Consumer activism, promotional culture and resistance: An interview with Dr Eleftheria Lekakis

In this post, REFRAME co-managing editor Dr Tanya Kant interviews Re.Framing Activism editor Dr Eleftheria Lekakis on her new monograph: Consumer Activism, Promotional Culture and Resistance. Dr Lekakis’s book takes as its premise that consumption and resistance are entwined. From buying fair-trade, to celebrity advocates for social causes, to subvertising and anti-consumerist grassroots movements, consumer…

Alternative media activism: Anybody hearing the audience?

  by Pantelis Vatikiotis Research interest in alternative media has grown considerably over the last two decades in reference to the appropriation of digital technologies for activist purposes, but are we hearing the audience? The use of social media during uprisings sparked across the world in the emblematic year 2011 (Arab Spring, Indignados, Occupy Movement)…

Emotional Intelligence and Grassroots Epistemology

By Gino Canella, Ph.D.   As media studies scholars, social scientists, and journalists focus on big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, they often fail to consider the importance of emotional intelligence.   “Anger is loaded with information and energy,” Audre Lorde said in 1981. Emotion, according to Lorde, is data.   Feelings are often…

Re-framing art activism? (New) research approaches to art and politics

by Paula Serafini   Art activism has been written about. A lot. Politics and art are a good match, and events, exhibitions and publications that address the artistic and the political have been en vogue for a while now. So why keep writing about this stuff? There are a few straightforward reasons: new practices emerging,…