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[thedigitaluniverse-blog]

Critical Analysis Post #3 - Week 6: Digital Citizenship 2: Activism and protest

Source: <http://blog.actionsprout.com/social-media-slacktivism-nonprofits/>.

          Do we underestimate or overestimate the power of social media when it comes to activism? Can it really be the most effective way to start a revolution in this day and age? There have been many instances where social media has been used as a tool to instigate political change, but some may say that this can discredit the actions done by those in real life – those who stand up and do something about it (Gerbaudo 2012). After the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011, journalists were quick to credit the power social media had in uniting the public (Youmans & York 2012).

          Certainly, it gave affordances to the public such as lowering geographical boundaries for activist communication, physical gatherings could be organised and member morale could be maintained. Conversely, there can be security risks when relying on social media for such tasks. To be effective, social media might only be best when used alongside an activist movement, as there is also a risk that there will be inaction in real life despite a strong campaign online (Youmans & York 2012).

Source: <http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/01/201112515334871490.html>.

The Dangers of Social Media Activism

          Social media may enable activists to communicate and have their voice be heard. However, as many social media companies are based in the US, the security and information laws differ from those of foreign countries. According to Youmans and York (2012), foreign governments request these US companies to surrender user data or to remove content from their service. Any successful attempts to do so may reveal the identities of anonymous activists and can especially cause harm if that information was leaked to the public or they were arrested due to a lack of freedom of speech laws.

          Additionally, the algorithms or reporting mechanisms on social media such as YouTube may cause activist content to be temporarily or permanently suspended, thus losing the material’s strength in reach or relevance. During the Syrian uprisings, videos capturing the brutal violence of the regime were posted but taken down due to it violating YouTube’s policies in regards to showing graphic content. However these policies were adjusted to ensure that videos in this context could stay, as to not hide the truth of the events.

Slacktivism and You

Source: <http://www.disaster-ology.com/home/2015/12/2/in-contemplation-of-activism-and-defense-of-slacktivism-revisited>.

          ‘Slacktivism’ describes the act of putting a minimal amount of effort toward a cause, often for a person to feel like they contributed without actually doing anything. If anything, it helps with awareness of a cause, but rarely does it go further. A perfect example of this would be the social media craze surrounding Kony 2012, a campaign that put all of its effort into the marketing and hardly anything toward reaching their goal of finding and arresting warlord Joseph Kony (Kligler-Vilenchik & Thorson 2015). 

          Another campaign that struggled with slacktivism was the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Many were happy to take part in the challenge, however many either dropped the ‘ALS’ when referring to it, or did not actually know what ALS was or what the challenge was for. The public were distracted with taking part in the challenge, and unfortunately not many were donating money, which was what the campaign was intended to encourage.

Source: <https://au.pinterest.com/divagirlrobin/ice-bucket-challenge/>.

References

Gerbaudo, P 2012, Tweets and the streets: Social media and contemporary activism, Pluto Press, London.

Kligler-Vilenchik, N & Thorson, K 2015, ‘Good citizenship as a frame contest: Kony2012, memes, and critiques of the networked citizen’, New Media and Society, vol. 18, no. 9, pp. 1993-2011.

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.

[thedigitaluniverse-blog]

Critical Analysis Post #2 - Week 5: Politics and civic cultures

Source: <http://associationsnow.com/2013/04/pew-online-political-activity-leads-to-offline-activism/>.

          The future keeps changing before it happens. First, the Twitter Revolution which was set to change the nature of politics, and the Facebook Revolution which was also a major influence (Jericho 2013, p.256). As millions of Australians move their attention to the internet and away from traditional media, the way in which information is given must be adapted (Young 2010). The days of which broadcast culture dominated national and global communication may be over, but it does not necessarily mean that participatory culture holds all the power in political and wider cultural discourse. However, it is clear that both have their own strengths and weaknesses, and the introduction and popularity of the internet has caused things to be restructured.

Source: <http://mappingonlinepublics.net/2016/10/24/atnix-australian-twitter-news-index-september-2016/>.

Is it a revolution or not?

          Twitter has been regarded by many as a platform that can effectively host accurate discourse representative of wider society (Jericho 2013). In Australia, the 2010 election was considered to be heavily influenced by political discourse on Twitter from a combination of public discussion and the presence of politicians. However, in 2011 it was found that there was likely only 150,000 supposedly active Australian Twitter accounts, which represented about 0.6% of the population (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2011). Of course, a smaller percentage of those would have contributed to the political discourse of 2010’s election, and such a small pool of people would likely not represent the entirety of the nation.

Source: <www.hca.westernsydney.edu.au/gmjau/archive/v6_2012_2/amin_ansari_RA.html>.

          That being said, Twitter does provide a platform for voters to congregate in a virtual space and communicate when newspapers, television, and even physical gatherings might not be able to facilitate open discussion on political topics on such a massive scale. Even if change is not initiated by an online presence, social media is effective in raising awareness of issues and policies (Jericho 2013). Further, as voters who have grown up with social media begin to understand the minutiae of social media trends and can identify useful and true information on the internet, perhaps change could be instigated more effectively (Jericho 2013). Opposed to this is what Eli Pariser (2011) calls the filter bubble, referring to the increased effect of algorithms which limit the information users are shown to what they are already interested in. This could potentially provide a barrier to informing users of diverse political views and thus could perhaps cause awareness and discourse to be limited online.

Is there a necessity for politicians to have a social media presence in order to be successful?

          Some politicians, particularly President Barack Obama, have managed to apply an effective social media campaign. Jericho (2013) mentions that Twitter users like people who are in on the joke and are prepared to laugh at themselves. This could be because it shows that politicians are able to come down from the hierarchy and communicate horizontally, and they treat fellow users as people. The ability to humanise themselves on social media can be an asset, as more and more young voters who are internet savvy can see through dishonest online representation. Australian political profiles shifted over time from a traditional broadcasting structure on social media, to a more personalised presence in order to look human, appear competent, be transparent and thus trustworthy, and avoid obvious spamming of propaganda.

References

Australian Bureau of Statistics 2011, 2011 Census quickstats, ABS, viewed 10 December 2016, <http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2011/quickstat/0>.

Jericho, G 2012, 'How many votes are there on Twitter?', in The Rise of the Fifth Estate, Scribe, Victoria, Australia.

Pariser, E 2011, ‘Introduction’, The filter bubble: what the internet is hiding from you, Viking, London, pp. 1-20.

Young, S 2010, 'News, political reporting and the internet', in How Australia Decides, Cambridge University Press, Victoria, Australia.

[thedigitaluniverse-blog]

“I share therefore I am”

          After reading @romeofoxtrotblog​‘s post, I was reminded of a video by PBS Idea Channel from a while back called If There Are No Pics, Did It Happen? 

          I think that this is relevant not only to Turkle’s (TED-ED 2013) argument about how new media is connecting us and forming identities, but also to the concepts of this week’s content, Politics and Civic Cultures. Jericho (2012) wrote about how the generation of those growing up with constant exposure to social media will be able to filter out the hidden gems from the rest of the internet noise, thus being more adept at controlling and understanding the nature of social media and the intentions of its content.

Source: <https://youtu.be/OQxEGLOFyto>.

References

Jericho, G 2012, 'How many votes are there on Twitter?', in The Rise of the Fifth Estate, Scribe, Victoria, Australia.

TED-Ed 2013, Connected, but alone?- Sherry Turkle, 19 April, viewed 10 December 2016, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv0g8TsnA6c>.

[thedigitaluniverse-blog]

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This blog will be analysing weekly content for Digital Communities MDA20009 looking at the effects and theories of social media and the communities of the internet.

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