#actvisim

CELEBRATE DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.'S LEGACY!

Invisible Disability Project

The online world has certainly changed the game for activists - whether it's for the better or worse is up to you.

The use of social media has made spreading a message and getting a voice heard much easier for activist organisations, especially in a global sense. With the ability to create petitions, events and articles and then share them on social media platforms to millions across the globe, activists are now able to create more momentum and gain more supporters than ever before. The flip side to this is the rise of ‘clicktvisim’ - the act of supporting a cause from a simple click of the mouse. Clicktivism has led to people signing an online petition, boosting their ‘good person’ status as they feel they've helped create change, but never actually going out to actively contribute.

source: https://tenor.com/view/im-trying-to-be-good-trying-good-better-person-kristen-bell-gif-11002922

#BlackLivesMatter is said to have been one of the first notable examples of online activism after being created in 2013, following the release of George Zimmerman - an American man who fatally shot 17-year-old African-American Trayvon Martin. The hashtag was created by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi to fight against the unjust violence experienced by the “Black communities by the state and vigilantes” as stated on their website. The hashtag gained global momentum quickly which has resulted in almost 3,000 protests occurring since 2014 and in 2018 it was estimated by Pew Research Center that #BlackLivesMatter featured in over 17,000 tweets per day. Without this support that has stemmed from their social media presence, the movement may not have been able to (or at least it would’ve taken a lot more time and effort) make the political changes they have - the charging of police officers for their crimes, the banning of police departments from obtaining military equipment, and the increased wear of body cameras by the police, enabling the correct accountability to be held in such instances. 

source: https://giphy.com/gifs/black-lives-matter-7iL3tke98yuA

Other successful online activism campaigns include #MeToo, #HeForShe, the #ALSIceBucketChallenge and #MarchForOurLives. Whilst all of these have used social media to their advantage and fought for their courses both on and offline, I think it is important to note the vital role social media played for #MarchForOurLives. This hashtag was created to fight for tighter gun laws in the United States by student survivors of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018. The hashtag allowed these students to reach an audience so large that more than 450 marches took place across the US on the weekend of March 24-25 2018. The entire event was organised online and picked up an enormous amount of press and recognition from high profile celebrities and influencers, resulting in the march becoming the largest youth-led protest since the Vietnam War era.

These examples all rely on, or stem from, the use of the hashtag that I’ve discussed before as an affordance that has given a whole new meaning to Twitter and made social media all the more connected, across platforms. Of course, online activism comes in all different forms just as anything does. Adbsuters does an incredible job at breaking down the advertising we constantly are exposed to and challenging consumerism. They protest serious topics in a way that manages to be taken seriously despite its light-hearted nature, often using culture jamming. Culture jamming focuses on interrupting advertisements and revealing the underlying ideologies, exposing the propaganda that often lurks below. 

source: https://www.adbusters.org/spoof-ads

As both a participant and an academic of social movements, the idea of a social movement lifecycle is not a new theory to me. What I found particularly interesting was how delicate this lifecycle can be. Leaders and activists must be aware of this fragility well in advance to be able step back and prepare for the next stage. The Engler’s use Bill Moyer’s Movement Action Plan (MAP) to address the very high ups and downs of social movements. High periods when activists engage in confrontation and consolidate their gains over an issue are followed by low periods when the issue is no longer front page news and the spike in activity subsides. These lows usually stretch out for long periods of time, and you are left wondering how do you keep people engaged?

Understanding the lifecycle of movements, I couldn’t help but wonder what effects online communities have on this cycle. With the saturation of online communities and social media, I am afraid that more and more social movements are destined to fail. These online communities negatively impact the mobilization of people, lack real calls to action, and have people engaging in the idea self-glorifying “easy activism”.

We live in a culture now where people think that signing up for a nonprofit's newsletter, retweeting that tweet on global warming, or sharing a Upworthy video is activism. These people who “do the right thing” a lot, get confused. They think that by doing a good thing; nominating a friend for the Ice Bucket Challenge, they are somehow making the world a better place, but in reality they are not. Looking across the internet, it is easy to find the majority of people use online communities first and foremost to make themselves feel good. They are not really affecting any real change. This “easy activism” is taking away from movements that really need people to actually get up and mobilize.

The last thing that really struck me in this article was Moyer’s definition of the job of the activist. He says that, “the job of the activist is to alert, educate, and win over an ever-increasing majority of the public”. With all the clutter screaming for your attention on the internet how can social media or online communities achieve any of these ideals? Even if something as well intentioned as Israel Loves Iran goes viral and wins over an ever-increasing majority, is it really working to make a sustainable change in the world?