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This work presents an analysis of the cultural and artistic field, positively compromised with social and political questions. The authors start with the categorization of the idea of culture and move to vindication art movements. These movements, which followed the first vanguards and worked from the compromise with "otherness", are at the origin of the contemporary denomination of political art. In this context, the authors approach the origins of activist art, referring to issues of gender, multiculturalism, globalization, and poverty. The different forms of presenting content are also an object of analysis: from art tradition to the contamination of daily life, from local to global, from street contact to digital.

This article examines video activism in a context where ubiquitous camera technologies and online video sharing platforms are radically changing the media landscape in which demonstrations and political activism operates. The author discusses a number of YouTube videos documenting and narrating the recurring, anti-capitalist demonstrations in Europe in the past decade. With the death of Ian Tomlinson in London during the 2009 G20 protests as an empirical starting point, the author raises questions of how video documentation of this event links up with previous protest events by juxtaposing representations of 'the moment of death' (Zelizer, 2004, 2010) of protesters in the past. This article suggests that these videos work as (1) an archive of action and activist memory, (2) a site of commemoration in a online shrine for grieving, and (3) a space to provide and negotiate visual evidence of police violence and state repression. The author offers a re-articulation of the longstanding debate on visual evidence, action, and testimony in video activism. The results are suggestive of how vernacular commemorative genres of mourning and paying tribute to victims of police violence are fused with the online practices of bearing witness and producing visual evidence in new creative modes of using video for change.

What does it mean to consume and produce images non-stop in the new media economy? Images can be captured, uploaded, downloaded, and disseminated with ease in digital platforms, raising the need to understand how these acts of image capture and circulation are embedded into the familiar and everyday as well as the extraordinary where images can re-negotiate cognitive realities and re-frame notions of authenticity and truth. This new media visuality is characterised by new consumption rituals and practices which transgress the boundaries between private pleasures, personal memories, and voyeurism, on the one hand, and public communion, witnessing, and expose on the other. This paper examines the notion of visuality in digital platforms and its consequences for postmodernity in terms of subjectivity, new forms of engagement and disenfranchisement.

This paper examines the case of Russian Police Major Aleksei Dymovsky, who took the unprecedented step of posting a video on the Internet in 2009 in which he exposed the corrupt practices of Russian law enforcement officials. When the video went "viral," Dymovsky set off a national debate about corruption, but was quickly crushed by the authorities for whistleblowing. This paper uses the example of the Dymovsky affair to examine the power of streaming video as a political tool in Russia. It also examines the difference between the underground literature of the Soviet-era, samizdat, and the new-style video samizdat of the Internet era. The case of Dymovsky allows the power of the Internet in contemporary Russia to be examined and provides an opportunity to test current theories about the power of the Internet as an organizing force.

The objective of this paper is to chart the boundaries of the developing phenomenon of the use of information and communication technologies to support politics by large political organizations such as the European Parliament through the analysis of the online strategy of the European Parliament in its campaign for widening participation in the 2009 European Parliament elections. For the first time, during the electoral campaign, the European Parliament decided to lead its own campaign to raise awareness among citizens and increase turnout, and constructed its campaign on an official website and on five social network sites. The authors have concentrated on the European Parliament website, as well as on its profile on three most used social media sites: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Since it is difficult to make a deeper comparison between these different online platforms, the authors have tested them on different communicative functions and campaign elements. Through the use of computer-mediated discourse analysis, this descriptive and explorative study has tried to discover the dynamics of the campaign, the reasons for choosing a specific platform for a particular part of the campaign, and the possibility of complementariness between them.

From the communication methods to the candidates on the ballot, the 2008 presidential campaign was revolutionary. Communicating party platforms went beyond traditional media to include social media and online video services such as YouTube. These communication methods provide an opportunity to examine public feedback on candidates that ranged widely in age, race, gender, and experience. This study seeks to analyze comments posted on YouTube as a form of public opinion and determine their content and frame of reference in response to vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. The Functional Theory of Political Discourse is used as a means to reveal prominent framing strategies. Results indicate a majority of YouTube user comments were negative, focused on the present, and utilized the attack function. Character also emerged as a dominant issue in campaign discussion.

Introduces a special journal issue on "The Politics of Digital Visual Cultures". Adapted from the source document.

The Internet has allowed digital media users to be more than just consumers of political information, allowing the chance to create their own online political content. Thus, users can now create personal blogs, post comments on others' blogs, contribute with citizen news, and upload their videos about current events and public affairs. Drawing from sociological and psychological frameworks, this study explores the socio-demographic and psychological characteristics of online political content creators and the effects of this behavior for the political and civic spheres. A survey of U.S. adults reveals that income and age are negatively correlated with political content creation, as well as emotional stability and life satisfaction, while extraversion was positively related. Further, the creation of political content was a positive predictor of political participation and civic engagement, even after controlling for demographics, psychological factors, media use and trust, suggesting a positive linkage between the production of online political content and both political and civic participatory practices.

This essay analyzes the body politics at the center of both business services outsourcing labor (also termed affective, immaterial, or communicative labor) and the value-adding digital image in contemporary Indian media. The author uses a "media assemblage" method in this analysis, which brings together a critique of emerging forms of communicative labor, digital image technologies, and the changing capacities of the body, or affect. This paper is concept, following the critical approach methodology, and interprets findings rather than predicts them. Numerous feminist investigations analyzing the potentials within what has been designated traditionally as women's work, have grasped affective labor with terms such as kin work and caring labor. Through an analysis of the Hindi-Bollywood film No Smoking (Kashyap, 2008), and the documentary Office Tigers (Mermin, 2006), the author explores the emergence of a digital vision in the South Asian context through pervasive processes that are "informatizing" various forms of life and work. They correlate the function of this digital vision in both business outsourcing and digital media through analyses of two key modalities: the evolving functionality of information in computer technology; and the modulation of subjectivity in the capacities of attention and sensation of value creation.

This paper uses a case study of the 'Open Knowledge Network' to explore the political value of 'information and communication technology for development' (ICT4D) projects that promote the creation and exchange of 'local content' in poor communities. These initiatives are distinguishable from the vast majority of digital content initiatives that aggregate and adapt 'global content,' which project implementers consider relevant to the needs of target beneficiaries. They are guided by the assumption that active participation in the Information Society is a crucial component of human development, which is closely tied to citizenship and political agency. From this starting point, ICTs are seen as political vehicles for strengthening the voices of the poor, rather than positioning them as passive recipients of mediated messages from above. This paper argues that the political value of these projects will be limited if they focus too strongly on generating local content without addressing the question of demand.

Zimbabwe is the best contemporary example of how politics can affect economic development. Equally as significant, and yet under studied, is the effect of politics on Information and Communication Technologies for development (ICT4D). In this case study of government of Zimbabwe's five year battle to prevent Econet Wireless from operating a mobile phone network, the authors present the fear for the conviviality of ICTs as a reason why dictatorial states often restrict free use of ICTs and how this can inhibit its role in fostering development. Using a combination of aspects of Thomas Hobbes' political theory and Sen's capability approach the authors show how passions like fear for the power of ICTs in private hands and the appetite for proceeds from the telecoms sector fuelled a five year legal battle that was eventually won by Econet. A framework for assessing the motives behind restrictive political action and the concomitant erosion of political freedoms which inhibits free ICT use and investment in the sector is also presented.