Hashtag tactics: Algorithmic activism in Chile

Abstract

Online activism requires not only a group of activists and specific demands, but also certain knowledge regarding the workings of the media in which the actions take place. Such knowledge may be real or assumed, and does not necessarily always achieve its intended objectives. It does, however, inform specific forms of action, i.e., communicative tactics based on activists’ attempts to understand and use the algorithm's afffordances, for example, through hashtag tactics. Whether spontaneous or organized (though it is usually spontaneous first, and organized subsequently), algorithmic activism is one of the rare opportunities to exert agency in social media. As such, it cannot be seen simply as detached hacktivism, because it involves a community, a set of shared knowledge and political actions defined by an online-offline continuum.