Task 8.1&2: Social Media and Activism

The impact of the Internet on political participation has been a discoursed issue in the recent periods. Internet activities have been denounced for slacktivism, in which the real life impact of the activities are limited, the major effect is to enhance the feel-good factor for participants. With articles analyzing if the accusation is justifiable. By examining the two aspects of the Internet campaigns, if they are effective in affecting real life political decisions, and if the Internet activism substitutes traditional forms of off-line participation. Coming to a conclusion that, the internet has effected positively on off-line mobilization. With evidence to support the accusations of Internet campaigns being slacktivism. It is harmless, and can best help revitalize citizens. (Christensen, 2011) #BlackLivesMatter is an international activist movement, originating in the African-American community, that campaigns against violence and systematic racism towards black people. This was a social movement relating to race or ethnicity. The hashtag first appeared on Twitter in July 2013 following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. One of the most notable of these spikes occurred over a period of 10 days spanning July 7-17 2016, in which the hashtag was mentioned an average of nearly 500,000 tweets per day. Social media created a platform for notably news and discussion about fatal encounters between law enforcement and black Americans (Anderson, M; Toor, S; Rainie, L; and Smith, A 2018). Activism as the action of campaigning to bring about political or social change. To be an activist is to take action, protect, or defend for different groups in the society. Activist support by going on streets and fighting for it. (Baldacci, 2018) While Slacktivism known as social media activism, like sharing posts, using hashtags that relate to a cause. Often it is criticized for such minimal effort to post an image or use a hashtag, but it’s also the beauty of it. The effortless use and wide reach of socisl media leads to slactivism as an efficient way to spread a message, and educate more people about current issues needed more attention on. (Garcia 2018). We have experienced both slacktivism or clicktivism, such as popularizing hashtags and sharing posts to remind people about the positive affects of making donations for a social change and sharing posts to remind people to limit their plastic use. Its value is that it spreads awareness quickly as it is based online, everyone in the world can participate in it. Other than that, it lacks physical interaction and certainty if the money donated really goes to whoever they say they’re donating to or for personal reasons. Social video is a medium through which persuasive information can be conveyed at speed and scale, and is growing fast: Cisco (2013) expect there to be 1.5 billion Internet video users by 2016. Advertisers are already buying into its power — social videos from advertisers collectively achieved over 71 million shares from June to August 2013 (Unruly, 2013). According to surveys, and observations most videos contents that get alot of viewers are vlogs, tutorials, product reviews, testimonials, animations, behind the scenes. For us, we’re interested in watching videos with content of vlogs, and tutorials.

Reference:

Anderson, M; Toor, S; Rainie, L; and Smith, A 2018, An analysis of #BlackLivesMatter and other Twitter hashtags related to political or social issues, Pew Research Center, retrieved 24 April 2020, <https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/07/11/an-analysis-of-blacklivesmatter-and-other-twitter-hashtags-related-to-political-or-social-issues/>.

Baldacci, 2018, Activism vs Slacktivism, Her Campus, retrieved 24 April 2020, <https://www.hercampus.com/school/clark/activism-vs-slacktivism>.

Christensen, 2011, Political activities on the Internet : Slacktivism or political participation by other means?, First Monday, retrieved 24 April 2020, <https://firstmonday.org/article/view/3336/2767>.

Garcia, 2018, Activism and Slacktivism, The Exodus Road, retrieved 24 April 2020, <https://blog.theexodusroad.com/activism-vs-slacktivism>.

Jones, C 2015, Slacktivism and the social benefits of social video: Sharing a video to ‘help’ a cause, First Monday, retrieved 24 April 2020, <https://firstmonday.org/article/view/5855/4458>.