Transnational spaces of digital activism: online protests, hashtag culture, and hysteria in Indian digital spaces

Abstract

This chapter explores how digital activism has expanded to new horizons of political action that allowed a transnational mode of interactivity and communication, enhancing quick, decentralized, and massive reactions from globally connected digital local spaces. It examines the role of the hashtag in the democratic process of India to understand how the emergence of new transnational spaces of digital activism defines political and social protests in digital India. Factors such as inexperience and identity politics intervene in such demonstrations, leading to new problems of political polarization and conflicts. Using the dissemination of unfalsifiable data and emotional appeal, massive forms of digital movements theorize agenda-setting and collective hysteria. In contemporary digital India, a new form of digital activism has taken over the traditional democratic forms of protest, indicating that the public will no longer need experienced and authoritative politicians to dictate how to protest.