Hashtag activism and the configuration of counterpublics: Dutch animal welfare debates on Twitter

Social media platforms provide major opportunities for online activism and the emergence of digital counterpublics. Research on counterpublics has focused on actors and their narrative strategies aiming at deconstructing dominant discourses. Less attention has been paid to how the interplay between actors and platform-specific functions affects the configurations and therewith also the success of digital counterpublics. Existing studies mainly rely on determining up front which topics, actor characteristics, or arguments constitute hashtag activism and digital counterpublics. In contrast, our... Mehr ...