Suay Özkula and I have published an article in Social Media + Society. Entitled ‘Where is the Global South? Northern Visibilities in Digital Activism Research’, this paper draws on the results of a review of 315 articles published between 1994 and 2018.

The abstract can be read below:

The seemingly global nature of English-language hashtags often obscures activism from outside the Global North (GN). This systematic review explores geographic representation in this field (N = 315 articles) through an investigation of case study location, author affiliation, methods of data collection and analysis, and researched social media platforms. The results show a preponderance of GN/Majority cases and non-region-specific social media groupings such as hashtag publics, particularly in research employing digital methods. As such, extant research in the field has disproportionately produced what we term Northern Visibilities—groups and movements based in GN countries (above all the United States) and platforms popular within them. We use the findings of the review to critically interrogate notions of the Global South in digital social research and provide recommendations for rectifying geopolitical underrepresentation and promoting more inclusive research practice.

Many thanks to the editors, reviewers, and the SM+S team for their help in getting this out. We would also like to thank Jenny Hayes for her earlier work on this project.

The article can be downloaded and read for free here.

Look out for further details on the study in the New Year!