Out of the Shadows, Into the Streets! ─ Transmedia Organizing and the Immigrant Rights Movement

For decades, social movements vied for attention from the mainstream massmedia--newspapers, radio, and television. Today, some say that social media power social movements,from Iran's so-called "Twitter revolution" to the supposed beginnings of the Egyptianrevolution on a Facebook page. Yet, as Sasha Costanza-Chock reports, activists and organizers agreethat social media enhances, rather than replaces, face-to-face organizing. The revolution will betweeted, but tweets alone do not the revolution make. In Out of the Shadows, Into theStreets! Costanza-Chock traces a broader social movement media ecology. Through a richlydetailed account of daily media practices in the immigrant rights movement, he argues that socialmovements engage in transmedia organizing. Despite the current spotlight on digital media, he finds,social movement media practices tend to be cross-platform, participatory, and linked to action.Immigrant rights organizers leverage social media creatively, alongside a range of tools fromposters and street theater to Spanish-language radio, print, andtelevision.

Drawing on extensive interviews, workshops, and media organizingprojects, Costanza-Chock presents case studies of transmedia organizing in the immigrant rightsmovement between 2006 and 2012. Chapters focus on the mass protests against the anti-immigrantSensenbrenner Bill; coverage of police brutality against peaceful activists; efforts to widen accessto digital media tools and skills for low-wage immigrant workers; paths to participation in DREAMactivism; and the implications of professionalism for transmedia organizing. These cases show us howtransmedia organizing helps strengthen movement identity, win political and economic victories, andtransform broader consciousness.

Sasha Costanza-Chock is Assistant Professor of Civic Media in the Comparative Media Studies/Writing Department at MIT.