Critique of Hashtag Activism: New Media's Impact on Social Movements

This essay examines the use of hashtags in social media activism and their impact on social movements. It discusses the origin of the hashtag, its adoption across various platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and its role in movements such as #StopFundingHate, #HeForShe, #WomensMarch, and #BringBackOurGirls. The essay also addresses the potential for misuse, including the exploitation of user interests for financial gain and political manipulation. It highlights the importance of thorough research before using hashtags to avoid negative impacts on brand image or the spread of misinformation, emphasizing the political and cultural implications of new media in shaping individual interests and societal views.

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INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATION(S) | STUDENT NAME
ACTIVISM
CRITIQUE NEW MEDIA

USES OF HASHTAG AND ITS IMPACT
Social Medias nowadays have not limited their access to using user’s interest only,
but also gaining and connecting brands according to their preferences. All social media
platform have “trending now” and “explore” pages that states popularity of hash tags and
intermediating the trending movement. Chris Mesina, who was a former Google employee,
used first hash tag to be tracked by another man. Therefore he becomes the first one who
invented and used hash tag in Twitter. His tweets gained popularity until 2007 when people
started taking more interest in it (Fraasch, 2017).
Instagrams and Pinterests invite enormous users to use hashtags but Facebook and Twitter as
compared to other two proves to be better. Finding correct person hashtags to one’s venture
or for political support will bring a good chance to get connected with followers which is the
reason behind the rise of hashtag in Social Media’s. Many social movements have been
started recently to transform the world for better with the use of social Medias like
#StopFundingHate, #HeForShe, #WomensMarch and #BringBackOurGirls. Main motive
behind all this movements was to bring peace and serenity in nation where hashtag played an
important part in spreading awareness (Calderwood, 2017). Donation campaigns through
Social Medias, especially while connecting with hashtags can create more awareness among
people where money can get raised within no time but negative impact here is that lot of
companies uses this technology in unconstructive way while giving false background and
making money after exploiting people’s interests.
Social networks like Flickr, Google+, Github, etc. are few among many other networking
sites that use hashtags to get information about people interests and manipulate users
according to it. While making advertisements and getting reviews from hashtag, is not
possible that every user will give positive reply. Any bad comment made or false guidance
can risk brands image and may result in losing customers. Politically, hashtags have been
seen manipulating country’s politics where people support any particular party along with
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USES OF HASHTAG AND ITS IMPACT
making abuses to other competitors. This shows political and cultural impact of new media
where individual interests are been manipulated both politically as well as socially.
According to researchers, use of hashtags shall be done after making a thorough research of
the platforms they are used in or else exploitation of individual interests can be anticipated
(Osman, 2017).
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USES OF HASHTAG AND ITS IMPACT
References
Calderwood, J. H. (2017). 8 Massive Moments Hashtag Activism Really, Really Worked.
Retrieved from https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/hashtag-activism-hashtag10-
twitter-trends-dresslik/
Fraasch, B. (2017). THE POWER OF HASHTAGS ON SOCIAL MEDIA. Retrieved from
https://seedspot.org/power-hashtags-social-media/
Osman, M. (2017). How to use Hashtags on Every Social Media Network. Retrieved from
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/how-to-use-hashtags/
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