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An increasingly urbanized global population is facing multiple, inter-related and inter-connected challenges. By applying the so-called Living Lab concept, the authors open up innovation processes through online and offline collaborations between urban policymakers, non-profit organizations, citizens and other stakeholder groups. However, much of the current research being conducted on Living Labs is lacking in empirically tested methodologies for the co-creation of sustainable urban innovations in defined contexts. This research is intended to fill this gap by presenting a systemic approach to digital co-creation processes in Living Labs. The purpose of this paper is to present the first evaluation results of European Living Labs by applying the new developed digital co-creation monitoring technique.

By emphasizing the interplay between places, technology and people, the Digital Co-Creation Index (DCCI) calculation methodology provides a systemic understanding of the basic factors shaping the co-creative processes in Living Labs. DCCI has been used to evaluate such labs in four different European cities: Aukštamiestis in Vilnius, Lithuania; Alvalade in Lisbon, Portugal; Città Studi in Milano, Italy and Zuid Park in Ghent, Belgium. The empirical data for assessment and index calculation were collected by using a mixed-method approach (i.e. qualitative and quantitative analysis).

While the findings are complex and varied, the case studies in this paper share several characteristics and patterns – the attractiveness of physical spaces, opportunities for experimentation, the density and diversity of stakeholders involved and the emergence of creative communities that co-design novel initiatives. The results show that digital technologies are underused in the evaluated Living Labs.

The results are limited to a comparison of the European Living Labs in the research sample. In the absence of an index that was obtained, designed and tested in other territorial contexts, the comparative value of the outcomes of this research can be established between only four case studies. The authors anticipate that the implementation of the C3Places project and other research activities will yield even more scientific results. The findings and their implications should be discussed and tested in the broadest context possible. By focusing on creative synergy between places, technology and people, this paper presents a unified and empirically validated systemic approach to assessing digital co-creation efforts in urban planning.

Unlike previous research, this paper presents a unified and empirically based approach to assessing digital co-creation efforts in urban planning by emphasizing interplay between place, technology and people.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the intersection between critical literacy and digital activism. Critical literacy is a form of instruction that teaches students to question power structures and societal injustices, while digital activism introduces methods for individuals and groups to use digital tools to effect social and political change. This review argues that digital literacy is the natural partner to pedagogical approaches informed by critical literacy, which attempts to uncover, address, question and solve social problems.

An illustrative example of collaborative student choice and action is offered through a multimedia project with actionable hashtags for sharing online. The paper concludes with a discussion of how educators can foster more collaborative choice and action by intertwining critical and digital literacies at all levels of education. However, implementation and application of these ideas lies not only with educators and administrators, but most importantly, with students themselves.

In order for students to be most prepared for meaningful interactions in the global and digital world, critical literacy, digital literacy and digital activism must become a core part of classroom instruction. Multimedia projects that are easily sharable and can track analytics are a successful way to raise consciousness and advocate for local and global action.

The powerful instructional practices that link critical and digital literacies provide students with the skills to continue questioning multiple viewpoints and promoting social justice issues within and beyond classroom walls.

A recent mainstream intervention in Australia involved the creation of a climate change communication institution, the Climate Council, from crowdfunding and support in social media. Such digital action invites further examination of supporters’ motivations. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the reported intentions and interests of the Climate Council’s supporters to gain a better understanding of mainstream climate change action in digital spaces.

This paper reports on a survey that was undertaken by the Climate Council with their Founding Friends that sought to understand their motivations for supporting the institution. The survey received over 10,000 responses. From four selected questions, the paper considers all of the quantitative responses while a random sample of 100 responses was taken from the qualitative data.

The data show that most Climate Council supporters were motivated to maintain an institution that communicates the impacts of climate change while a minority desired more political engagement by the institution. The results capture an example of action with limited conscious activism.

Digital spaces fundamentally need the interconnections between people in order to function, in a similar way to physical spaces. Nonetheless, the power of online action, in all its contradictory forms, should not be overlooked in considering the range of possibilities available to those interested in effecting meaningful social change. Even mainstream interventions, as presented in this paper, that seem to disavow climate change activism on the whole, can nevertheless produce institutional changes that defy national governance shifts.

The paper aims to present a historical overview of the use of information communications technology (ICT) tools and platforms, particularly e‐mail and the internet, as tools of cyber‐activism by the labour movement in South Africa. The paper also aims to give some consideration to constraints and challenges facing unions in the South Africa in the effective deployment of such cyber tools.

The paper is based on the experience of a participant observer, incorporating analysis of historical examples of the application of the key ICT tools, and supported by reference to relevant documentation and related literature. The use by unions in South Africa of e‐mail and the internet as tools of organisation and mobilisation is examined against the background of both access barriers and organisation constraints, and in relation to union strategies to address such challenges.

Despite recognition by the South Africa labour movement of the possibilities of e‐mail, the internet and other tools of cyber‐activism, the ability of unions to exploit these tools has been limited, characterised by both successes and failures.

The paper has a relatively narrow focus on the experiences of specific unions in a single country, leading to conclusions which are not necessarily susceptible to generalisation. The lack of availability of both relevant primary documentation and secondary analysis makes it difficult to assess the accuracy of observations and conclusions.

The paper suggests the possibilities and opportunities for unions in similar environments to exploit ICT tools, as well as the barriers and constraints facing their deployment.

The paper presents the analysis and reflections of a uniquely placed participant observer regarding how unions in South Africa have been able to exploit e‐mail and the internet as tools of cyber‐activism. The analysis reveals both possibilities and limitations of cyber‐activism in South Africa.

The purpose of this study is to present a conceptual analysis to artistic manifestation represented through graphic and multimedia pieces that are available in social media networks as document-speeches in relation to protests in Venezuela during April-July, 2017. Also, this paper proposes the implementation of digital documentation tool that allows retrieval, organization, systematization and preservation of visual contents.

Semiotic analysis based on 44 artistic pieces (images and videos) posted on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube to protest in Venezuela against the government of Nicolás Maduro in 2017. The authors defined a metadata group for content creation of multimedia and testing information retrieval from general data, textual contents, file formats and semiotic description using Omeka software.

The digital documentation of artivism proposed has the potential to sustain over time as documents likely to be studied. It also constitutes an important analysis and a historical reconstruction, which must be taken into consideration to conduct research in the future political and social process of Venezuela.

Cyber-artivism, a concept related to online activism, is conceived as an artistic expression mediated by technologies and social media emerging in the context of social environments with a political–demographic character.

Digital preservation of multimedia contents by their semiotic and historic value as artistic cyber-activism.

Given the profound impact of social media on civic activism, as demonstrated by the #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo movements, the current study aimed to examine the factors that influence the public to engage in civic activism on social media platforms.

This study used the responses from 4,316 social media users who participated in the 2018 American Trends Survey (Wave 35) conducted by Pew Research Center. The dataset was analyzed using hierarchical regression.

The results suggest that respondents who were younger, female, White and liberal were more likely to participate in activism-related behaviors, such as using hashtags, changing profile pictures and participating in groups with shared interests in political and social issues. Respondents' engagement in online civic activism increased particularly when they had a strong motive for expressing and sharing their opinions. In contrast, external online political efficacy – the belief that social media influences policymaking and decision makers – was not significantly associated with activism engagement on social media.

This study identified key demographic characteristics of social media users who participate in online civic activism. In addition, the findings extend previous lines of inquiry by examining and assessing the impact of external online political efficacy and opinion expression motive. We conclude that individuals engage in civic activism on social media mainly because they find it important to express views on political and social issues and to find others who share these views, as opposed to thinking that social media can be used to exert influence on policy decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate possible purposes of digital storytelling and discuss practical implementation in a community-based digital storytelling project.

This case study investigates the function of digital storytelling for archiving local history, specifically by journaling experiences during a digital storytelling grant project at a public library in Southern California.

This case study details a specific example of the impact digital storytelling can have on a community, both to foster community building and also to encourage documentation of local history. The main goal of the project was to present and archive filmed stories from local community members; however, the project also led to increased awareness of digital storytelling and the associated technology both within the library and the greater community.

This article should provide best practice guidelines for administering a community-based digital storytelling project including suggestions for outreach to the larger community, dealing with technical issues, and tackling operational issues.

Digital storytelling has had a profound impact on the way that society communicates and can be used effectively for purposes of outreach and activism, to educate using technology, or to document micro-histories. This case study provides an assessment of the current uses of digital storytelling and presents a successful implementation of a local history digital storytelling project at a public library.

Plugging into the multimodal aesthetics of youth lifestreaming, this article examines how three lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or queer (LGBTQ) youths use digital media production as an activist practice toward cultural justice work. Focusing on the queer rhetorical dimensions of multimodal (counter)storytelling, the communicative practice used to (re)name, remix and challenge epistemic notions of objective reality, this paper aims to highlight how youth worked to (de)compose and (re)author multiple identities and social relationships across online/offline contexts.

Through sustained participant observation across online/offline contexts, active interviewing techniques and visual discourse analysis, this paper illuminates how composing with digital media was leveraged by three LGBTQ youths to navigate larger systems of inequality across a multi-year connective ethnographic study.

By highlighting how queer rhetorical arts were used as tools to surpass and navigate social fault lines created by difference, findings highlight how Jack, Andi and Gabe, three LGBTQ youths, used multimodal (counter)storytelling to comment, correct and compose being different. Speaking across the rhetorical dimensions of logos, pathos and ethos, the author contends that a queer rhetorics lens helped highlight how youth used the affordances of multimodal (counter)storytelling to lifestream versions of activist selves.

Reading LGBTQ youths’ lifestreaming as multimodal (counter)storytelling, this paper highlights how three youths use multimodal composition as entry points into remixing the radical present and participate in cultural justice work.

Throughout history various social movements have galvanized the masses to actualize a more inclusive and humane world. It is through libraries and archives that the authors can revisit those moments in time to better understand the past and hopefully build a better future. Issues of sustainability within libraries and archives collecting traditional materials from important historical events still create somewhat of a challenge, but with advancements of technologies and workflows, the authors are now better equipped to manage and preserve those items. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

However, in terms of the historical importance of the content from recent protests against police violence, the question arises of how does one create sustainable processes on materials that are captured on temporal technologies or how does an institution create trust where protesters and activists will freely place their content in a digital archive?

Washington University in St Louis Libraries’ project Documenting Ferguson, is attempting to tackle some of those challenging questions and working through the implications of a non-traditional social movement’s impact on archival collection building and future research, teaching, and learning. Both authors served on the steering committee as employees of Washington University Libraries upon project inception.

Rapid response collecting with the intent to preserve and make accessible relevant born digital content for future generations and to develop unlikely relationships with neighboring community to ensure history is documented from multiple view points.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the new role that human resource developers play in the globally connected workplace. Towards that end, this paper explores the changing landscape of self‐directed learning (SDL) within the digital ecosystem based on the concept of World 2.0.

This paper reviews and builds on the literatures of self‐directed learning and Web 2.0 technologies to explore how self‐directed learning is being transformed in the creative digital era.

The paper outlines five transformations that change the landscape of workplace learning in the creative digital era: virtual collaboration, technological convergence, global connectivity, online communities, and digital creativity.

This paper gives extensive guidance on how HRD specialists and practitioners can transform their strategies to adapt to the training needs of employees in the creative digital era. The paper provides new ideas and vision for industrial trainers and human resource development practitioners on self‐directed learning.

This article provides some future research areas and limitations.

This paper opens up new possibilities for self‐directed learning and discusses how self‐directed learning might be transformed in the light of technological and workplace changes. In particular, self‐directed learning might decrease the HRD/training costs significantly while providing employees with just‐in time training.