#digital movement

[solis-salutis]

“The first stirrings of Solarpunk emerged online around 2008, with a noticeable expansion around 2014. At least until now, its dispersed internet origins have mostly kept it from a single authoritative definition or decisive political bent. Some Solarpunks invoke the speciated futures of Donna Haraway and the disaster utopias of Rebecca Solnit, while others say their ideals fit squarely within the “wider tradition of the decentralist left”; some cite the sci-fi canon of the New Weird or Cli-Fi (climate fiction), one claims “post-nihilism,” and a recent book adds dragons to the mix. While this diversity of vision is the whole point, one also finds mention of the “core community of stewards who know who they are.” Like many born-digital movements, especially those tolerant of anonymity, Solarpunk grapples with what inclusivity means in practice. If everyone’s responsible for it, no one’s responsible for it, too.  “

[deejayorr]

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[ambermehmet]

From Social Movement to Social Media: Exploration into Whether Digital Movements Actually Work

Above: Black Lives Matter Movement Protest Poster (Wong, 2020).

Slacktivism or Activism? Today’s blog post will explore whether social movements really do excel on social media platforms, and if this leads to action offline.

Information is encouraged to be distributed widely online through Instagram stories, Twitter retweets and Facebook shares. With the increasing reliance of today’s social interactions being online (Grabowicz et al, 2012), social media platforms are the hub of information for many users. According to media theory we internalise the media that we consume, this is known as the hypodermic needle model (Cooper, 2019), this links to movements as it suggests media users internalise social values which inevitably results in social change.

The Black Lives Matter movement had a huge impact on social media with the #blackouttuesday and petitions that soared over every Instagram profile. This was following the video of George Floyd’s death flooded platforms sparking controversy over police brutality and institutional racism. Former police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murder in April 2021 (BBC, 2021). Many police officers do not receive a charge for the police brutality or assault they commit (ibid.). The murder of George Floyd indicated the beginning of justice from police brutality. I do not believe this could have been achieved without the popularity of the case on social media, the viral petitions and the many people with celebrity and political status speaking out about systematic racism. Following the murder of Sarah Everand in March 2021 a movement on the issue of violence against women inundated social media. This incident resulted in women campaigning against the violence against women and gender-based violence (Rodriguez, 2021). This gave women a platform to talk of their experiences, similar to the #MeToo movement. Other recent movements include: the green movement, LGBTQ rights movement and the mental health movement (Wickens, 2019). 

Commonly, online activism includes ‘liking’ and posting comments which Skoric (2012) argues is pointless. Many will participate online and will not participate in offline peaceful protests and other events created to support the movement in person (ibid.). This type of participation has been criticised and has been termed slacktivism (Mariachal, 2013). Slacktivism is described as using low effort to engage with a movement to improve self-satisfaction than for political advantages (Skoric, 2012). However, McCafferty (2011) argues that online activism draws attention to the movement, nevertheless whether action is taken, and it makes a significant lasting impact.

The previous research suggests social media is a great platform to strengthen and expand a movement (Mundt et al, 2018). Freelon et al’s (2016) research into the Black Lives Matter movement suggests that social media platforms are essential for growing and raising awareness of contemporary movements. Nevertheless, slacktivism is a common feature of online activism. Therefore, social media movements are not enough to achieve full social change and for action to persist, but it is a good start.

Bibliography

BBC. (2021). George Floyd: Jury finds Derek Chauvin guilty of murder. Retrieved 16 May, 2021, from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56818766

Cooper, L. (2019). STUART HALL’S ENCODING/DECODING THEORY V THE HYPODERMIC NEEDLE THEORY. Retrieved 19 May, 2021, from https://laurencoopersmith.wordpress.com/2019/01/24/stuart-halls-encoding-decoding-theory-and-the-hypodermic-needle-theory/

Freelon, D., McIlwain, C. D., & Clark, M. (2016). Beyond the hashtags:# Ferguson,# Blacklivesmatter, and the online struggle for offline justice. Center for Media & Social Impact, American University, Forthcoming. http://archive.cmsimpact.org/sites/default/files/beyond_the_hashtags_2016.pdf

Grabowicz, P. A., Ramasco, J. J., Moro, E., Pujol, J. M., & Eguiluz, V. M. (2012). Social features of online networks: The strength of intermediary ties in online social media. PloS one, 7(1), e29358. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0029358

Marichal, J. (2013). Political Facebook groups: Micro-activism and the digital front stage. First Monday.https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/download/4653/3800

McCafferty, D. (2011). Activism vs. slacktivism. Communications of the ACM, 54(12), 17-19. https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/2043174.2043182

Mundt, M., Ross, K., & Burnett, C. M. (2018). Scaling social movements through social media: The case of Black Lives Matter. Social Media+ Society, 4(4), 2056305118807911. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2056305118807911

Rodriguez, L. (2021). What Sarah Everard's Murder Tells Us About How Gender-Based Violence Is Handled Worldwide. Retrieved 15 May, 2021, from https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/sarah-everard-murder-london-gender-violence/

Skoric, M. M. (2012). What is slack about slacktivism. Methodological and conceptual issues in cyber activism research, 77, 77-92. https://ari.nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/InterAsiaRoundtable-2012.pdf#page=83

Wickens, C. (2019). TOP 10 SOCIAL CHANGE MOVEMENTS. Retrieved 26 May, 2021, from https://www.kgmoore.co.uk/top-10-social-change-movements/ 

Wong, B. (2020). Activism: Not this without also this [Photograph]. Huffingtonpost.co.uk. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ally-posts-social-media-support-protests_l_5ed676c1c5b68b11fa256ab3

[mobilizebrasil]

Ebook: Creating Social Movements for Change

Neste manual elaborado pela Alliance of Youth Movements, aprenda como construir um movimento digital de impacto, incluindo instruções específicas de como criar uma plataforma digital, recrutar apoiadores, construir um discurso de impacto, engajar voluntários e receber atenção da mídia.

Clique aqui para fazer o download.

[ali-murray-blog]

Digital Movement Debrief

The clicking is boring. No clicking.

Use a pedometer instead

Consider making an app as a final project. (I’m going to write more about this later.)

Icons are impersonal and it’s not obvious that they’re links.

Give a way to save the count.

Think of it as a map, uncovering little but interesting aspects each time.

Raise the stakes so people have interest in the project.

More writing!

[ali-murray-blog]

It’s “done”! Or at least, iteration #2 is. I’m going to put some spoiler-y information about the project under the readmore.

Overall, it turned out all right. Parts could be prettier or more interesting, but given that this was my first time using Javascript, I’m pretty satisfied. I ended up clocking it in at around 18 hours, but I think that can reasonably be adjusted to 14 with the time I spent smashing my face against my keyboard in frustration subtracted.

The project is intentionally unplayable. I added some interactive storytelling moments to make the relentless clicking more interesting, although still by no means survivable. The reader can access the full project by viewing the page source or otherwise manipulating it. Besides that, there are no shortcuts. My workshop group kind of hated that, but they understood it more when I brought up this point: I want the project to feel like work because it’s very personal. The highest numbers are things that I would not be willing to share for just a few clicks. There’s a currency involved, where the clicker must need to invest time and effort to get to know me. GASP! Just like a real relationship. My metaphors are so deft. I also wanted to play around with ideas of distance (something that fascinates me) and time (something I’m afraid of). It was fun. I played a lot, and I think that’s definitely a good thing.

[ali-murray-blog]

Thank goodness. Now I can do more tweaks.