Activism 2.0
Due to its highly collaborative nature the Internet has
evolved into a medium through which spreading and collaborating on ideas is
easier than ever before. With this has come a new form of social activism:
virtual activism, or activism 2.0. The term activism 2.0 refers to people using
online mediums such as online forums, virtual worlds, and social media
platforms to raise awareness of social issues and invoke social change.
History
Though online activism has existed for years, the term “activism
2.0” was coined by Justin Dillon’s 2008 documentary Call + Response. The term highlights the technological aspect of
online activism.
Activism 2.0 has been enacted through a variety of
platforms including Twitter, blogs, and online petitions. One of the earliest
and most notable examples of activism 2.0 was the September 2007 Second Life
strike against IBM. Over 1000 people partook in a virtual strike against real
life IBM Italy’s deficient employee benefits. One month later the strike
succeeded when IBM Italy signed a new contract with its trade union, scoring
performance bonuses and a health insurance scheme for its workers.
Benefits
Activism 2.0 makes it easier than ever before for groups
to mobilize.
Little to no cost
Activism 2.0 virtually eradicates the costs of awareness
literature and minimizing the time required by the masses to participate. While
activists used to have to print pamphlets and spend time picketing, modern
activists can reproduce flyers as many times as they want with no cost and
attract attention by posting their information once in strategic places online.
Potential for fast exponential growth
Using the Internet as its medium, activism 2.0 also
allows activists to inform large masses of social issues in extremely small
amounts of time. Working without geographical limitations, the number of
participants in an activism 2.0 cause can grow exponentially.
Ability to translate into real-world protest
Modern Internet tools make it easy to take what’s said
online to the real-life streets. Users can purchase t-shirts to support causes,
use information found online to petition their local politicians, use virtual
logos to create screen printing campaigns, etc.
Recent Examples
Change.org
Change.org is a website dedicated solely to activism 2.0.
Through online petitions hosted on the site users have pressured state and
national judicial systems, Bank of America, and Universal Studios among others
to create change that benefits society.
One of Change.org’s most famous successes was the release
of Chinese political prisoner Ai Weiwei. 80 days after major art institutions
such as the Guggenheim, the MoMA, and Tate Modern petitioned the Chinese
government for the artist’s release they found success.
When the family of Trayvon Martin found that local and
state governments would not listen to their pleas for prosecution they took to
Change.org to gain national attention. After receiving over 2.2 million
signatures—the highest number of signatures any change.org petition has ever received—to
their petition Martin’s family finally achieved the national coverage necessary
to force Florida to prosecute George Zimmerman, the killer of their son. The
Trayvon martin case is a great example of ways activism 2.0 can lead to
real-life protest and change.
Tumblr on SOPA
In an effort to raise awareness of the Stop Online Piracy
Act (SOPA) and encourage social action against it, the blogging site Tumblr
implemented obvious disruptions to its service on November 16 of last year. It
blocked out all text on users’ Tumblr homepages (or “dashboards”). Unable to
read Tumblr posts users were forced to visit Tumblr’s informational page on the
Act. There a link to call your state representative made it effortless to
request that the Act not be passed.
Tumblr “censors” its page to demonstrates the potential
effects of SOPA
BBM and the London Riots
Last summer teens across London organized protests and
riots to avenge the death of London resident Mark Duggan via a unique form of
social media. Rather than using open forms such as Twitter and Facebook teens
turned to the BlackBerry Messenger service, which allowed them to send
locations and times in messages untraceable by local authorities.
Social Media and the Arab Spring
During times of heavy political unrest and deep
government censorship in the Middle East last year, social media played an
important role in helping protesters organized and keeping the world informed
of the conditions of the protests. By posting protest locations and times on
Twitter and Facebook some protesters were able to stay up-to-date on the status
of the revolution in their country. In time when Arab governments took to
restricting media access to their soil, protesters were able to upload video footage
of brutal police treatment of protesters. Official news sources were then able
to stream this footage online and on TV, raising awareness of the social
conditions in the Middle East and pressuring Arab governments to allow
democracy to happen.
Criticisms
Activism 2.0 is often referred to as “slactivism,”
hinting that online activism makes it easy for people to participate in social
action but doesn’t necessary make them social activists working for real
change. Krist in Ivie on socialcitizens.org defined activism 2.0 as “fitting
into people's everyday routines and finding ways for people to use technology
and social media to habitually contribute to social change with small,
practical acts - and, often, clicks. The ideal is a place where people
integrate activism and supporting their causes into their regular routines –
using downtime at the airport to send emails for their cause, donating at the
grocery check-out counter, asking friends to charitini for their birthday.” Here
she demonstrates that one of activism’s primary goals is to make activism
easily accessible. In some cases this also makes online activism easily
forgotten.
Conclusion
Though activism’s 2.0’s ability to create real-life
social change varies from case to case, its impact on the World Wide Web is
undeniable. Activism 2.0 is a manifestation of the inherent social nature of
the Internet. When people across the world can interact with just a few taps on
their keyboard, social change is bound to happen. As online tools such as video
chat, online shared documents and the like continue to streamline online collaboration,
activism 2.0 will only expand to allow more people to fight for social change.
References:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/16/tumblr-takes-fight-against-sopa-up-a-notch-censors-user-dashboards/
