Week 9 - Digital Communities, political engagement and activism
As we all know, checking a post for likes, comments and shares is an effortless task, this is the beauty of the digital era. Something as easy and simple as clicking a button, signifying that you ‘like’ the content can be very powerful, it takes less than a second and happens over 4.2 billion times a day on Instagram alone (Exalted Digital, 2020). In the past activists have failed to garner support as they were reliant on physical advertising and word of mouth to reach their audience.
Thankfully, the modern activist is able to utilise social media to pierce the public sphere to generate awareness and grow a following for their cause. This support is far more tangible as a ‘like’ is physical data and equates to the same as a person standing in the street with a sign vociferously.
Activism involves a lot of vigorous campaigning with the end goal being to establish political or social change.
That being said, it is extremely important for the campaign message to be clear and well structured. A theory of change is used to help guide these communities so that their push for change is more likely to receive its desired outcome, rather than fail as a result of a quick dismissal (Whelan, 2020). Once perfected, this theory of change can be quickly shared to unify people and amplify their power and voice. Social media is a campaigner’s greatest ally as content can be distributed rapidly, transparently and accessibly through the viral nature of these online platforms so that others can learn about and offer their support to the cause (Murthy, 2018).
Nowadays, campaigns thrive online as they can be uploaded immediately, complimented by photography, video and hashtags, they’re borderless and easily managed whilst they build and grow an audience (Stickels, 2020). Ultimately, the digital environment that social media platforms reside in has proven to be an ideal location to host a campaign and promote activist ideologies as well as spread the word in an accessible and speedy manner.
If activism is something you engage in or find interesting, reading up on the black lives matter hashtag is a great way to involve yourself further and learn about the evolution of tags and how they work to push messages in the online space - Click Here to read further.
Exalted Digital 2020, Social Media Statistics - World + Australia - Digital Marketing Agency Canberra, viewed 23 May, 2020, <https://www.exalteddigital.com/social-media-statistics-world-australia/>.
Murthy, D 2018, "Introduction to Social Media, Activism, and Organizations", Social Media + Society, vol. 4, no. 1, viewed 23 May, 2020, <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2056305117750716>.
Stickels, L 2020, ‘Lecture 9. Digital Communities, political engagement and activism’, MDA20009 Digital Communities, Learning materials via Canvas, Swinburne University of Technology.
Whelan, J 2020, "Theories of Change", The Change Agency, viewed 23 May, 2020, <http://www.thechangeagency.org/theories-of-change/>.
