The guide defines expression as the act, process or instance of representing ideas, emotions and/or experiences, using different modes and media.
Not just speech
- An image
- A piece of music
- A design
- Even a piece of code
Expression as a chain, and the step digital systems added to it.
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Who studies expression: Media studies, digital humanities, communications, languages and literature, the arts, film and art history. Borrow their questions: what is being said, in which form, and to whom?
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Between expressing something and being heard, there is now a system that decides how far it travels. That step is new, and almost everything contested about online expression comes from it.
Before
- Reaching an audience needed a publisher or a broadcaster
- Whoever was chosen reached everyone
- The gatekeeper was visible and could be argued with
- Being refused was obvious
Now
- Anyone may publish immediately
- How far it goes is decided by a ranking system
- The gatekeeper is a rule you cannot read
- Being ranked low looks exactly like being ignored
The line worth learning: Publishing became free; reach did not. Reach is granted by a system, and being ranked low is indistinguishable from nobody being interested.
Context collapse: Offline you speak differently to friends, teachers and employers. Online one post reaches all of them at once, so a joke written for friends can be read by a future employer years later.
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Real-world examples you can name
#BookTok and algorithmic taste — from 2020
A community of readers posting short book videos whose recommendations, amplified by TikTok's ranking, put backlist titles onto bestseller lists years after publication and changed how publishers market fiction.
Who it affected: Readers, authors and booksellers — an industry reshaped by a recommender.
The Christchurch attack livestream and the Christchurch Call — attack March 2019; Call launched May 2019
An attacker livestreamed a mass shooting; copies were re-uploaded faster than moderation systems removed them. New Zealand and France then convened governments and platforms around a shared commitment to eliminate terrorist content online.
Who it affected: The victims' communities, and moderators and users exposed to the footage.
Decidim, Barcelona's participation platform — launched 2016, open source
A platform where residents propose, debate and vote on city policy, with proposals traceable from submission to decision. Its code is open, so other cities run their own instances.
Who it affected: Residents who would not attend an evening meeting but will use a phone.
Three kinds of expression
- Cultural: #BookTok, from 2020.
- Violent: the livestreamed Christchurch attack, New Zealand, March 2019.
- Civic: Decidim, Barcelona's open-source participation platform, from 2016.
One shared property: All three used one property — free publishing and fast sharing — which is why it cannot simply be removed.
How this is tested — expression is the lens you apply when a question is about what people can say, show or make. It comes up two ways:
Paper 1 — structured question
- Part b: explain why a described group uses a platform to express itself
- Part c: evaluate limits on what may be expressed
Paper 2 — source-based question
- Q2: explain what a source expresses and how
- Q3: contrast two sources expressing opposite views
The trap: treating expression as only speech: An image, a design, a piece of music and a line of code are all expression. Saying so widens the answer at no cost.
Define the concept of expression as used in digital society.
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Explain one reason why being able to publish is not the same as being heard.
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