A workshop was given on Tuesday, March 22 by women’s studies professor Mariam Youssef, where she explained to 52 students how social media has changed activism.

In the beginning of her presentation Prof. Youssef, presented images where activist are seen in marches, sit-ins and protest.

“The reason that you don’t see people doing this in the same way is not because those movements are dead or that people don’t care about civil rights movements anymore.

People still care about inequalities, they’re just gathering in different ways,” Prof. Youssef explained.

Social media has made it possible for people to express their feelings with just a simple click of a button where they can get on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram along with other social media and participate in activist movements.

Angelina Alvarez, nursing major said, “I liked the workshop I learned a lot, little by little social media has expanded.”

Alvarez shared her personal experience, “I like the way social media has changed a lot of things, I have a group called “Las Tres Chicas” on Facebook.

“We all motivate each other on weight loss, we do a fund raiser, and the person who loses the most weight gets $200. We post what we eat daily, so that is how we all keep up with our meals.”

Praise Tuiasosopo, undecided major stated, “I don’t watch the news, a lot of people use tools like; Facebook, Twitter and talk about it there. They express their feelings there and opinion, we all connect there.

She continued, “In the news you don’t see different parts of the story. You just see one, usually I can go on twitter and see videos of the occurrence.

“Like on Twitter with its hashtags, I see what is trending and it interests me and you’ll see different thoughts on an event as well. I usually just retweet when I agree with something.”

Prof. Miriam Youseff, shared her own experience as well as stance on religious women chanting on youtube, another social networking tool. “There is a group of us that do this together, and we were just thinking how do we make space for women to do that. How do we make it look like it is a normal thing that women can do.”

She concluded by explaining that depending on what stand anyone will take or believe there are different forms of expression, doing so respectfully and using the different forms of media available to everyone is important.