Giving voice to the voiceless:the use of digital technologies by marginalized groups

Ortiz, Jose Carlos Arriola and Young, Amber Grace and Myers, Michael David and Bedeley, Rudolph T. and Carbaugh, Donal and Chughtai, Hameed and Davidson, Elizabeth and George, Jordana and Gogan, Janis L. and Gordon, Steven and Grimshaw, Eean and Leidner, Dorothy E. and Pulver, Margaret and Wigdor, Ariel (2019) Giving voice to the voiceless:the use of digital technologies by marginalized groups. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 45 (1). pp. 20-38. ISSN 1529-3181

Abstract

This paper reports on a workshop hosted at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in September, 2018. The workshop, called “Giving Voice to the Voiceless: The Use of Digital Technologies by Marginalized Groups”, focused on discussing how marginalized groups use digital technologies to raise their voices. At the workshop, a diverse group of scholars and doctoral students presented research projects and perspectives on the role that digital technologies have in activist projects that represent marginalized groups that have gained momentum in the last few years. The studies and viewpoints presented shed light on four areas in which IS research can expand our understanding about how marginalized groups use digital technologies to address societal challenges: 1) the rise of cyberactivism, 2) resource mobilization for cyberactivism, 3) cyberactivism by and with marginalized groups, and 4) research methods for examining how marginalized groups use digital technologies.