Author: Maxime Bainbridge

Activism is an important part of calling attention to issues within our society and with the aid of social and digital media it is easier than ever to draw attention to causes in need of support. Social media allows for larger numbers of communities to become aware of the issues being broadcast and is overall excellent method of spreading the word on many different scales, there are also many pragmatic uses for social media in activism as well as how this shapes activism in the real world too(Castillo Esparcia, A. et al 2023).

Traditional methods of activism tend to rely on many different structures and a dedicated leader to ensure that the activism is successful, and is not often as well as attended as the news of the activism is not as effectively spread, whereas newer methods brought about through social media help to effectively eliminate the barriers that traditional methods of activism have(Bennett, W.L. and Segerberg, A. 2012).

Social media brought about a new wave of activism, which is now more accessible than ever before. Usage of digital media has allowed activists to more rapidly spread the reason for their actions, allowing their message to reach a much larger audience as well has having the ability to mobilize groups of people in a quick, easy fashion(Castillo Esparcia, A. et al 2023). Social media enables activists to have a more direct line of communication with each other and the community they have formed, as well as aiding in eroding the barriers that limit participation, bringing about more visibility to their cause along with gaining more attention from mainstream media outlets, allowing for more networking to be done allowing activists to make meaningful connections with individuals with the ability or authority to gain the movement more attention or even change policies on the movement(Castillo Esparcia, A. et al 2023).

Although digital media allows for more accessibility and for a larger amount of people to see the cause, there are also issues that come with this new method of activism. Digital tools that allow for the activists message to be more widely spread also provide people with an easier way to put in minimal effort in engagement, which is often called “slacktivism” (Tufekci, Z. 2013). The design of social media means that there is a competition for the users attention, which can lead to the message from the activists to be made more easily digestible rather than the actual raw truth(Tufekci, Z. 2013). There is also difficulty in maintaining the level of collective activity as it is difficult to translate high engagement on a social media platform to sustainable, impactful and organised sessions offline(Tufekci, Z. 2013). Another common issue is that even if a movement does gain a larger attention that does not always translate into the movement having a impact on the authorities and their decision making(Tufekci, Z. 2013).

Using digital media to promote activism has steps to ensure that the message being spread is impactful, purposeful, engaging, and has continuous online and offline support. One of the best methods we have in our modern society to have activism achieve its required effect and influence. Digital media allows for a new form of activism which has been coined as “hybrid activism”, allowing for the combination of activism online and offline to have equal effects and brings attention to the struggles that are rooted within urban life(Zur, H. and Hatuka, T. 2023). Hybrid activism would allow for a much easier method of co-ordination if an individual were to want to bring about attention to a cause in a cost effective and timely manner(Bennett, W.L. and Segerberg, A. 2012).

Another useful feature brought about by digital media is the ability to make the cause of the activism feel personal or providing as sense of community to anyone user that may come across the information or post(Bennett, W.L. and Segerberg, A. 2012), this level large scale personalisation allows for the message of the activism to be more wide spread through social media allowing for more participation in policy making, aiding in the personalisation and involvement of the individual(Brennan, G. 2018). The personal nature of the activism also has another benefit when trying to promote a worthy cause, as due to the instantaneous nature of social media information is spread about rapidly making the organization of larger groups of people to engage in activities linked to the cause they support significantly easier to do(Brennan, G. 2018).

There are certain digital media tools that can help online activism become even more effective than it already is and one tool that is emerging and slowly becoming a robust tool is known as counter-data mapping. This online tool has the ability to allow marginalized communities to put forward a more accurate reflection of their narrative in a visual form, a map, of the data that effects the community’s well-being(Jeppesen, S. and Sartoretto, P. 2023). Counter-data mapping provides a practical methodology for activists to visually demonstrate the issues that occur in specific areas, as well as comparing their data map to the data provided by the government or companies(Jeppesen, S. and Sartoretto, P. 2023). This visualization of the data also helps to simplify all the data and allows the data to be more understandable to the average person which in turn helps to erode the barriers in place that prevent individuals from misinterpreting the data or message the activists have presented(Castillo Esparcia, A. et al 2023).

Digital media is overall an extremely important tool that activists can use to help advance their cause, as well as allowing the message to reach a much broader audience than traditional methods of communication allow. Digital media aids in activists in eroding barriers that traditional methods of activism have, as well as having the ability to have information quickly spread allowing for organising of large numbers of people to be done quickly and in a cost-effective manner. Though this method of activism does have some down falls, the good that comes from this method of activism far outweighs the bad when it comes to promoting true activism

Word count: 1015

Bibliography:

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Data driven digital marketing(DDM) and advertising can help perpetuate certain expectations and or standards set for themselves, especially the marketing/advertising that is considered to be part of the beauty industry that has a female target audience. The beauty standards that these advertisements make the individual who consume the media believe that if they use that specific product they will be able to look like the models in the advertisements. This shows that data driven marketing/advertising can shape the individual for the worse.

Figure 1: Image of a woman leaning next to a foundation

Figure 2: Image of multiple women modelling underwear

The main question to ask is what actually is DDM and how this even occurs in the first place. DDM can be described as a new modern method of using data analysis, such is backed by AI, big data, Customer Relationship Management(CRM) and Machine Learning(ML), to better understand what trends and individual customer preferences are to attempt to better sell a product or service(García‑y‑García, E. et al 2024). With this understanding of what DDM is, the concern about how targeted the advertising and marketing is and how this may affected the audience that was chosen as the target audience.

With this understanding of what DDM is, it can be seen that with certainty that beauty advertising and marketing is specifically targeting insecurities that come from societal beauty standards, which in turn make women more likely to buy whatever the product or service is being advertised that make beauty standard achievable for the individual purchasing whatever is being advertised, which can cause an erosion of the buyer’s decision making and causing impulse buying of these products and services(Nadler, A. and McGuigan, L. 2018). This method of marketing uses psychology as a marketing tool as well as behaviour economics to ensure the products or services will be bought and used (Nadler, A. and McGuigan, L. 2018).

Societal beauty standards that are imposed on different communities have a negative psychological on the community members about their appearance that does not match the impossible standards and in turn causing individuals effected by these beauty standards to internalizes these “standards” and then this leads to lower self-worth, self-esteem and then these individuals start to develop appearance alerting behaviour(Agrawal, A. et al 2025) to try and match these impossible beauty standards. This use of psychological marketing lead to consumer’s making biased decisions due to the manipulation used in these marketing practices(Tredinnick, L., 2023).

Beauty advertising aids the above statement about societal beauty standards due to the fact that many beauty industries, especially the make-up industry, prey on women’s insecurities to be able to better sell their products as well as attempting to set the ideal feminine beauty standards(Laham, M. 2020), which would further make their products more popular. Through DDM vulnerable individuals are more likely to believe that the usage of the product or service will help them to fit into the beauty standards that society has perpetuated(Thomas, N. and Docherty, N., 2025)

There are also some ethical concerns about privacy and psychological effects that come with the usage of DDM. Consumers have a right to privacy as well as a right to not having their data used to prey on their insecurities to get them to buy products that claim to help fix these insecurities perpetuated by society and the DDM(Laham, M. 2020). There is also the ethical concern about the usage of the collected personal data and if this data is being misinterpreted or if there are any biases that can alter the interpretation of the data in a harmful manner and then this could then lead to the harm of the target audience of the DDM(Tredinnick, L., 2023).

DDM used in the beauty industry aid in the erosion of the consumers purchase autonomy, not caring about the effects this may have on the consumer as long as this methods aids in maximizing the company’s profits(Zard, L., 2023). This uncaring approach to DDM leads to harmful advertising such as the two example adverts given. The figure one’s advert implies that if the consumer purchases that specific foundation their skin will also look like the model in the advert, even though the image of the model as been altered for her skin to appear that way, thus using beauty standards and insecurities women have about their skin to better sell their product. The second advert shows multiple models that are both beauty and have bodies that match societal standards for a beautiful body, especially for women modelling underwear. The advert implies that these are the perfect bodies and the only type of body that can purchase this product, which once again preys on women’s insecurities about their bodies which can lead them to belief that if the purchase this product they to will also have the “perfect body”. Preying on the insecurities of the consumer through DDM ultimately shapes the consumer for the worst as consumers impulsively buy these products to try and improve themselves and when that ultimately does not work, they will continue to buy more products and services shown to the via DDM, thus slowly losing their own autonomy over their spending habits as well as having a lasting negative psychological impact on them(Agrawal, A. et al 2025).

It can be seen overall that DDM shapes the targeted consumers for the worse, as this strategy of marketing does not take into consideration the negative effects this can have on the consumer psychologically, as well as, in this example of a type of DDM, perpetuating harmful and almost impossible to achieve beauty standards. The preying on consumers insecurities to maximise company profit through DDM also shows a lack of empathy and a number of ethical concerns can be raised about this marketing strategy.

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Bibliography:

1. Agrawal, A., Kondai, A. and Vemuri, K. (2025) ‘Psychological Effect of AI driven marketing tools for beauty/facial feature enhancement’. doi: 10.48550/arxiv.2504.17055.
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Social media has rapidly become part of most individuals daily lifestyles. Whether that be posting pictures to Facebook or Instagram, creating a short or long form content for TikTok or YouTube or even writing about mundane instances in an individual’s life on X/Twitter, it can very clearly been seen that social media has a profound impact on its users, be that as it may, can it be confidently said that social media can have both a good and bad impact on its users, but it can be observed that there seems to be more negative impacts experienced than positive ones.

But what is social media? While social media is an extreme board platform and can have many different working definitions, it can all be summarised to some very simple components in the fact that the platform is heavily user based with the generation of user-based content as well as interactive in nature.(Osborne‐Gowey, J. 2014)

An individuals’ relationship with social media is a complex and integral to many individual’s personal and professional lives, especially young people and or younger generations. Social media has a profound impact on individuals mental wellbeing and self-preservation, as through social media sociotechnical images of influencers lives may cause the consumer to compare their lives, which could lead to social comparison (Chen, Y. A. 2023), which can have an overwhelming negative impact on a users’ mental health.

Another negative concept that has immersed from social media is the idea that the individuals who use the social media are solely responsible for their usage and what they see within the social media app. This does not take into account any societal factors or the social media companies platform design. This concept that the individual is responsible for all that they see on social media completely undermines the neoliberalization of social media well-being(Docherty, N. 2021). The entire concept can have a negative effect on any user’ss mental health for it can cause fear of helplessness for having lack of any digital self-control over their own social media usage.(Docherty, N. 2021)

With the dramatic shift of having individuals’ entire lives all over social media, more and more individuals have started posting curated images of their supposedly perfect lives. The individuals consuming this type of content may begin to feel as if their lives do not reflect or even look similar to the content that is being consumed. The issue with comparing an individuals’ real life experiences to those influencers curated online identity can cause feelings of inadequacy due to social comparison, social envy and even a loss of self-identity, which is overall causes a negative impact on the consumers mental well-being.(Saudi, K. 2021)

Most social media have a certain design integrated into the platform which allows for infinite scrolling from the user, which may lead to an endless amount of scrolling through the social media app, which has been colloquially coined to be “doom-scrolling”. This action may cause feelings of existential dread, stress, depression and even emotional exhaustion, however it can also have a physical effect in reducing sleep quality and having feelings of less self-control over the individual’s self-management over social media usage. Over all, the infinite scrolling feature that most social media has is a bad for its users’ mental and physical health.(Vahid Nakhzarimoghaddam et al. 2022)

Whilst on social media it is common to advertisements during any time spent on social media, yet a good majority of the time those advertisements can feel as if the consumer using social media was the intended target for that specific advertisement. This can be due to the business models that social media platforms use to collect highly personalised data about that individual is curated to ensure the right advertisements are more personalised to that user. (Kim, H. Y. 2024)

These adverts degrades the lines of the public spheres hindering discord between individuals from different fragments of the public spheres, which can be an isolating experience and then brings into question what autonomy users’ have over their own data that could cause anxiety, stress and even feelings of helplessness (Kim, H. Y. 2024), all these actions cause a negative effect on the consumers’ mental health further reiterating the point that social media is, in fact, bad for its users’ mental health.

Although it can be confidently argued that social media and all that accompanies the engagement of social media is over all bad for its users’ mental health, it can also be somewhat argued that social media can have a good impact on its users’ wellbeing. Social media usage can encourage and help maintain genuine social connections with the users’ friends and family through focusing on the quality of the social interactions and engagements on each platform, rather than the focus being on the time spent on social media.(Oxford Saïd Business School 2023)

Social media can have a profound negative impact on its users’ mental, physical and emotional well-being through many different avenues. The design of the platform may facilitate endless scrolling, social comparison, social envy and many more features that can cause harm to its users to ensure the engagement within the application is still relatively well maintained while not caring about its impacts of design. The business designs that collect personal data on its users’ to more personalise the users’ feed and advertisement can cause the question of data autonomy to be asked as well as cause the decay of the interactions between the different public spheres, however more than anyone social media has a more profound negative impact on younger people who even though maintain genuine friendships through social media, also have to constantly compare their lived to influencers who curate their “perfect” online personas. It can clearly be seen that from almost all the angles one can look at social media and its effects on its users’ well-being, the overall impact of social media on its users is negative.

Word count: 982

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