Revolutions: an introduction to the #AoIR2023 special issue

This paper introduces the ‘Revolutions’ themed special issue which includes research presented at the 24th annual Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) conference (2023). The conference theme centered on revolutions, highlighting the connections between digital transformations and social movements across time and space. Focusing on the affordances of digital technologies for mobilization, resistance and achieving social justice, but also their limitations in enabling lasting social change, the conference theme asked participants to reflect on the tradeoffs between empowerment and subordination, and the relationship of digital ‘revolutions’ to racial justice, anticolonial movements, and the rising tide of white supremacist and fascist mobilization. This special issue includes six papers that offer new angles on critically assessing the groundbreaking early ideas underpinning online networked spaces and questioning the revolutionary potential of the internet today. The range of papers includes contexts related to platform power and user agency, online political subcultures and memeification, the balance between visibility and power for content creators revolutionizing live streaming and influencer cultural industries, and perceptions of AI’s revolutionary impact on romantic relationships. The studies in this issue also offer a global view, with geographies stretching from the MENA region and China to subcultures and marginalized groups in Western contexts such as the US and Canada.