Radical Botanicals

I want to conclude my entries into this blog by talking about something that is quickly becoming near and dear to my heart. There are many different types of activists in the world, and I think all of them serve a purpose. There are those who are willing to put themselves in the crossfire, to tear down statues, to stand up to the “man” as it were and have a visceral impact with what they do. That was never my style, as someone who is violence-adverse and perhaps a little too cowardly to engage in such lion-hearted activities, I always preferred the pacifist route. What can I add to the world that will be positive? And my peace has always come from gardening. I think it was after the loss of someone close to me that I found solace in working the land, just as she did, the soil with its earthy richness grounding me somehow. I loved seeing how my labour would create beautiful life and even help feed my family and neighbours. So, imagine my surprise when I learned I could combine these two worlds through guerilla gardening, a practice that has become more and more commonplace here in the UK, but not something I had come across back home.

So what is it, what are it’s origins?

In fact we know that in the 1970s, communities in New York’s Lower East Side attempted to resist the ‘cleansing’ of plots of land by “clipping barbed wire fences or throwing ‘seed grenades’ over them. It was after these efforts that city authority “ultimately succumbed to the protest and legitimised many of the Green Guerillas’ plots into one of the country’s first community gardens, staking a claim for public green space before the onset of gentrification raised the value of the abandoned land and thus transformed the space into a landscape of power and profit.”(Adams & Hardman, 2013). I adore this idea of a community coming together to reclaim their space in a way that actually is useful to said community. Not only are you halting the efforts of greedy developers trying to buy up all the land and sell it back for exorbitant prices, but you are actually providing, feeding the people who live there. It’s such a beautiful idea that really creates change.

As noted in my project, spatial justice is a very intriguing concept to me. How without even realising it, our rights can be encroached on via methods of gentrification or letting spaces deliberately fall into disrepair so they can be sold off since ‘they serve no purpose to anyone.’ With our increasingly individualised society, it is becoming easier to weaken communities as no one feels supported enough to do anything that will enact real change. This needs to end if we ever hope to see improvements in our impoverished urban spaces.

Which is why I respect the efforts of one Ellen Miles, whose Tiktok account has exploded, so much so that I came across her through a Guardian article earlier this year. She is re-igniting the efforts by her predecessors such as Richard Reynolds and informing others on how they could also pick up a shovel and transform the space they live in. “So-called public spaces have been really privatised, and communities actually don’t get a chance to interact with them often. So I think we do have a right to do that in the places we put down our roots, where we live.” Miles stated this in that very article, and it set me down this path that I am currently on.

Should I continue to develop my project of Radical Botanicals, I would love to see it work to support this growing community. I was given much to think about after I presented my work, and I will definitely need to consider a few things as I work on tweaking its conception and design. For example, considering diverse voices in the space, consulting communities directly to see what they want, and finding the balance between guiding others through this legal grey area and ensuring people do not put themselves in danger as they carry out their activities. I want peace, as stated earlier, I am a pacifist at heart, and I would hate to see others get hurt because of something I created. I am a long way away from having this vision realised, but I thank this class for allowing me the opportunity to explore this idea and really put me in a position I have never been in before, and that is that of an activist. This journey will continue, even if it is just me throwing a seed bomb into a golf course under the cover of night.

Bibliography

Adams, D. and Hardman, M. (2013) ‘Observing guerrillas in the wild: Reinterpreting practices of Urban Guerrilla Gardening’, Urban Studies, 51(6), pp. 1103–1119. doi:10.1177/0042098013497410.

Impact. It is a word almost onomatopoeia-like, you can feel the “thunk” of it, like a fist punching straight through solid rock. It has me thinking about the definition of the word and why its so important to the world of activism. In fact, there are multiple definitions which I will outline here. Collins dictionary lists them as follows:

The impact that something has on a situation, process, or person is a sudden and powerful effect that it has on them.

An impact is the action of one object hitting another, or the force with which one object hits another.

To impact on a situation, process, or person means to affect them.

If one object impacts on another, it hits it with great force.

All these definitions indicate a connection with enacting some sort of force or change upon something or someone, but the primary emphasis being on the power behind that action, and I think that is what we need to take away from this and why impact is really what matters; it is the engine behind any sort of activist movement.

As we exist in the digital age, impact becomes more and more difficult to achieve. We certainly have more and more tools now then we ever did before to measure what we consider to be “impactful” actions, all the examples presented in class regarding “Impact Reports” which use analytics to breakdown social media reach and user bases, or perhaps likes, shares, retweets. But how do we see the fruit of those labours? How do we measure how many people were touched by the efforts made by activist groups during the year? And what are the long-term effects of those efforts? I think this is a time-honoured question dating back to the earliest days of 20th century activism movements that we still are no closer to answering.

I think we need to revisit our definition again – create impact, sure, but how deep is the impression that that impact makes? Is it something that merely causes a crack that can be easily sealed over, or does it create a permeant mark upon the surface that cannot be ignored? Does it change the entire structure itself? This is where efforts need to focus, and I am not saying it is an easy task.

There is an example I want to talk about, and I think it is the very reason why we need to think differently about how we measure impact, and what to pay attention to. For nearly 25 years, there was an organisation operating in my native Canada that was a celebrated and revered, called Free the Children, later changing their name to the WE Enterprise. I was raised believing this organisation was something to be proud of, I even attended the coveted WE Day concerts through my school in which they would invite the biggest stars to perform all in the name of the mission of “Freeing the Children” from child labour globally. We all learned the story of how 12-year-old Craig Kielburger saw a news article in the Toronto Star about a boy from India who was forced to work in harrowing conditions in a textile factory, and how this inspired him to start his organisation to ensure this hellish practice ended.

That all changed in 2020, as recapped in Carrie Karsgaard and Lynette Shultz’ paper, ME to WE Social Entrepreneurship: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing (2022).  “WE Charity’s $912-million contract to run the Canada Student Service Grant, a program intended to provide volunteer experiences for young people as a response to COVID19. The contract raised questions that revealed shrouded business relationships between the organization and high-level Canadian politicians. Public criticism erupted following a flood of media stories telling of racist activities within WE problematic international development relations and questionable investment of charity funds into real estate holdings.” It was shortly after this all came to light that the organisation closed, and “many teachers are left feeling both abandoned and misled” (Karsgaard, Shultz, 2022)

Appearances can be deceiving – Credit: V. Tony Hauser

This brings me back to that question of impact once again. An organisation can appear as if it is making tangible change, but is it truly doing anything at all? We slowly began to learn where money and donations were actually being funnelled into and it was not the places we intended them to go. The WE enterprise had its hooks in the Canadian education system for decades, so no one was looking too closely outside of the optics they were being presented, a symbiotic relationship for an already strained ministry was no sweat off their backs. I think we need to do better, look closer, and I am not entirely sure how to do that, but I know there must be a way out there somewhere. There is probably no “One Size Fits All” solution, but I think if we change the way we look at impact, we may find better ways than how we have been carrying on for decades.

Bibliography

I remember the very first time I saw Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929)  during my Concepts and Theories film class while undertaking my bachelor’s degree, and it has sat living in my brain ever since. It truly is a masterpiece of film work and deserves every piece of recognition it has been given over the generations. The near breakneck cuts, usage of techniques such as super imposition that were extremely new and cutting edge at the time, the almost musicality of the piece as it jumps from scene to scene; you cannot help but become bewitched by it.  “Without use of intertitles, without use of screenplay, without use of theatre” as the film states, it attempts to create a language of its own, giving you the impression that it is not really saying anything, all it wants to do is capture life itself, in all its facets, from the simple domestic pleasures of a women laying in bed, to a symphony orchestra. There is so much beauty to be had here, and yet the film exists as a piece of propaganda, to ingratiate the people to the causes and ideals of the Soviet Union. The beauty of the imagery I am seeing is weaponised. With no text, no clear narrative, no formal thesis statement, it does everything it can to have me buy in to Lenin’s dream.

The eye of the man himself – what a world he saw. (The final shot of “Man with a Movie Camera,” dir. Dziga Vertov, 1929.)

It would be difficult to argue that most art created is art for art’s sake and I am not trying to make a bleeding-heart statement stating that the film and films of its type should be admonished for the fact that they are not purely art, I think that is a pointless argument. Every creator has some sort of motive or agenda, whether it is transparent or not is entirely dependent on their intention, do they wish to deceive you or merely provoke you into action? But I think it is worth looking at montage again as a tool that can be used as its own type of subversion, as noted in a recent article I came across regarding the work of Malaysian film director Amir Muhammad titled “DOCUMENTARY AS MONTAGE The ambivalence of post-authoritarian Indonesia in Amir Muhammad’s The year of living vicariously” by Carlo Bonura.

He mentions that one particular work, The Year of Living Vicariously (2005) did not receive the same critical attention as Muhammad’s other work Gie (2004), despite it being a sort of documentary about the production of this film. What makes this work stand out is how he subverts this expectation of a pure documentation of this event by including interviews with individuals surrounding a variety of topics (Vespa scooters, the fall of Suharto, retelling of myths, etc.) that are juxtaposed with each other in this mosaic of fragments, linked to present ideas in this non-linear way. “As such, Amir Muhammad’s film transcends the status of a traditional documentary and instead presents viewers with a montage of ambivalence, raising new possibilities for thinking about montage as the basis for documentary itself.” (Bonura 2015) The tool is very apparent and is presented to the viewer as such, you are meant to think about the seams and cracks you see, they jolt you out of the lull you find yourself in sometimes when you become too absorbed by the content you are consuming.

This of course, has its drawbacks. Perhaps the advent-garde nature of this work is what resulted in it falling by the wayside and receiving less attention than the film that is responsible for its creation. It is the same problem Sergei Eisenstein’s October: Ten Days That Shook the World (1927) faced as audiences could not connect with the layered symbolism too dense for any one person to wade through. There must be a balance between form and function I think, if we want to see montage continue to flourish as an effective tool for sharing ideas and moving people to action. I wonder if it will continue to have a place in this new world where information is constantly being spoon-fed to more and more impatient audiences, but that remains to be seen.

Bibliography

For this entry, I am thinking about playing devil’s advocate here. I want to approach this from a different perspective rather than just harp on the usual narrative that it, (filter bubbles that is) contributes to hive-mind mentality at the extreme end of the argument or simply does not allow people access to diverse content that could perhaps give them better informed opinions. Personally, I believe people who want to live in their own echo chamber are going to deliberately construct spaces for themselves that they can comfortably exist in. You cannot force someone to be understanding or empathetic to differing opinions from their own if they do not want to. I think we are all guilty of this to some degree, even if it is on a minor scale. For example, I will purposely ignore any incendiary comments or criticisms regarding bands I enjoy and have essentially barred myself from spaces on the internet I know where I can see such content. It has brought much peace to my life by doing so, particularly as metalhead who is in quite an elitist music community.

To dive deeper into this issue on a more serious note, can you be radicalised by a filter bubble? Michael Wolfowicz, David Weisburd, and Badi Hasisi would say not in their paper: “Examining the interactive effects of the filter bubble and the echo chamber on radicalization”. They determined that In fact, evidence suggests that algorithmic selection’s potential effect on radicalization would be small relative to the effects of self-selection which supports my opening statement above. They point to several challenges that are presented when trying to seek a link between filter bubbles, echo chambers and their radicalising power. Studies in this field have thus far been “relegated primarily to the macro-level, with little if any individual-level study. Another issue comes from attempting to measure ‘echo chamberness’ which is noted to often “fail to capture the type of network structure characteristics described by the respective propositions.” (Wolfowicz et al., 2021). Given that the terms were coined by someone outside of the sphere of academia, Eli Pariser to be specific, as terminology to be used in the tech world, it has created this “conceptual ambiguity…which has challenged researchers with developing their own way of testing the frameworks’ hypotheses.” (Wolfowicz et al., 2021) All of this to say there has not been definitive proof to conclude that filter bubbles are this mystical powerful machine that can mind-control any unsuspecting consumer into believing whatever the algorithm wants them to.

There is in fact even positive evidence to suggest filter bubbles can create safe spaces for the disenfranchised or “at risk” groups to connect and find community. In Filter Bubbles? Also Protector Bubbles! Folk Theories of Zhihu Algorithms Among Chinese Gay Men (Zhao 2023) Zhao dives into a popular Chinese social media app known as Zhihu and how the “filter bubble” has in fact information barriers built by the filter bubbles that “are believed to shield gay male users from outsiders; the recommendation algorithms are also perceived to recognize scattered gay male users and to provide them with access to various gay communities; and thus, algorithm-driven exclusive networks are believed to have been established.” (Zhao 2023).

(Source KRAsia.) Sometimes filter bubbles can be good!

Zhao brings up the notion that “it is always emphasized that information barriers hinder the interaction and flow of views and polarize people’s thinking. However, the informants in this study offer a queering interpretation of information barriers.” One of the participants in this study, known as 13 mentioned “the information barrier of Zhihu is so well constructed and will never lie to you. It should be said that absolutely no straight man or woman will find this [gay] space; for those who have never been exposed to this [gay] topic, the possibility of entering is too low.” (Zhao 2023). It is very likely that diverse identities such as those of the LGBTQ+ community are not considered when filter bubbles are spoken about in a negative context. “visibility” in spaces is taken for granted for sure, but the potential shielding power it holds for individuals who may be persecuted cannot be denied, and they can continue to exist in these spaces with potentially less danger being presented to their person simply by being who they are. It is a double-edged sword for sure, but I think we need to move past the conversation that it is merely the work of algorithms that are resulting in perhaps radicalisation of dangerous or extremist groups and it is in fact a much larger societal issue that we should be addressing, but perhaps we are not ready for that conversation just yet.

Bibliography

Wolfowicz, M., Weisburd, D. and Hasisi, B. (2021) ‘Examining the interactive effects of the filter bubble and the Echo Chamber on Radicalization’, Journal of Experimental Criminology, 19(1), pp. 119–141. doi:10.1007/s11292-021-09471-0.

I am a nomad of a digital world, I am not one thing, one mentality, one category, one set of beliefs. I am not of one ethnicity, one name, one nation, or even one life. I am eternal, I exist outside of my body, flesh, blood, and bones. My life exists in cyberspace as much as it exists between the atoms and the carpet between my feet. I am not alone. I know many fellow nomads, children of a globalised culture who feel as untethered as I do, and they are looking for ways to make sense of this quagmire we are forced to walk through to live this thing we call life.

So this is my decree, a gauntlet I am throwing down for anyone who wants to participate. For the lost souls who just need a north star in the sky to look up at every now and then. I share it here today, October 31st, 2023, from Cyrus Field Street down by the river.

Seek the truth, for it is out there, even if the truth is unkind and hard to hear. Seek it out in unlikely places, and seek out many strands until you have a complete tapestry.

Do not choose a hill to die on. Just as I am not the same person I was yesterday; neither are my beliefs. You never know how much you can learn if you let go of the blinders you deliberately wear.

Fear is what you feed it. There are times when you must stop searching for things to terrify you, no matter how tempting, for it may cause you to spiral further than you intended. Fear makes you vulnerable, and others will always take advantage.

Find your soul tribe. Surround yourself with those who have your best interests at heart, who will be fierce supporters and will tell you the things you need to hear. Do this by also becoming the type of friend you would like to have.

Be kind to your environment. Nature is healing power unfiltered; we must protect it so whatever action you can take to help nature should become part of your daily life.

I have been a gamer my entire life, which is common for people of my generation, the medium growing and aging with us over the decades.   I remembered being 7 years old and my cousin thrusting a controller in my hand to play a game far too graphic and complicated for my underdeveloped mind to understand. The game in question was Resident Evil 4, an entry in several games following different heroes as they fight to survive against the failed experiments of a faceless corporation hell-bent on creating bioweapons without regard for how much damage they wreak on the world. Resident Evil is developed by Capcom, a Japanese company which would be intimately familiar with the themes of mass-destruction and body horror as is ever-present in Japanese culture for obvious reasons post-World War II. The ramifications of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have inspired Japanese media from Akira to Godzilla, and continues to influence creative works till this day as it shapes so much of modern Japanese identity.

It came as a surprise to me to come face to face with one of these games while experiencing Genetic Automata by Larry Achiampong and David Blandy at the Wellcome Collection this past week, particularly the 5th entry in the series which took place in a fictional state of Africa and featured zombie characters that unfortunately invoked a problematic racialised image that was immediately apparent to American audiences. Capcom tried to rectify the situation by adding zombies of different races to the hordes of NPCs, but the damage was done, and game was deemed “controversial” by news sources and players alike.  What we have in the second video series “A Lament for Power” is the tale of Henrietta Lacks a story that I was familiar with prior to viewing the video but was recontextualised by the visuals and thought-provoking statements of the video. Henrietta is speaking to us, sounding calm, but disappointed, as her very cells were used again and again and again for various scientific experiments that have borne much fruit and have saved countless lives. Her cells are perhaps the most unique in the world, as they can replicate infinitely. This is represented by a digitised blank city, slowly being enveloped by this massive black dome, her cells multiplying with no stop in sight. These sequences are intercut with the African zombies of Resident Evil 5 – diseased and malicious looking but being re-purposed to emphasise how black bodies are treated as fodder for our world’s betterment.  In Resident Evil 5, you shoot these NPCs, no questions asked, and their state is once again a sacrifice for the villain’s (a white man) “higher plan” which is to become a god. Both the hero and the villain alike both treat the NPCs the same, as insignificant, as a by-product, as a means to an end….which is eerily similar to how our real-life medical community has always treated black bodies, despite the reason being cited as “for the greater good”.

The other exhibition, Third World: The Bottom Dimension, was an interactive experience that spoke to the gamer in me, though it did not play by rules I was used to. A reality created with afro-indigenous experiences in mind, I found myself wading through a cold world where my character, an amorphous humanoid figure, was forced to repeat the same tasks repeatedly, harvesting crystals in a finite amount. I likened it to the destruction of Brazil’s beautiful lands and the colonisation of their culture into one streamlined and deemed “acceptable” by the hegemonic masses.  The fact that you are doomed to repeat the cycle, being asked “Have you seen everything?” made me believe the trauma was becoming ingrained, and recording it was like creating a digital memory of the very damage being done, uploaded to a shared neural network.

It was reminiscent of a project I had encountered back in Toronto for the ImagineNATIVE festival in 2018. I played several games featuring imagined realities based on indigenous myths, some stories retelling the trauma experienced by various peoples, one was an attempt to teach a new generation the Ojibwe language through interactive VR, a response again to the alteration and erasure of an entire people’s way of life, again inflicting a sort of lasting brand upon the very DNA of those shared peoples.

Genetic trauma is something we should continue to investigate, and I believe videogames are perhaps one of the best mediums to impart these experiences upon people. The interactive nature automatically puts the player in the position of both being in control and unable to fight against the outcomes programmed into the game. It creates a deep link between the characters and players that is hard to forget once the game ends. I can think of several games that already explore this topic, one being the Metal Gear Solid series, which was also part of Genetic Automata’s assemblage. It asks the question of what if one’s existence did not belong to them, instead as a tool to be used for the purpose of shadow organizations beyond their understanding in wars they have no choice but to fight in. What if you were the weapon, and your DNA was carefully cultivated as the clone of the perfect soldier? Not only that, but what if your max life was artificially meant to end before 40 years old? Again, coming from a Japanese game studio, you can see why so many creatives are asking these questions.

A meme describing the different soldiers pertinent to the series (Unknown source). The game is steeped in political conspiracy and meta-physical philosophy.

I believe every revolution has its own unique identity. That identity is created by a collective group of artists who can craft the iconography necessary for the ideology to spread. But there always must be the first, the ones who spark the flame of creation that will then grow into a wildfire. In the 1970s, the punk movement was essentially the brainchild of one Malcom McLaren and his creative partner Vivianne Westwood (Havlin, 2015). Their infamous shop in Chelsea London, “SEX” was purposely incendiary and spoke to an underground generation that was revolting against the conformist, clean nature of their parents, a generation that craved something different, something extreme. They were the generation of the pissed off, and what you wore was the easiest way to indicate how you felt about the world you were living in. “I choose to not be subjugated, I choose to tear my clothing, and pierce my skin, and show my body however I please and I don’t give a f**k about what you think” was the general sentiment. What was great about these Vivianne Westwood designs was that they were easily able to be replicated, using everyday items to literally “Detourn” one’s pre-existing clothing and transform it into a wearable piece of resistance. You didn’t have to have thousands of pounds in the bank, you could use whatever supplies you had at home to DIY the look you were trying to achieve. And this was the important part, it was an aesthetic that was accessible to everyone. The revolution is machine-washable.

Malcom McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's SEX shop in Chelsea, London (1974-1976)

“Forget about music and concentrate on creating generation gaps. Call all hippies boring old farts and set light to them. Terrorize, threaten, and insult your own useless generation. Suddenly you've become a novel idea and you've got people wanting to join in. You've gained credibility from nothing, you're the talk of the town.”  - Malcom McLaren, The Great Rock and Roll Swindle

And as much as I wax poetic about this period in history as I resonate with punk music and aesthetics, I can’t help but feel that it has had its jaws muzzled somewhat; this is due to the commodification and capitalisation of the punk aesthetic. I am not I saying it is Westwood’s fault for this occurring, she is not the sole author of punk fashion, but her name is often associated with its origins and her transformation into a high fashion house that only the wealthy can afford seems to go against what her original brand was built on. There is a history there, an idea you are buying into when you purchase a Vivianne Westwood piece, but the message is muddied now, and her products are currently more reminiscent of every day latent-stage capitalist products than the situationist weapons they used to be.

I believe the same can be said of Barbara Kruger’s work. Originally her creations were commentary on the subliminal messaging of advertising agencies and the insidious ways they were influencing consumers to purchase more products. However, in the 21st century, her signature red and white lettering has become the very rampant consumerism she was fighting against.  Shepard Fearey’s “OBEY” is plastered upon sweatshirts, t-shirts, shoes, hats, cups, bags, and literally any other item you can think of. Her message was twisted and gnarled into a beast she could no longer recognise.

Obey shirt selling on Depop

I think what the Situationists did not account for, is that eventually, the revolution can be bought and sold for profit. Freedom, rebellion, absurdity, vulgar, and the avant-garde, is too enticing to be left to the grassroots, it eventually becomes part of the larger forest of hegemony.  Be that as it may, I am nothing if not an optimist, and as long as there is always those who are willing to advance the guard further, change what the rebellion looks like, and create utilitarian form of detourning and civil disobedience that everyone can access, than we can move forward, our new identity in tow.

Bibliography

I think it is very difficult for the general population (myself included) to notice when they are being influenced or manipulated by the media they consume. Every day we encounter disinformation, which has a particular insidious purpose.  With disinformation, political actors deliberately manipulate information to achieve political goals (e.g., Bennett & Livingston, 2018; Freelon & Wells, 2020; Wardle, 2017 as cited in Boukes & Hamleers, 2023 p. 71). And dissemination of disinformation is mostly associated with right-wing issue positions, usually of a radical nature. Disinformation is intentionally deceptive, andis meant to convince, the intended recipients by misleading them – for example, by targeting their identities, emotions, and beliefs. (Hancock & Bailenson, 2021, as cited in Boukes & Hamleers, 2023 p. 72)

Given the current disadvantage we are regarding media literacy, you would think this would raise alarm bells for public institutions to ensure that future generations have the tools they need to navigate the digital space with a critical eye. This has not been the case, and there may be an argument to be made that this is what is actually preferred by the hegemonic parties at play. How can the masses rebel against their masters if they are kept in the dark, the knowledge that would be their salvation out of reach? Knowledge is power is indeed the adage that still holds true to this day, never more than in the current information age we find ourselves in.

So how do we tackle this issue along with the many others we face in the digital age? Caragee indicates that it is in fact through focusing on framing research that we will develop tools that can perhaps be used for the good of all. Digital disinformation campaigns sponsored by state or non-state actors (Benkler, Faris & Roberts, 2018 as cited in Caragee 2019 p. 368)) is of importance to look at, as they can influence the most change towards particular agendas, these tactics tend to be used quite advantageously by Right-Wing parties. This was how Boris Johnson’s administration convinced the public that Brexit would be what the country needed at the time, though the facts and figures were awash in disinformation that was portrayed as true.  Caragee also mentioned that research should explore framing as a social process within the digital realm, while simultaneously considering digitally enabled frame construction within the context of the strategic and tactical decision-making  of  movement activists ( Caragee 2019 p. 368) Activist organizations would benefit from this greatly, their messaging capabilities would increase and they would be privy to the same tools that are often weaponized against them  by the opposition.

Credit: Neal Cole. These buses certainly were eye-catching.

While this is definitely is a path we as academics and researchers should travel down, it may take some time before we see it implemented in public life. To aid myself when I encounter framing and disinformation in the wild that could impact me greatly, I have devised an exercise in order to help me think critically about the media I am consuming, especially when my it affects me emotionally:

Question the source – What is the source of the information, and if located, where do their allegiances lie?

Is there an agenda – For what purpose is this being shown to me? I usually like to investigate the source, look at other’s comments, and the wider social climate.

Is it verified/truthful – fact checking is key. I find experts or go to fact-checking sites to ensure if the content is actually truthful.

What do they not want me to see – If it is some sort of character assassination or a heroic portrait of an individual, group, or even of an event, it may be good to be sceptical as to why they are being portrayed a certain way.

Look at other sources and perspectives – what is says on the tin. It is helpful to look at all angles before arriving at your own conclusion.

Questioning the world around you is a developed skill; it is very easy to get caught up in what you see and take it at face value, and this can be dangerous. There is not much we can do about the type of framing we are exposed to, but we do still have power over how we choose to engage with it.

Bibliography

Boukes , M. and Hameleers, M. (2023) Fighting lies with facts or humor: Comparing the effectiveness of ..., Available at: https://nca.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03637751.2022.2097284 (Accessed: 09 October 2023).

My relationship with the term “Activism” is in constant flux. There is not one description or symbol that can encapsulate the exact meaning of the term, even within my own mind.  From the early days of teenagerhood, my understanding of activism was it was for the rebels, the ones who sat in front of bulldozers and chained themselves to trees in order to stop wanton destruction of sacred lands or communal places. Other images were of acts of vandalism, Molotov cocktails thrown at riot shields as protests turned violent. These were the folks my own rebellious spirit both idealised and feared. State-sanctioned media outlets and my education system (whether intentional or not) would paint these acts in a negative light, in order to quell any similar desires of uprising in the younger generation. The below image titled “Face to Face” (Komulainen, 1990) is world famous and particularly iconic in Canada. The story of why it came to be was never thoroughly explained, though through my own investigations over the years I learned that the origin of the Oka Crisis was due to the proposed expansion of a golf course and the development of townhouses on disputed land in the Pines that included a Kanyen'kehà:ka burial ground. (The Canadian Encyclopaedia, 2023.) I was only ever supplied the one perspective from traditional media and educational sources, and so I only had so many examples in which to base my knowledge of both this event and my wider understanding of activism from.

Face to Face (1990) by Shany Komulainen, taken at an impromptu moment.

As I became more world-wizened, less self-centred and perhaps more open-minded, this image broadened. Activism was now more about the people, the cause, the actual actions that were responsible for real change. I saw not just the fiery passionate side of activism, but also the humanity, the empathetic side about helping fellow man, fellow creature, and the planet. Perhaps it was also the continued exposure to different opinions and arguments for and against various causes that granted me this insight via my use of the internet that aided in this personal evolution.

Be that as it may, is easy to get lost in this quagmire of meaning, especially when the digital nature of our world has allowed for rapid knowledge-sharing and the exposure to hundreds of thousands of types of information daily. It is hard to parse through what is considered performative, negative, and harmful activism, versus what is beneficial to the causes that are being championed. But as someone who is considered a digital native, it is difficult for me to now imagine activism not being mostly a digital endeavour. To answer the question what is digital activism you have to understand it mainly revolves around spreading awareness, sharing resources, and gathering support while interacting with digital mediums. This could be social media platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook, etc. Or even the very act of activism (such as direct actions like protests, speeches, evidence of wrongdoing) being captured via video and photography which is then shared can fall into this category. All contribute to the goal, which is further action by the masses and those in power. It is about combining, as we had discussed, direct actions and strategic activities that then capitalise on the utilities social media can provide to reach wider audiences and connect people together. It is about organisation and creating a larger impact, something more easily done now then by the activists operating in the pre-internet age simply because sharing knowledge is easier than ever.

However, as noted by a study conducted earlier this year, the authors gathered the opinions and findings of other researchers to determine the consensus of the value of digital activism.  “Some authors have defined digital activism by focusing on the orientation of its actions towards its digital quality (Bennett; Segerberg, 2012; 2013; George; Leidner, 2019 as cited in Castillo-Esparcia et al., 2023 p. 2), which is problematic as it focuses exclusively on this condition, sometimes ignoring its contextual character as a socio-political act.” (Özkula, 2021 as cited in Castillo-Esparcia et al., 2023 p. 2). They also note that some authors have analysed the emergence of digital activism in social media as “a devalued mode of activism, ineffective for social change and whose main function is to make the practitioner feel good.” (Gladwell, 2010; Miller, 2017; Morozov, 2011 as cited in Castillo-Esparcia et al., 2023 p. 3). They mention terms such as slacktivism, lounge activism and clicktivism that all describe the use of social media tools that require little to no effort or commitment, including liking, retweeting, reposting, online petitions, etc. (Halupka, 2018 as cited in Castillo-Esparcia et al., 2023 p. 3) I think it is important to consider these aspects of digital activism when it is being utilised for a cause, along with the benefits that are mostly what we focus on.

How is one to discern what is considered good activism and what is not?  I believe it is best to look at activism as a spectrum that encompasses many different types of forms and mediums. Personally, the activism I would be interested in championing falls in the middle of the two schools of thought, incorporating anarchy, but involving community. The “digital” in digital activism should be an extension, a tool of activism itself, not the crux of it. Otherwise, we run the risk of losing sight of what is important, which has always been, making the world a better place.

Bibliography

Castillo-Esparcia, A., Caro-Castaño, L. and Almansa-Martínez, A. (2023) ‘Evolution of digital activism on social media: opportunities and challenges’, El Profesional de la Información, 32(3), pp. 1–16. doi:10.3145/epi.2023.may.03.

Komulainen, S. (1990) Face to Face. Available at: https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/a-warrior-a-soldier-and-a-photographer-remembering-the-oka-crisis/article_23702ad7-767e-5a81-8a68-c81ea96b1f91.html