Police Brutality is a topic that has captured the attention of many on TV screens, in newspaper headlines, and on social media platforms. Social media has been a key component to the distribution and viewing of photos and videos of police using excessive force. Social media has provided an outlet for people to discuss their feeling towards these excessive force cases and also a way to acquire more information about them. The social media platforms that have received the most attention when discussing these cases are Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube. Twitter, being the world’s largest microblogging service will be main focus of this paper. Individuals are using social media platforms as a way to get involved in movements such as the Black Lives Matter movement. With social media platforms being a key source in shining a light on police brutality individuals are generating a new social movement, known as social media or hashtag activism. 

In order to understand how social media activism is influencing individuals, one must understand what activism is. Activism is defined as the policy or action of using vigorous campaigning to bring about political or social change according to Deen Freelon, (Freelon and Deen, 2016). Freelon is an associate professor in the School of Communications at American University in Washington, D.C. With the vast amount of media attention following the murders of unarmed minorities individuals are protesting not only on the streets and on campuses, but also on social media platforms. This avid protesting is leading to a change in society and raising awareness to issues that people might not be aware of. 

After the murder of Trayvon Martin, the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter surfaced. Started by Alicia Garza an African American activist and editorial writer, Patrisse Cullors an African American activist and artist, and Opal Tometi a Nigerian-American writer, strategist, and community organizer, these three women had no idea the impact the hashtag would have on the social media community. The hashtag did not gain its popularity until August 2014, only being tweeted 298 times in July 2014. The popularity came along with the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. In August 2014 the hashtag had surfaced 52,288 times. Twitter is the world’s largest microblogging service and gained singular political importance among Black audiences (Freeson, et al. 2016).  Twitter is also the third largest network site behind Facebook and YouTube (Barnett, 2011; Parmalee and Bichard, 2012) Although Twitter limits its users to 140 characters of written text, people across the world partake in hashtag activism and use twitter to engage in conversations involving political, social and economic movements. Yonghwan Kim states “The open system of Twitter creates a venue for users to respond to other users, thereby making it a vibrant forum for public discourse”( Kim, 2011) The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter has initiated public discussion on race and social justice. It has also helped to build awareness about specific social issues, such as police using excessive force. The hashtag has been used to assist with the planning and organization of protest against racial profiling and police brutality. Multiracial protests have formed bringing people from different cultures and races together and making them aware of the issues that minorities have been faced with.  The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter also helps to build unions with people in different parts of the world. Bringing people together to fight for the rights of others. 

With the popularization of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, other hashtags have risen to promote individuals that have been denigrated. A few of these hashtags are #Ferguson, #DangerousBlackKids,  #NotMyAbuela, and #BringBackOurGirls. Cumberbatch and Pagan state, “More than just symbols and letters, #blacklivesmatter, other hashtags, and the social movement that followed fostered a new global space for conversations about race and the meaning of social justice in the 21st century.” (Cumberbatch and Pagan, 79, 2016).  #Ferguson and # BlackLivesMatter are two of the most used hashtags in Twitter history according to Monica Anderson, a journalist for PEW Research Center and Paul Hitlin, an expert in content analysis and media research (Anderson and Hitlin 2016). These hashtags allowed for individuals to have a “voice” and express their feelings in a nonviolent manner. 

Yarimar Bonilla, a professor in the Department of Latino and Caribbean studies and Johnathan Rosa, a sociocultural and linguistic anthropologists’ article “#Ferguson: Digital protest, hashtag ethnography, and the racial politics of social media in the United States” discusses how social media platforms have become key sources for documenting police brutality. Bonilla and Rosa article uses research from both linguistic anthropology and social movements to discuss the semiotics of digital protest and engaging in hashtag activism. Bonilla and Rosa state that within the hour of Michael Brown being shot a twitter post surfaced stating “I just saw someone die” along with a picture of Michael Brown’s lifeless body (Bonilla and Rosa, 2015). Community members gathered to demand why the unarmed young man had been shot while reportedly holding his hands up in a surrendering position pleading “don’t shoot” to the officer. This gather made by the community soon led to a protest which documented across several social media platforms including, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.  Images of the conflict between Michael Brown and Officer Darren Wilson were displayed in national and international new coverage. The even quickly went viral across social media. During the initial week of the protest, there were over 3.6 million post on Twitter documenting and reflecting on the details of Michael Brown’s death. By the end of the month the hashtag #Ferguson had appeared more that 8 million times on Twitter. Initially, tweets with the hashtag Ferguson were used to convey information about the events that had taken place. Until mainstream media caught up with the case, Twitter and the mass amounts of hashtags were shedding light on an underreported incident of police brutality. 

Twitter uses the hashtag symbols as a way for individuals to communicate with others that are interested or maybe discussing the same topic. The hashtag symbol serves as an indexing symbol in both the clerical sense and the semiotic sense (Bonilla and Rosa, 2015). Clerically, it is used for quick retrieval and ordering of information. Semiotically, it is used to track the significance of a topic. Although hashtags are used to discuss a centralized trending topic, they link a broad range of tweets within the topic. For example, in the case of the Ferguson, Missouri tweets supporting Officer Darren Wilson and protestors both fall under the same category. 

Understanding how social media activism is becoming a new social movement is one side of the spectrum, but understanding why social media activism is becoming a social movement is also a very important part. Bonilla and Rosa state, “It is surely not coincidental that groups most likely to experience police brutality, to have their protests disparaged as acts of “rioting” or “looting”, and to be misrepresented in the media are precisely those turning to digital activism at highest rates”. (Bonilla and Rosa, 2015) People are resorting to social media to protest in a peaceful and nonviolent manner. They do not want their protest to be stopped by law enforcement for being too “crazy” or being misconstrued by the media. Social media is used an outlet for people to engage in protest the only way they see fit without getting into violent altercations with law enforcement. 

The “Black Twitter” youth group have also gotten involved in the social movement. They have resorted to twitter as an outlet to show how racialized bodies are stereotyped, surveilled, and positioned as targets of violence. They are posting images of themselves with sweatshirts on and the hoods up covering their heads, carrying skittles and iced tea in representation and support for Trayvon Martin. Youth members also posted pictures of themselves with their hands up in a surrendering position in representation and support of Michael Brown.  They used the hashtags #IfTheyGunnedMeDown and #HandsUpDontShoot when posting images as an act of unity and to humanizes the victims of police brutality and show society that these teens could also have the same fate as Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, because of the color of their skin or the community they live in. 

The use of social media has also led to the start of many protest. Social media has been the key in allowing individuals to share information on how and where they will be protesting so that other people who may be interested can come and join. According to Frank Edwards, a professor at the University of Washington who studies the relationship between social policy and inequality, Philip Howard a professor at the University of Washington, Department of Communication, and Mary Joyce who works for the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the University of Harvard, “ Digital activism has a demonstrated, positive impact on drawing people to the streets to protest, especially when civil society groups use digital tools and changing government policy is the goal”. (Edwards, Howard, and Joyce, 2013) Individuals are more likely to partake in protest and gatherings when they think that it will induce change. People are fighting for change to be made in their communities so that more unarmed minority men and women are not fatally shot. Protesters want more people to get involved in their protest so that more people can become aware of the issue and it will lead to movements. This is how the Black Lives Matter movement became so prevalent in today’s society. 

The influence that “black twitter” community has made has raised awareness and impacted the lives of many. With starting hashtags such as #BringBackOurGirls and #YouOKSis the black twitter community has raised awareness for so many issues going on in the world. This allows not only African Americans to get involved but also people from other races and cultures that may not be aware of these issues to get involved as well. Twitter being used as a “voice” for people because the media can portray situations differently or not even shed light on many of these issues at all. Stereo Williams, a writer for Ebony magazine says “ in the case of what has become colloquially known as “black twitter”, all of those things have gelled to create an online culture of black intellectuals, trendsetters, and talking heads giving voice to many of the issues that 20 years ago would’ve remained far away from the main stream radar.” (Williams, 2015) . Social media activism is forming a group of individuals that are engaged and eager to make change. 

A study done by Chang Sup Park examines how Twitter motivates involvement in politics. Parks study, “Does Twitter motivate involvement in politics? Tweeting, opinion, leadership, and political engagement” shows how some twitter users are classified under the category of opinion leaders. An opinion leader is known as people who influence opinions, attitudes, beliefs, motivations, and behaviors of others in a desired way with relative frequency according to Helevik and Bjorklund. ( Helevik and Bjorklunch, 1991). These opinions leaders help to influence their followers on trending topics on twitter and news that is circulating around the twitter platform. Majority of people that fall under the category of opinion leaders are celebrities and politicians. People are influenced by the celebrities and politicians they follow on a daily basis. Particularly when disusing the Black Lives Matter movement, celebrities, politicians and activists have played a major role in bringing awareness to the issue of police using excessive force. One example of this is Barack Obama saying in one of his many great speeches, “ If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon” (Thompson and Wilson). This statement made an impact on many people because it shows that powerful African American influencers were making the situation personal and real for many showing that these fatal killings could happen to anyone.

The considerable amount of attention surrounding social media and the hashtags #BlackLivesMatter and #Ferguson shows how impactful they have been in the “black twitter” community. Not only have these hashtags started gave individuals a voice and a chance to get involved and stand up for people like Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin who cannot stand up for themselves, they have also started nationwide movements. The attention that social media has brought to police brutality has led to a social movement known as social media activism. 
