Case Study 1: Ihumātao (2019-2020)
Protect Ihumātao
When the Fletchers housing development threatened sacred land at Ihumātao, the SOUL group (Save Our Unique Landscape) didn't just protest on the land—they occupied the internet.
The Strategy: They used Instagram and Facebook to invite thousands of people to come "stand on the land". It turned a local issue into a national event.
Case Study 2: School Strike 4 Climate (2019)
170,000 Strong
On September 27, 2019, 170,000 New Zealanders marched for climate action. It was the biggest protest in NZ history.
The Strategy: This was organized almost entirely by high school students using group chats, social media, and Google Docs.
Analysis: Digital + Physical
Both movements succeeded because they didn't stay online. They used digital tools to get physical results.
| Digital Step | Physical Outcome |
|---|---|
| Sharing photos of the land | People fell in love with a place they'd never visited |
| Creating a biological "event" page | Government couldn't ignore the numbers in the street |
It's Your Turn
You have a cause. You have the tools. How will you create change?
Use the Digital Campaign Planner to map out your own movement for a cause you care about (e.g., Better school lunches, Local playgrounds, Mental health awareness).
Open Campaign Planner →📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot
Ngā Whāinga Ako — Learning Intentions
Students will investigate digital activism as a form of civic participation and political power, examining how social media and online tools have enabled new forms of resistance, solidarity, and community organising. This unit connects to Māori traditions of protest, hīkoi, and political action in the digital age.
Ngā Paearu Angitū — Success Criteria
- ✅ I can evaluate the effectiveness of digital activism strategies and identify their strengths and limitations.
- ✅ I can analyse how power operates in digital spaces and who controls information flows.
- ✅ I can design a digital activism campaign for a cause I care about, applying ethical communication principles.
Differentiation & Inclusion
Scaffold support: Provide campaign planning templates and analysis frameworks for entry-level learners. Offer extension tasks requiring students to critically evaluate a real activist campaign's digital strategy and propose evidence-based improvements.
ELL / ESOL: Pre-teach political and digital literacy vocabulary. Leverage students' knowledge of activism in their home countries as a comparative lens. Allow discussions in home language to process complex political ideas before English writing tasks.
Inclusion: Use multimodal texts — videos, images, social media posts — to make political concepts accessible. Neurodiverse learners benefit from structured analysis frameworks and choice in how they engage with potentially charged political content. Create a safe classroom environment where diverse political perspectives are respected.
Mātauranga Māori lens: Situate digital activism in the long whakapapa of Māori political resistance — from the Kotahitanga movement to the 1975 Māori land march, to contemporary digital campaigns for Te Tiriti justice. Explore how hui, karanga, and whaikōrero function as forms of community organising that preceded digital networks, and how Māori activists have strategically adopted digital tools while maintaining cultural grounding. Discuss tino rangatiratanga as the ultimate goal of political participation.
Prior knowledge: Best used after foundational social studies and civics concepts. Benefits from prior exposure to media literacy.
Curriculum alignment
- Social Studies — Understanding: Students understand how digital technologies shape political participation and how communities use online tools to advocate for rights and social change.