Speaking My Truth

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My Digital Intervention #VoteRightThisTime

Studying this module, ‘Digital Activism’ has been a total learning experience for me, my confidence and passion for the social issues that I am interested in has heightened. This module has also given me the opportunity to explore and apply various forms of creative activism in my present reality and this has generally given me a great sense of purpose.

Now it was time to apply all that I have learnt in the past few weeks, the task of my final presentation was to create an intervention and in details present the research process and proposed impact of my intervention, so allow me introduce to you my digital intervention titled ‘VOTE RIGHT THIS TIME ‘

AIM

The aim of my intervention is creating awareness on the effects of bad governance in Nigeria while citing a very notable incident that shook the country (END SARS PROTEST) and encouraging civic participation in the democratic process by VOTING RIGHT THIS TIME at the upcoming Presidential and Gubernatorial elections in February 2023

WHY?

 I chose this intervention because it is very relatable and it is the present reality of my target audience, NIGERIA.

TARGET AUDIENCE 

18 - 27 years old youths living in Nigeria: they form a major part of the voting populace in Nigeria, my reason for choosing this target audience is to awaken political consciousness among the youths 

EXECUTION 

I created a short documentary titled VOTE RIGHT THIS TIME and an online campaign on Twitter using the HASHTAG (highlight this) #VoteRightThisTime 

I chose a documentary and a Twitter campaign because these approaches will capture the attention span of my target audience

IMPACT 

To create a strong political awareness culture among the Nigerian Youths for the future as they are the ''Leaders of tomorrow''.

DISTRIBUTION 

The documentary will be posted on my Instagram and YouTube, the online campaign on Twitter is presently ongoing and the conversations are organic and from my target audience.

PROJECTION 

I see this campaign evolving into content for social media ads and TV commercials, it will serve as a call to other content creators to use their platforms to lend their voices and this will result to more awareness on this topic.

Here’s the short documentary

I am grateful for this learning experience and the journey doesn't stop here for me as a Digital Activist

REFERENCES 

BBC  NEWS (2020) BBC, Available at : https://youtu.be/Z00A0xMqw0U (Accessed 1st December,2022)

Why are Nigerians protesting? The Endsars movement explained (2020) Global News, Available at: https://youtu.be/DTFofOXS5PU (Accessed 1st December,2022)

 POLICE BRUTALITY AT END SARS MEMORIAL -ARISE NEWS REPORT (2021) Arise News, Available at; https://youtu.be/8EE3PjR9-Og (Accessed 1st December 2022)

End Sars: What is happening in Nigeria? (2020) Sky News, Available at: https://youtu.be/eAchDmXxtKE (Accessed 1st December 2022)

#Endsars: Wizkid, Activists Protest Police Brutality in London (2020) Channels Television, Available at: https://youtu.be/NntCH0g1THQ (Accessed 1st December 2022)

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My First Gallery Experience in London

As part of my course activity on Digital Activism, we visited two exhibitions, the goal was to explore different forms of creative activism in past and present time and also to see how these exhibitions explore activist themes through a range of media forms. The first gallery was the Barbican Art Gallery and we went there specifically for Carolee Schneemann’s Boy Politics exhibition.

DISCLAIMER; I do not own the exclusive rights to the images in this post and some images might contain nudity. Also, this post is not for a commercial purpose.

Carolee Schneemann was a radical artist who remains a feminist icon and point of reference for numerous contemporary artists to this day. Addressing urgent topics from sexual expression and the objectification of women to human suffering and the violence of war, her work is concerned with the precarious lived experience of humans and animals. The exhibition featured the artist’s early paintings; her experimental sculptural assemblages and kinetic works; her pioneering performance work in which she used her own body as a medium; her ground-breaking group performances; as well as her lyrical films and immersive multi-media installations. With over 200 objects and rarely seen archival material, this exhibition positions Schneemann as one of the most relevant, provocative and inspiring artists of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries (Barbican, 2022). Find all the information about the exhibition below.

Carolee Schneemann | Barbican

The first major survey of Carolee Schneemann’s work in the UK, tracing her diverse, transgressive and interdisciplinary expression over six

The Guardian described the exhibition as ‘a thrilling show that captures the sheer scope of a phenomenal artist’ and I totally agree, what I loved the most about Schneemann’s works is how she expressed her views on Feminism through various media forms, the medium might have been different but the message was the same. I also loved how she was intentional about documenting her life, she was very self-aware and she took pride in the importance of her work to the world and how it will change the narrative for the unborn generation.

 Today, Feminism is in the forefront of world views and women are excelling in various fields, seeing this exhibition helped me identify Carolee Schneemann as one of the pacesetters in using art as a form of creative activism. It is also important to note that her works and personality was negatively criticised, some called her a Narcissist for centering her works around her image and body, this goes to show that as an Activist, your views and message will always be criticised, you just have to stay away from the noise and focus on the theme of your message.

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The second exhibition we visited was Utopia now! at the Science Gallery, London. Utopia Now! showcases creative works form South London that was made during the pandemic. Researchers have used different storytelling platforms ranging from zines, film, poems, flash fiction, short plays and Minecraft to encourage young people to think critically about the present, speculate about the world to come, and even at times to think beyond what may currently seem possible and this was the purpose of the exhibition. (Science Gallery Lonon, n.d)

. Find out more about this exhibition below

What's on — Science Gallery London

I loved this exhibition because of its approach and how it engaged young adults. In all, these exhibitions have influenced my views on applying creativity to activism while still strongly retaining the theme and message.

REFERENCES

Barbican (2022). Carolee Schneemann | Barbican. Available at: https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2022/event/carolee-schneemann-body-politics [Accessed 13 Dec. 2022].

Science Gallery London. (n.d.), Available at: https://london.sciencegallery.com/whats-on-science-gallery-london [Accessed 13 Dec. 2022].

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Articulating a Protest

Without doubt Protests are one of the most common approaches to Activism and this approach has effectively achieved results over the years. My first encounter with a Protest was back in my university days where the student union staged a protest to clamour for better living conditions for students living on campus, this protest came with a major backlash from the school authorities as we were all sent home for some months to reflect on our actions. In reality they listened and there was a major upgrade on the school campus. This incidence made me realize that protests can come in a radical form but the results most times are always worth it.

In my opinion, the two major factors to consider when articulating a protest is PURPOSE and MEDIUM. Purpose is the reason for the protest, you have to really ask this question individually or as a collective; ‘Is this issue important enough to stage a protest and is the risk worth it?’, this will either boost your morale to do it or make you consider another approach.

Medium is simply the various ways you want to pass your message, the people/organisations you want to engage during the protest and framing the message of the protest right.

You will agree with me that the likelihood of a protest being hijacked by the wrong people and your message being misinterpreted is very high hence the need to pay major attention to framing the message of the protest right and being on top of the conversations about the protest (check 2nd blog post on framing activism).

There are two levels of protest clarification.

On one hand, it means finding a language for protest, a vocalization, verbalization, or visualization of political protest. On the other hand, this combination of terms also describes the structure or internal organization of the protest movement. In other words, there are two different types of concatenation of different elements, one is the symbol level and the other is the political power level. The dynamics of desire and denial, attraction and repulsion, contradiction and convergence of various elements play out on both levels. In relation to protest, the problem of articulation concerns the organization of that expression, but also the expression of that organization. (Steyeri, 2022).

Steyeri’s explanation above made me reflect on the #EndSars protest in Nigeria and its overall effect, this has also given me direction on the goal of the intervention I want to create.

REFERENCES Steyeri. H. (2002). The Articulation of Protest. transversal texts. Available at: https://transversal.at//0303/steyerl/en [Accessed 11 Dec. 2022].

Steyerl, H. (2009). In Defense of the Poor Image - Journal #10 November 2009 - e-flux. E-flux.com. Available at: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/10/61362/in-defense-of-the-poor-image/ [Accessed 11 Dec. 2022].

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Body Data and the Internet

The words ‘body data’ came across as a new word that I have never heard until Ghislaine Boddington’s lecture on its meaning and relevance and even after the class I discovered that there are limited sources of information on this topic and in my opinion this is because protecting your privacy and information is not the wish of rich people at the helms of affairs in technology, for this reason, I will be reflecting solely on Ghislaine Boddington’s lecture ‘who owns our body data’ and also the creative research she has done over the years ‘ the internet of bodies’ . The Internet of Bodies is a practice as research programme of work initiated by Ghislaine Boddington to encompass and expand on her two decades of research into the emergence and evolution of virtual physical blended presence and digital intimacy. This contemporary research has resulted in an extensive set of public engagement and consultancy work across a wide range of sectors, through keynote presentations, directed performances and installations, curations, discussions and writings, find more information about this below

The Internet of Bodies by Ghislaine Boddington explores her long term work into virtual physical presence and digital intimacy.

This lecture had me questioning how much information I have put out there and how much access I have given to websites to ‘harvest’ my personal data by accepting cookies every time I visit a website. Over the years I have also heard the saying that ‘DATA IS KING’, this lecture gave me more clarity of how multinationals rake in millions for themselves with the data that have been collected from innocent people who have no idea of the implications of their actions anytime they put their personal information on these platforms

In this lecture, Ghislaine Boddington took us through the various methods that her organization and people of the same belief that your data should be protected have taken to protect their personal information and the future of the human body and technology, I also found out about digital intimacy and the collective embodiment of the future. Her creative research also proposes that ‘our bodies have, in 2020, finally have become the interface. This leads to ethical considerations of the inherent issues of the data ownership of these biometric-led technologies.’ Boddington, G. (1989).

I implore anyone reading this to be more self-aware anytime you access the internet as this will help you make conscious decisions on the type of your data that you want in a public domain like the world wide web.

REFERENCES

Boddington, G. (1989). The Internet of Bodies | Ghislaine Boddington. [online], Available at: https://www.internetofbodies.net/  [Accessed 11 Dec. 2022].

University of Greenwich. (n.d.). A Nudge and a Push: Towards Ethical Sustainability in an Era of (Invisible) Data Harvesting | Research activities. [online] Available at: https://www.gre.ac.uk/research/activity/las/a-nudge-and-a-push [Accessed 11 Dec. 2022].

History.com Editors (2019). The Invention of the Internet. [online] HISTORY. Available at: https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/invention-of-the-internet. (Accessed 11 Dec 2022)

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Articulating A Manifesto

Prior to now, I have always thought that a ‘manifesto’ was a word that only academic scholars and people in politics use as I didn’t fully grasp the meaning of a manifesto, now I know that the word doesn’t belong to any sect or class of people as a Manifesto is simply a declaration of your intent and as long as freedom of speech and expression exists, anyone can write a manifesto. Furthermore, a manifesto can be created by an individual or by a collective with the same vision. Simply put, a manifesto is a public declaration of intent and this declaration can be achieved through various forms.

I learnt through this workshop that when creating a manifesto, you need to reflect on these questions;

What do you want to achieve with this manifesto?

What’s the future you desire?

Who can you share your manifesto with?

These three questions will give direction and form to your manifesto

An example of a manifesto that I saw and loved at first read is Helen Reddy’s ‘I Am A Woman’, this piece is so powerful as it is her bold declaration of her being a woman and the audacity and strength that cones with it.

The highlight of this manifesto workshop was the class activity, we were grouped and directed to create a spontaneous manifesto. My group came up with a manifesto titled “STOP HATE CRIME”. See it below

What I loved the most about this exercise was that it was a collective intervention and every members view was represented in the manifesto, another level was unlocked for me on my journey as a Digital Activist.

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Hashtags and Memes, do they really pass the message?

Let me start by saying that this post is not a debate on the impact of hashtags and memes on Digital Activism, this post is about identifying hashtags and memes as a useful form of creative activism in this fast-moving digital world. I believe that by the end of this post you will be able to decide if you want to employ hashtags and memes when engaging in any form of activism.

In academia, there have been various attempts to define a ‘meme’, from my readings the conversations have been around identifying the borders of a meme, what forms a meme?. Memes differ from iconic images and from viral texts that do not experience much alteration. They are never fixed symbols, stories or icons, but interactive aesthetic artefacts that provide a snapshot of the immediate tendencies of culture and public discourses (Goriunova, 2013).

According to Anastasia Denisova “Memes are a phenomenon of the Internet culture and a cherished communication artefact of our times”. In his book, Internet, Memes and Society he proposes the all-encompassing definition of memes for the Internet studies as the context-bound viral texts that proliferate on mutation and replication. He went further to state that memes are “remarkably versatile for meaning-making, emotion-sharing and attention-grabbing in the oversaturated Internet environment. Users exploit them to comment on or discuss all possible issues, from the personal to the societal. A meme is an imitable text that Internet users appropriate, adjust and share in the digital sphere. The initial text may be a hashtag, an expressive image with a tag line, a catchy tweet, an interesting comment, a YouTube video – any digital unit of expression, as long as it conveys certain meaning or emotion and encourages others to either add something to the content or shape, makes a meme prototype.” (Anastasia, 2019).  In my opinion, the above is the basic information you need to understand the concept of memes.

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Being an incomplete, half-baked joke is a remarkable characteristic that sets a meme apart from other jokes. It requires user involvement to fully understand the message. A notable example was our class activity, we were asked to create a meme on the cost-of-living crisis in the UK and below was the meme I created

At first sight, I don’t expect everyone to grab the message but if I further explain, I am very certain that whoever is seeing it will understand what I am trying to say, this is one of the distinguishing features of a meme

Hashtags are very important in the process of articulating digital activism on any social media platform, they are used to track number of engagement in conversations and can also serve as a filter when searching for a community or a topic of interest on social media. The beauty of hashtags is that it might come off as a subtle and indirect approach of activism but it has the power to strongly pass a message.

An example that cites the power of hashtags is the #ENDSARS hashtag from Nigeria that had the world talking, a conversation that started on Twitter spiraled into a world topic and this was because of the hashtag and how it trended worldwide, check the hashtag #ENDASARS for more information.

Now the choice is up to you, will you employ hashtags and memes when articulating any form of activism?

REFERENCES

Denisova, Anastasia (2019) "Chapter 3: Many uses of memes'. In Internet Memes and Society, pp. 27 - 43. New York and London: Routledge.

Goriunova, O. (2013). ‘The force of digital aesthetics: On memes, hacking, and individuation. Zeitschrift fur Medienwissenschaft, 8. Draft in English'. Available at: www.academia.edu/3065938/The_force_of_digital_aesthetics_on_memes_hacking_and_individuatiom (Accessed 7th December, 2022).

Larry Kim (2021) ‘Behold The Power Of Hashtags’ Word Stream by Loca;liq, 1st December, Available at: https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2015/07/02/twitter-hashtags (Accessed 7th December, 2022).

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Electronic Civil Disobedience as a form of Creative Activism

In my first blog titled “What is Digital Activism?” I sighted examples of some forms of Digital Activism and one thing that is synonymous with all forms of digital activism is that the message is passed in a creative way but still leaves a strong impact on the receiver(s) of the message and that right there is the beauty in the art of digital activism.

For this conversation, I will be exploring Electronic Civil Disobedience as a form of Creative Activism, to understand this, I will simply define “civil disobedience”.

According to YOUMATTER “Civil disobedience can be defined as refusing to obey a law, a regulation or a power judged unjust in a peaceful manner. Civil disobedience is, therefore, a form of resistance without violence”. With the definition above we now understand that Electronic Civil Disobedience is simply using electronic forms to achieve civil disobedience

Electronic civil disobedience was conceptualized as "dead capital" in the streets by Critical Art Ensemble. Resistance also became more dispersed and fluid as power had expanded, cyberspace was going to be the primary battlefield and the belief in the power of the cyberspace grew drastically. Two years later, EDT member, Stefan Wray said that electronic civil disobedience would become a real form of protest in the next century and he affirmed that it will not just be on a small scale, HE WAS RIGHT!

Practitioners turned it into a public spectacle, actively engaging a large number of "ordinary" participants, despite the popular belief that it should be an "underground activity”. EDT's "SWARM the Minutemen" (2005) reportedly attracted over 75,000 participants, and Electrohippies claim to have enlisted 400,000 people in their 1999 protest against the World Trade Organization.

Finding out about the above affirmed my assumptions that electronic civil disobedience gave birth to what we call digital activism today and this is because electronic civil disobedience was built on the assumed empowering potential of the internet but that’s my opinion.

As part of my reflection, I started reminiscing on active forms of digital activism that have been employed over the years by Activists in my country, Nigeria and I found some answers, find out in the next blog post haha.

REFERENCES

Ricardo Dominguez (2012) ‘On Electronic Civil Disobedience’ interviewed by Reclamation Journal, Available at https://zachblas.info/writings/on-electronic-civil-disobedience-interview-with-ricardo-dominguez/ (Accessed: 2nd November 2022)

Jara Shurety (2021) ‘What Happened to Electronic Civil Disobedience?’ HYPERALLERGIC, Available at https://hyperallergic.com/654595/what-happened-to-electronic-civil-disobedience/ (Accessed: 2nd November 2022)

YouMatter (2020) Civil Disobedience; Definition, Available at https://youmatter.world/en/definition/civil-disobedience-definition/ (Accessed: 2nd November 2022)

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FRAMING ACTIVISM, GETTING IT RIGHT

Without doubt, activism is action taken on behalf of a cause and this action goes beyond what is conventional or routine. The volatile effect of any form of Activism is a major reason why we should pay close attention to the narrative that is being “framed” through the message and actions that are conveyed by Activists. Let us delve further into understanding how framing works in Activism.

One of the best definitions I've heard is that framing is different from simply "editing your message to be more persuasive" because science states that our brains need help processing all the information that comes its way. As a result, our brains already contain associations and experiences that "frame" what we see, hear, or read hence making it possible to experiment with messages that can "reframe" how people perceive and respond to your issue.

An example of framing is in the image below, researchers showed members of the public two identical articles about an urban crime wave: when crime was described as a ‘beast’ it provoked more support for police enforcement, but when the metaphor was changed to ‘virus’ readers were more sympathetic to social reform.

The above briefly explains how the effect of framing on Human Beings.

In a bid to explore activism from all angles it is also important to touch briefly on the relationship between Mainstream Media and Digital Activism. My observation is that the relationship between mainstream media and digital activism has been made effective mainly through social media. New ways of interacting with journalists are being promoted by social movements in a new setting marked by citizen empowerment.

While I was researching on this topic, it created an opportunity for self-reflection on social issues I am passionate about, I can proudly say that I have started exploring the various digital mediums that will be effective in lending my voice on these social issues. I also found out that "shaping the narrative" is frequently used as a euphemism for "thinking bigger," according to my experience, what they refer to as "narrative" refers to a broader worldview that is influenced by stories and framing, what they are attempting to accomplish is something more comprehensive and long-term that draws from both stories and other evidence.

REFERENCES

Sho Konno (2020) Bluffer's Guide to Framing, Available at https://shiverdownspine.com/2020/02/29/bluffers-guide-to-framing-2020-high-contrast/  (Accessed: 2nd November, 2022)

‘Coalition Building’, (2014), Britannica, Available at https://www.activisthandbook.org/en/organising/coalition-building  (Accessed: 2nd November, 2022)

 Keven M. Carragee (2019). 'Communication, activism and the news media: an agenda for future research'. Communication and Society 32(4).

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What is Digital Activism?

Over the years, with the evolution of technology and culture, the words “Digital Activism” has varied in its meaning and application. A major goal for writing this is to explain in the simplest way, the concept of Digital Activism and explore what defines “activism” in Digital age.

 According to Britannica, “digital activism, also known as cyberactivism is a form of activism that uses the internet and digital media as key platforms for mass mobilization and political action.”

The above definition is just one amongst many attempts to define Digital Activism, Computer experts and activists have looked at digital networks as a way to take action, starting with the early experiments of the 1980s and moving on to the more recent "smart mobs" and blogs. Given its capacity to instantly reach huge audiences across borders, online activists initially utilized the Internet as a medium for information dissemination. The World Wide Web was used as a platform for protest in a more advanced form of digital activism, mirroring and amplifying offline demonstrations.

E-mail and social media campaigns, virtual sit-ins, and "hacktivism" (disrupting websites) are all examples of digital activism.

In past and recent times, Digital activism has proven to be a potent tool for grassroots political mobilization and opens up new opportunities for protesters to be involved. In countries where public spaces are tightly regulated or under military control, online actions may also be significant. Online actions are preferable to potentially dangerous "live" actions hence making Digital Activism a safe and effective means for passing a strong message. Transnational institutions can also be targeted through online protest.

Although a lot of digital activism falls under the umbrella of "electronic civil disobedience," some activists demand that online political actions always represent a collective interest rather than an individual agenda, and that the motives and agents behind them be made public in order to distinguish them from cyberterrorism or criminal hacking.

In my opinion, Digital Activism is a more active and effective path to communicating to a larger audience in modern day, it is an inclusive form of Activism and your “voice” can and will be easily heard.

REFERENCES

‘Digital Activism’, (2014), Britannica, Available at https://www.britannica.com/topic/digital-activism/additional-info#history (Accessed: 1st November, 2022)

Amy Cauchi (May 21, 2020) Is Digital Activism as effective as it is made out to be? Is clicktivism a problem for democracy or is it a new form of activism that can indeed hold the powerful to account?, Available at https://medium.com/@amycauchi/is-digital-activism-as-effective-as-it-is-made-out-to-be-c8f323279ae4 (Accessed: 1st November, 2022)

 Dorina Yee Ye Zhen (Aug 21, 2020) Digital Activism and Volunteering, Available at https://heartware.org/blog/digital-activism-and-volunteering/ (Accessed: 1st November, 2022)

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WELCOME!!!!!!!

Testing Testing........

Hi Guys, this is my first post here, ignore the picture above (laughs), just trying to understand how this platform works and from what it looks like, i think i am getting a hang of it. Look forward to my next post as i will start taking this blogging thing more seriously haha!!!