Being able to criss-cross the globe on the strength of the Internet has made it possible to engage with creative ideas, conversations, and experiences which otherwise would be beyond our reach—and at times, even beyond our imagination. On The Same Page will bring to the reader of Torchlight, a combination of textual-audio-visual curated content, about and around libraries and bookish love.
The proliferation of digitally mediated spaces in the last few years has been accompanied by mass leveraging of social media for activism. This ‘digital activism’ uses social media to challenge and resist dominant narratives, creating affinity spaces oriented towards a common goal. Virtual conversations transcend geographical boundaries to move across locations creating powerful global movements, impacting and influencing scholarship and our spaces.
Online places, for example, are being used for activism to support more diversity in children’s and young adult literature and media. We Need Diverse Books (WNDB), an organisation that advocates for changes in the publishing industry to produce literature that reflects the lives of all young people started as a twitter movement #WeNeedDiverseBooks in 2014 to protest the lack of diversity in publishing for young adult literature. Eventually, WNDB emerged as an organization that provides a platform for readers to engage with diverse books, and opportunities to diverse writers, through awards, financial support, mentorship and scholarship, to write for and be part of a more diverse literary world.
This subculture of hashtags on social media draws upon the participatory nature of social media to address issues of representation and inclusion. The #OwnVoices campaign was started by Corinne Duyvis, author of Otherbound and founder of Disability in Kidlit. It promotes books that are written about a particular group (usually a marginalised group based on race, gender, class, ethnicity, ability etc.) by authors who belong to the same group. Sometimes referred to as “Person’s own voice”.
Some of the user-generated iconic hashtags like #RepresentationMatters #ReadYourWorld #MulticulturalChildrensLiterature #inclusion #pride #disabilityinkidlit take these conversations forward online; connecting readers, creating affinity spaces, spreading these ideas worldwide. The movements and conversations about diversity in these digital spaces also mirrors the evolving literacy practices of young people.
The Open Book Blog started by Lee and Low, an independent minority owned multicultural children’s book publisher, pursues the mission of increasing the diverse books available to children by pushing initiatives like the ‘Baseline Diversity Survey’. This survey, launched a few years ago, examines aspects of diversity like gender identity, sexual orientation, race and disability amongst the publishing industry staff to push for a more inclusive industry.
Baseline Diversity Survey, 2015
A lack of culturally relevant resources, representations and conversations about the South Asian experience convinced Gauri Manglik and Sadaf Siddique, both based in the United States, to start Kitaab World – a content platform, an independent publishing house and an online bookstore that features “traditional, contemporary and re-imagined stories on and about South Asia”. They also use this online space to counter misinformation, hate and fear. In light of the increased xenophobia and vilification of certain communities post the 2016 elections in the United States, Kitaab World’s campaign, “Counter Islamophobia Through Stories”, pushed back against the oppressive narrative by engaging in discussions and curating and sharing resources that create an acceptance of each other.
Sadaf Siddique and Gauri Manglik
Social media, usually seen as a playground, can ‘often transform into a battleground’* according activists, thinkers, educators, marginalised groups or social media users a space to shape and redefine dominant attitude and beliefs.