The Digital CultureSHIFT: Moving from Scale to Power to Achieve Racial Justice

As activism for police accountability, fair wages, just immigration, and more takes center stage, social justice movements are using technology to achieve greater scale and reach wider audiences. In an age of big data and digital technology, do these strategies build power for long-term social change or are they helping maintain the status quo? Does the Internet disrupt racism or enforce a new era of Jim Crow?

In this Netroots Nation 2016 plenary roundtable on the digital politics of race, attendees heard from leaders on the frontlines of the 21st century movement for racial justice and civil rights, including Color of Change’s Rashad Robinson, Linda Sarsour of MPower, Autumn Marie of Black Lives Matter, Malkia Cyril of the Center for Media Justice, and Joe Torres of Free Press.

This session was moderated by Samhita Mukhopadhyay of mic.com and hosted in partnership with the Center for Media Justice, based on their report “The Digital Culture Shift, How the Internet is Shaping Social Change, and Social Change is Shaping the Internet.”

Here are a few highlights from the session, as told by Netroots Nation attendees: