Over the past decades social media platforms including Twitter, Instagram and Tik Tok have been widely used by social movements in a diversity of contexts, from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo and #RhodesMustFall. This course provides a critical examination of the potential and limits of social media affordances for political activism and collective engagement. Specifically, we will focus on the development of social media practices challenging structures of inequality and oppression and striving to bring about social change. We will begin by discussing the relationship between social movements and traditional media before the rise of digital environments. Next, we will draw on a range of case studies (e.g. anti-racist protests, feminist movements and climate activism) to explore key concepts about social media and social change in contemporary societies, including networked publics and counterpublics, collective and connective action. We will reflect on the shifting perceptions of commercial social media platforms that are increasingly seen as spaces of surveillance and drivers of misinformation and harmful content. Students will be encouraged to consider their own experiences with social media uses in relation to collective engagement.