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Marriage Equality, Facebook Profile Pictures, and Civic Participation
Citation
Robards, B and Buttigieg, B, Marriage Equality, Facebook Profile Pictures, and Civic Participation, Civic Media: Technology, Design, Practice, MIT Press, E Gordon and P Milhailidis (ed), United States, pp. 131-137. ISBN 9780262034272 (2016) [Research Book Chapter]
Copyright Statement
Copyright 2016 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Official URL: https://mitpress.mit.edu/civic-media
Abstract
On March 25, 2013, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC)-a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender (LGBT) lobby-urged people to change their Facebook profile pictures to a
pink-on-red equals sign to show support for marriage equality (see figure 6.1). The campaign
corresponded with a U.S. Supreme Court meeting to debate the issue. Shortly
after, on March 30, Eytan Bashky (2013) from the Facebook data science team reported
that "roughly 2.7 million (120%) more [users], updated their profile photo on Tuesday,
March 26, compared to the previous Tuesday," which was roughly attributed to the
HRC push. The campaign to change Facebook profile pictures spread to become a
global phenomenon. Variations on the HRC profile picture emerged, some in support
of the campaign, others opposing it, and others critiquing the impact changing one's
profile picture can have. In this case study, we explore the campaign through the lens
of the "actualizing citizen" (Miegel and Olsson 2007) and discourses around "slacktivism"
(Christensen 2011).
Item Details
Item Type: | Research Book Chapter |
---|---|
Research Division: | Language, Communication and Culture |
Research Group: | Communication and Media Studies |
Research Field: | Communication Technology and Digital Media Studies |
Objective Division: | Cultural Understanding |
Objective Group: | Communication |
Objective Field: | The Media |
UTAS Author: | Robards, B (Dr Brady Robards) |
ID Code: | 111123 |
Year Published: | 2016 |
Deposited By: | Social Sciences |
Deposited On: | 2016-08-31 |
Last Modified: | 2018-02-17 |
Downloads: | 0 |
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