Week 6: Digital Citizenship 2: Activism and Protest
The definition of activism is the policy or action of using vigorous campaigning to bring about political or social change.
The definition of protest is to make a statement or action to show disapproval or objection to something.
If you combine them together you have someone who is campaigning passionately about an objection or showing disapproval to a certain topic.
Week 6 of the unit, we explore Digital Citizenship 2: Activism and Protest. Personally for me I have never really been interested in politics and generally only will view or gain interest in topics if I can find a familiarity.
My point of view of digital or social media based protest is being able to comment and not really have to physically do anything, which is a different view from physically protesting in a March, gathering or traditional stand off. It's almost a quick and easy way to protest without having to put much effort into it. Lemert (1981) wrote about protest in having to effectively protest is based on Three requirements; identify, location and tactical information, all Three can be used found and assist an online socialist protestor. Social media is just a tool to effectively enable someone to protest, like other forms of media (Valenzuela 2013).
Isabel Mackenzie, 91, chains herself to a tree on the Western Highway at Buangor (The Courier 2015)
The above picture was a local lady who chained herself to a tree protesting the wrong doing of a state government authority VicRoads, where the authority removed many trees over and above the number that was communicated to local residents in order to duplicate a highway between Ballarat Victoria and Ararat Victoria. This stretch of road and initiative was proposed and carried out as it was a prone area for collisions and road fatalities.
I have seen many types of socialist protest including groups that would be considered Racist, defamatory and just plain wrong. In this day and age there is a lot of socialist, racist media. Could a form of sharing your views just a matter of liking or sharing one of these forms of media?
Boyd, D 2012, Participating in the Always On Lifestyle, in Mandiberg (ed) The Social Media Reader, NYU Press, pp. 71-76.
Dahlberg-Grundberg, M 2016, ‘Technology as movement: on hybrid organizational types and the mutual constitution of movement identity and technological infrastructure in digital activism’. Convergence. The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, vol.22. no 5, pp. 524-54
Gerbaudo, P 2012, Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism, Pluto, London.
The Courier. (2017). Grandmother, 91, chains herself to tree near Buangor to protest roadworks. [online] Available at: http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/2947347/grandmother-91-chains-herself-to-tree-near-buangor-to-protest-roadworks/#slide=1 [Accessed 14 Jan. 2017].
Valenzuela, S., 2013. Unpacking the use of social media for protest behavior the roles of information, opinion expression, and activism. American Behavioral Scientist, 57(7), pp.920-942.
Youmans, W, & York, J 2012, 'Social Media and the Activist Toolkit: User Agreements, Corporate Interests, and the Information Infrastructure of Modern Social Movements’, Journal of Communication, vol. 62, no. 2, pp. 315-329
