“People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them.” — James Baldwin
“Do not wait for the last judgment. It takes place every day.” — Albert Camus
“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” — Arundhati Roy
I have been spending a lot of emotional energy reflecting on what it means to be perceived and be visible in the digital public sphere. Which makes me feel tired, isolated, and stuck. As a researcher, a sometimes social organizer, and a human who cares about other living beings, I wonder what the effects of this are; on our feelings of collectivity and our ability to work and exist together during this end (and hopefully rebirth) of the world.
When individuals who are part of social movements are organizing together and are trying to mobilize more people to join their cause, naturally tensions and conflict between them arise during that process. This has always been the case throughout history, however, our current digital communication landscape is influencing these processes in new ways. To be able to be strategic about this, and work towards a future we would want and avoid one we do not, we must look into the current state and some of the history of digital communication and social movements.
Conflict and Care in Social Movements
Conflict, deep emotions, trauma and burn-out are inherently tied to the work of social movements. In her book Burn Out, Hannah Proctor examines how activists and revolutionaries have historically coped with the psychological toll of political setbacks. Because “when movements are crushed, strategies fail, solidarity crumbles, energies wane, people turn to one another or groups reproduce the oppressive dynamics of the structures they are fighting, the dejection incurred can be as psychologically profound as the elation that preceded it.” Proctor delves into emotions such as melancholia, nostalgia, depression, burnout, exhaustion, bitterness, trauma (which is inherently political, as “the events that cause trauma are routed in our culture and society, reinforced by a set of beliefs, norms, and policies that are structural and hierarchical in nature”, as Staci K. Haines writes in The Politics of Trauma), and mourning – illustrating how these feelings have influenced the psyche of left-wing radicals. Emotions that are, unfortunately, probably not unfamiliar to those who have experience in trying to change something. They are not unfamiliar to me at least.
When dealing with heavy emotions like these, it makes sense that conflict is unavoidable while organizing. In After Accountability, a beautiful book where the Pinko Collective dives into the genealogy of the concept of accountability by interviewing various social organizers, as it “didn’t indicate a clear sense of shared meaning” yet, shows that conflict, gossip, and moral judgment are indeed problems within social movements. The writers point out that movements are often “overly exclusionary […] or overly accommodating” and ask: “Do our movements need more honest confrontations with conflict or more careful resolution?” In Mutual Aid, where Dean Spade presents a theoretical exploration of mutual aid as a form of grassroots solidarity and survival, he states that, indeed, “we are mostly unprepared to engage with conflict in generative ways and instead tend to avoid it until it explodes or relationships disappear”. Which makes sense, as “the stakes of the work feel very high to us, […] we have the strongest feelings about people who are closest to us, […] we often have high expectations and desires for belonging, […] [and] mutual aid work, by definition, responds to intense unmet needs and brings stress and pressures that can heighten feelings and provoke reactive behavior”.
One of the problems in navigating all of this is that social movements often fail to care for each other in the process of conflict properly. The Care Collective, which writes about care in a broader societal sense, states that “our world is one in which carelessness reigns” and that “the dominant model of social organization that has emerged is one of competition rather than cooperation”, which is why “right-wing and authoritarian populism has once again proved seductive.” They state that “caring for the world […] means rebuilding and democratizing social infrastructures and shared spaces across all scales, expanding support of and alliances with progressive movements and institutions in the process” and explain that transformations like these often begin with grassroots resistance. So if we want to live in a world where care is a given, the start of this movement is on us and we should set an example. What does care look like in social organizing then? In Conflict is Not Abuse, Sarah Schulman shows that conflict is the stage where a “hideous future [of actual harm, cruelty and violence] is still not inevitable and can be resolved […] before it’s too late”. Schulman states that the community surrounding the conflict is also the source of its resolution and holds the responsibility to offer alternatives to escalation, punishment, blame, exclusion, oversimplification, emotional distance, dehumanization, and shame and has the collective responsibility to offer reconciliation, understanding, transformation, healing, care, and restoration. Something that is definitely easier said than done.
So how does digital media come into this? According to Schulman, media play a big role in conflict. In her chapter about texts and e-mails (which could also be applied to digital communication more broadly), she mentions that the escalation of conflict often happens in this realm. She states that ‘negative power-plays’ often occur here, keeping people imprisoned “in their own imagined negative fears about the other, and their fantasies of their own potential humiliation or demise”, as digital communication does not “allow us to go through the human phases of feeling that occur when we actually communicate face to face”. Spade also explains that sharing our hurt online instead of having a conversation can be harmful, as “sometimes the first impulse we have when we are hurt is to make our own hurt known […]. Negative gossip and accusatory posts can hurt the person doing the gossiping, the target, the group and the movement.” In We Will Not Cancel Us, adrienne maree brown shares similar sentiments, as they have been noticing that we are “losing our capacity to distinguish between comrade and opponent” where we are prone to fall for “reductionist group-think that profilates online […] [with] public campaigns of shaming and humiliation before it is even clear if the thing is a misunderstanding, mistake, contradiction, conflict, harm, or abuse”. This is all in line with what Wijnand Duyvendak writes in Recepy for Societal Change; “emotions are the fuel of social media”, which causes polarization and makes reciprocity and solidarity scarce. Chris Julien, in Everyday Activism, also explains that our digital culture is blocking meaningful and necessary conversations because the loudest opinion seems to be the most important one. He explains that in groups we often tend to stay silent as we are not sure if others share our concerns and share our opinions, with the loss of status (because of not being informed enough or being too confrontational) as a consequence.
How to deal with all of this? Firstly, The Care Collective states that “the crisis of care has become particularly acute over the last forty years, as governments accepted neoliberal capitalism’s near-ubiquitous positioning of profit-making and the organizing principle of life – […] systematically prioritizing the interests and flows of financial capital, while ruthlessly dismantling welfare states and democratic processes and institutions.” They clearly point to the influence of big tech in this process and state that we need alternative infrastructures to resist these processes. A clear message. I would say let’s get going. Secondly, Schulman stresses the importance for users of digital platforms to approach online interactions with the same level of care, accountability, and empathy as they would in person, as “a real conversation […] illuminates nuances and corrects misunderstandings”. In line, Duyvendak also states that meeting offline is extremely important for the success of a social movement. Could our answers be found in going back to offline organizing then?
So. Individuals in social movements deal with conflict and emotions while organizing and mobilizing, which requires care. Research shows that digital media contributes to these conflicts in various ways. In most research on social movements and conflict, the role media has, is just a smaller aspect of the bigger picture that is being painted. This topic then, needs to be further explored through a media studies lens, to truly be able to develop the critical skills to navigate these conflicts.
A Super Quick History of Digital Communication and Social Movements
Luckily, and obviously, much research on social movements and how digital communication specifically shapes them has been done – and most have come to similar conclusions, by looking at key moments in history such as the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement. Where the positive impact of digital media for social movement has been widely acknowledged, especially for their potential to organize quickly in decentralized ways, mobilize and reach people on a large scale in real-time in an accessible way, and give marginalized voices who might not have access to traditional media a platform, digital communication has also posed challenges for social movements. In Social Movements and their Technologies, Stefania Milan writes when social organizers choose their tactics and media of choice, they are shaped by people their personal emotions, cultural interpretations, and moral visions. “They are neither neutral means nor just instruments” and “organizational forms reflect the medium, and, on the other, they mirror the identity-building processes of the respective groups” – which is both daunting and hopeful.
Zeynep Tufekci writes in Twitter and Teargas that because social movements rely heavily on online platforms and digital tools for organizing “the result is often a conflict-ridden, drawn out struggle between those who find themselves running things […] and other people in the movement who can now all also express themselves online. […] Digital technologies deepen the ever-existing tension between collective will and individual expression within movements, and between expressive moments of rebellion and the longer-term strategies requiring instrumental and tactical shifts.” This relates to what she calls the ‘tactical freeze’ where movements do not seem to be able to adjust tactics when contexts change or sustain themselves for the long term in a manner that is proportional to the energy levels they have. And indeed, social movements face many challenges with the technologies they use. Milan points out a couple that I wish to highlight in the context of visibility and conflict. Firstly, invisibility is important for organizers their safety and privacy, yet also makes movements less accessible, as reputation (skills, money, personal network, etc.) is an important factor to be able to join a social movement, for example. Secondly, she states that when a protest goes viral and many people are reached, those who only share the action without being involved in the organizing or being present with their physical bodies, (they are referred to as ‘slacktivists’), are looked down upon. Finally, she explains that whether an individual is an insider or outsider (and fights from within the system or against it) can also cause social exclusion within movements and that whether groups speak of an ‘I’ or a ‘we’ differs highly per organization. I cannot assume other than that what happens to individuals their sense of (online) self, in that ‘I/we’ process of being percieved, is emotionally charged.
In Networks of Outrage and Hope, Manuel Castells, inspired by the Arab spring and the Occupy Movement, among others, concludes that social movements are emotional movements – with fear and enthusiasm being the most important to make individuals act. “Individuals are enthusiastic when they are mobilized towards a goal that they cherish. This is why enthusiasm is directly related to another positive emotion; hope. Hope projects behavior into the future. […] However, for enthusiasm to emerge and for hope to rise, individuals have to overcome the negative emotion […] anxiety. Anxiety is a response to an external threat over which the threatened person has no control. Thus, anxiety leads to fear, and has a paralyzing effect on action.” To overcome this fear, social organizers have to use anger (one of the most powerful emotions there is, if you channel it right, if you ask me). According to Castells outrage is the fuel that can lead us to hope.
What happens when our current-day media tools are designed to channel these emotions against each other, instead of our common enemies (the systems of oppression, such as white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, etc.)? Most of this research was published between 2013 and 2017. These challenges remain today, but the political, social and technical circumstances have changed since then. To say they are currently rapidly changing, in the era of Trump and Musk, would be an understatement. Researching these challenges in this context, and the context of emotional conflict would be necessary.
The Rise of Platform Faciscm
Coincidentally, in 2017 Nick Srnicek published his modern classic Platform Capitalism, showing us how we entered a new stage of capitalism where big tech companies could be seen as “economic actors within a capitalist mode of production”, using user data and network effects to generate profits, without any government intervention. Today, of course, it has become common knowledge that big tech social media platforms are designed to create more conflict instead of resolving it – as we all know the more conflict arises, the longer people spend time on the platform and the more data can be sold to advertisers. In 2019 Shoshana Zuboff, in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, which has also become a modern classic, takes this a step further and claims that big tech companies have created a “new world order that claims human experiences as free raw material for hidden commercial practices of extraction, prediction and sales” and pose “a significant threat to human nature […] [similar to the] industrial revolution was to the natural world [and could be considered as] an overthrow of the people’s sovereignty”. This period in time seems to have been the beginning of a new era of digital communication that social movements needed to adapt themselves to.
Big tech platforms cannot be discussed without their hopeful counterparts, of course; platform alternatives. In Leah A. Lievrouw her beautiful republished and updated history of activism and alternative media she states that although alternative media have the potential for empowerment, they also have limits. As the previously mentioned authors have already pointed out, “movements are [often] sudden, emotional, disruptive, and spontaneous, and their participants are often marginalized or alienated” and the question of who should be considered “inside” versus “outside” remains a big question that could cause tensions within movements. Lievrouw states that activists now need to tackle new problems such as content moderation, disinformation, trolling and bullying, and filter bubbles. What perhaps is the most striking, is that she states that “the line dividing the symbolic and material aspects of mobilization, becomes less clear when digital technologies are both the means of expression and the expression itself” – which is both an advantage and a challenge (of accessibility). So, this is hopeful, but again, still a challenge.
Not to make things worse, but Srnicek already showed us that we need to change things, because big tech platforms could push society into very problematic directions. Now, in 2025, it would be safe to conclude that, indeed, these problematic directions have developed further and have worsened into something much darker.
I would not be surprised if all the circumstances needed for current-day facism to grow, as stated by Charles Drace in Facism in the 21st Century, are currently present and being stimulated by big tech digital technologies. Could we conclude that surveillance and data control & extraction, algorithmic control, censorship (through content moderation), and the creation of echo chambers, are currently big problems our society faces? Could therefore speak of the rise of platform facism, where big tech platforms are not just profit-driven anymore, but also ideologically driven?
We know that big tech platforms and their profit-driven goals are shaping society negatively and alternatives have great potential but have not yet made enough impact to make big tech redundant. Meanwhile, we’re descending into darker times. What do we do with all of this then?
Tools to Navigate the Now
We need history to understand the present and the hope of a future to be able to bear it. However, the most important question for me is always what we can practically and realistically DO, NOW – not just because I’m an Aries sun and Capricorn rising, but also because we need to break out of this state where we’re frozen by fear, shame, doubt, and guilt. So we need to understand how the rise of platform facism is shaping the emotional tensions between individuals who are organizing and mobilizing more people together, how they are navigating these, and most importantly what they need to navigate them better. And then create that.
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Cited Sources
brown, adrienne maree. We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice. Chico, CA: AK Press, 2020.
Castells, Manuel. Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012.
Drace, Charles. Fascism in the 21st Century. Place of publication not identified: Publisher not identified, 2020.
Duvendak, Wijnand. Recept voor Maatschappelijke Verandering. Amsterdam: Van Gennep, 2024.
Haines, Staci K. The Politics of Trauma: Somatics, Healing, and Social Justice. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2019.
Julien, Chris. Alledaags Activisme. Utrecht: KNNV Uitgeverij, 2024.
Lievrouw, Leah A. Alternative and Activist New Media (second edition). Cambridge: Polity Press, 2024.
Milan, Stefania. Social Movements and Their Technologies: Wiring Social Change. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
Pinko Collective. After Accountability. Place of publication not identified: Publisher not identified, 2022.
Proctor, Hannah. Burn Out. London: Verso Books, 2023.
The Care Collective. The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence. London: Verso Books, 2020.
Spade, Dean. Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next). London: Verso Books, 2020.
Srnicek, Nick. Platform Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017.
Tufekci, Zeynep. Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017.
Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York: PublicAffairs, 2019.
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In my research project Misdirected, during the final stage of the INC in its current form, I will research the emotional dimensions in digital media that shape tension and conflict within social movements, showing how platforms are designed to keep them from organizing effectively and caring for others and themselves. And most importantly, what to do to navigate these tensions better.