy and collaboration within the organization. Through examples of successful and unsuccessful digital media activism campaigns, students become familiar with the importance of strategy and the framework for developing these campaigns.

Lesson one emphasizes the need for a framework or set of steps in the development of digital media activism campaigns. It introduces students to the four steps necessary for an intentional strategic approach: (1) Select and research an issue, (2) create a strategic plan to generate communication consistency, (3) partner with other organizations to enhance credibility and authenticity, and (4) perform continuous evaluation & use media metrics. It will be helpful to give students hands-on activities that allow them to hypothetically perform each step for a case study.

Key Concepts:

Digital media, co-branding, media metrics, and objectives

Discussion starters

Start by asking students to open their mobile devices to a social media platform. Then, ask them to find an example of an organization that is promoting a specific issue or cause (you can give them hashtags or examples to search for or ask them to find their own).

1. Why would an organization use digital media to advocate on behalf of an issue or cause?
   Once students have identified an example of digital media activism, ask them to consider why digital media was used? They will likely point out that social media allows immediate access to followers, thus introducing the speed characteristic. They may also point out that the organization can reach people without geographic limits, thus introducing the personalization characteristic. Or they may suggest that digital media was used because it could connect with other organizations or information sources, thus the feedback characteristic.
   
   Students can be asked at this point to brainstorm ways that digital media makes it easier and more difficult for organizations to be activists. For example, it increases the ability to personalize messages to key audiences, but also makes it easier for audiences to share negative reactions when messages or positions are disliked.
   
2. How should organizations decide what to advocate for?
   
   For this question, it may help to give an example of an organization that faced backlash for its advocacy work. Budweiser’s 2019 LGBTQ rainbow-pride flag bottles, which were first introduced on Instagram, drew immediate backlash because of the organization’s historically conservative identity. A discussion on this topic could include asking students why digital media can be a risk for organizations, such as the ability for users to post negative feedback quickly and publicly.

Students can then be introduced to the four-step framework that prepares organizations to launch digital media activism campaigns. For a hands-on project, students can be asked to develop a digital activism campaign on student hunger in college on behalf of their university. Through the four steps, students can:

1. research student hunger and existing digital communication on the topic
2. plan goals, messages, and tactics to increase awareness of student hunger
3. consider other organizations that the organization should partner with to address student hunger
4. propose media metrics to assess if the audience learned about student hunger from the digital campaign.

Case study

The case study on Lyft demonstrates how an organization can use the four steps to create a meaningful and high-impact digital media campaign. Students can be asked to explore the campaign’s videos or website (https://take.lyft.com/citiestalkback/) to evaluate how the organization integrated key messages about immigration into its tactics, like the videos and articles profiling drivers. Students can also evaluate how the campaign motivates behavior through requests for donations, volunteering, and co-branding with other organizations.

Conclusion

Lesson one illustrates the value and risk of using digital media for organizations hoping to advocate for issues and causes. As students become more familiar with the four-step framework, they can apply it to their own student organizations or colleges.

Suggested in-class or at-home activities

1. Create a digital media advocacy log.
   Once students are familiar with the definition of digital media advocacy and have learned about popular examples of organizations engaging in it, they should be able to reflect on their own digital media use. Students can keep a weekly log of examples of digital media advocacy witnessed through various platforms. For each instance of digital media advocacy they witness, they can record it and analyze the messaging. This activity can be completed over any period desired by the professor and can be expanded to include other forms of analysis (including media metrics).
   
2. Design and implement an evaluation strategy.
   Students will be asked to take an example of digital media advocacy identified in their log (or through other means), then identify which media metrics should be used to evaluate its success. If possible, using the media metrics freely available (or available through their university library), students can carry out this evaluation, then make suggestions for improvements based on the findings.

Lesson 2: Policy Advocacy through Digital Media

Now that students are familiar with the definition of digital brand activism and its four-part framework, this lesson provides students with the ethical foundation to understand and create digital campaigns centered on policy activism. The lesson begins with a definition of policy activism from Earl and Kimport (2011) who emphasize the role of brands’ use of digital media in political and policy activism. The lesson then introduces Manfredi-Sánchez’s (2019) six digital media approaches used by brands to impact and advocate for public policy. These six approaches emphasize the need for organizations to engage followers in these activities to maximize impact. Each of the six approaches are defined and explained through an example.

After introducing examples of each of the six approaches, the lesson turns to examine the ethical problems that brands face when engaging in policy advocacy through digital media. Using Moorman’s (2020) four ethical pitfalls of digital brand activism, the lesson explains why organizations need to be careful when crafting and implementing a strategic plan designed to impact public policy through digital media. Organizations need to ensure that they do not fall into these ethical traps, and if they do, can respond accordingly to prevent additional problems. This part of the lesson will help students understand what types of policy advocacy are appropriate or most likely to succeed for a given brand.

The lesson then concludes by providing students with tools to determine if their organization or brand should engage in digital activism, as well as how to convince organization leadership to adopt the ethical activist approaches.

Key Concepts:

digital media, brand crises, ethical codes of conduct, public policy, brand authenticity

Discussion starters:

To start the discussion, students should be asked to select a publicly-traded company or select a company from your own list. Students should then use their mobile devices to search for lobby disclosures published by that company (which are legally required for all publicly-traded companies). For example, here is a link to Apple’s lobbying disclosure microsite: https://www.apple.com/public-policy-advocacy/.

1. How does your organization share information about its public policy advocacy work? Does it share information about lobbying costs, employees, or topics/issues?
   First, ask students to reflect on the information shared in their company’s lobbying disclosure. Have them compare and contrast findings from each other’s examples to identify differences in the amount of transparency adopted by each company. Ask students to consider the company’s motivations for lobbying on a specific topic or issue.
   
2. How else can your company impact public policy without lobbying? Create a digital strategy that might engage the public on this policy issue.
   Next, ask students to consider how else their organization might attempt to advocate for or against a specific policy. Ask students to brainstorm other digital media channels that the organization can use to generate public support for its interests. For example, students might brainstorm how Apple could create a social media campaign to generate public support for its anti-piracy stance and policy advocacy.
   
3. What other public policy topics or issues should your organization consider advocating for or against? What ethical considerations are important for your company before starting a campaign?
   Finally, ask students to brainstorm what other public policy issues the company should care about. Students should apply the four ethical pitfalls and make suggestions that avoid (1) overt enhancements to the organization’s bottom line, (2) conflict with each other, (3) appear popular or to support popular sentiment inauthentically, and (4) violate moral or ethical codes of professional conduct.

Case study

The second case study looks at how a brand can use advocacy work through digital media to re-establish (or update) its values and reputation. Since 2016, Barbie has used digital media to engage critical topics such as the gender pay gap, racial justice, and mental health wellness. This is primarily through sharing video conversations between cartoon Barbies and the child-focused social media platform on Barbie’s website. The case study illustrates the messaging and tactics used on each of these three issues, as well as how the organization used a ten-year PR plan to modify its reputation and public perception to becoming a powerful advocate for social issues and children. The case study reinforces the importance of consistent messaging across platforms and the role of media metrics in evaluating success.

Conclusion

Lesson two aims to meet two objectives: (1) students will be able to apply the six digital media approaches to case studies, and (2) students will be able to propose digital policy advocacy foci for organizations. Through case studies of Google, Nike, Yelp, and Barbie, students will be familiar with the many digital strategies adopted by organizations to influence public policy and lawmakers.

Suggested in-class or at-home activities

1. Critique a failed advocacy campaign.
   Students are asked to find an example of an organization that failed to either affect change or incurred public criticism. Using the four ethical pitfalls, students are asked to identify why the plan failed and make suggestions of what the organization could do differently in the future.
   
2. Propose a digital policy advocacy plan for a hypothetical organization.
   Students are asked to select an organization of their choice, then propose a digital advocacy focus for leadership to consider. Students should make an argument about why this advocacy foci fits the interests of the organization, as well as how it will avoid the four ethical pitfalls. Students should use the advice from the Edelman interviews to support their arguments.

Module Developer