The Modern Protest Graphic and Social Media
Carolina Stierli de Abreu
Protest Graphics have always been an integral part of social movements and as activism has evolved so have they. They have shifted in medium and have gone from posters to mostly digital graphics that live on social media which nowadays is often the first point of contact from which we get our information, express our opinions or find communities so its content is often indicative of the conversations being held at a global level.
The feminist protest graphics currently dominating the conversation across social media platforms are all mostly similar in that they have taken complex feminist theories and boiled them down to short one liners in order to fit a certain aesthetic and appeal to a wider audience.
Although social media in its nature can’t effectively hold all the information needed for the viewer to fully understand complex feminist theory it can be the starting point for these complicated conversations about complex topics. I want to find better way to communicate these complex theories and ideas online by creating experiments that directly address the issues and frustrations I have with graphics currently circulating on social media.