Internet activism is the use of electronic communication technologies such as
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
,
e-mail
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...
, and
podcasts for various forms of
activism to enable faster and more effective communication by
citizen movements
Movement may refer to:
Common uses
* Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece
* Motion, commonly referred to as movement
Arts, entertainment, and media
Literature
* "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...
, the delivery of particular information to large and specific audiences as well as coordination.
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
technologies are used for cause-related
fundraising,
community building
Community building is a field of practices directed toward the creation or enhancement of community among individuals within a regional area (such as a neighborhood) or with a common need or interest. It is often encompassed under the fields of c ...
,
lobbying
In politics, lobbying, persuasion or interest representation is the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying, which ...
, and
organizing
Organizing or organized may refer to:
* Organizing (management), a process of coordinating task goals and activities to resources
* Community organizing, in which communities come together to act in their shared self-interest
* Professional org ...
. A digital activism campaign is "an
organized public effort, making collective claims on a target authority, in which civic initiators or supporters use digital media." Research has started to address specifically how activist/advocacy groups in the U.S.
and Canada
are using social media to achieve digital activism objectives.
Types
Within online activism Sandor Vegh distinguished three principal categories: active/reactive, mobilizing and awareness raising-based. There are other ways of classifying Internet activism, such as by the degree of reliance on the Internet versus offline mobilization. Thus, Internet sleuthing or hacking could be viewed as purely online forms of activism, whereas the
Occupy Wall Street movement
Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was a protest movement against economic inequality and the influence of money in politics that began in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Wall Street financial district, in September 2011. It gave rise to th ...
was mainly conducted offline, and only partially online.
Development processes
Exploring the dynamics of online activism for expressing resistance to a powerful organization, a study developed a critical mass approach to online activism. The results were integrated in a four-year longitudinal process model that explains how online activism started, generated societal outcomes, and changed over time. The model suggests that online activism helped organize collective actions and amplify the conditions for revolutionary movements to form. Yet, it provoked elites' reactions such as Internet filtering and surveillance, which do not only promote self-censorship and generate digital divide, but contribute to the ultimate decline of activism over time. The process model suggests a complex interplay among stakeholders' interests, opportunities for activism, costs, and outcomes that are neither foreseen nor entirely predictable. The authors challenge universal access to the Internet as a convenient and cost-free forum for practicing social activism by organizational stakeholders (customers, employees, outside parties). In fact, the technology enablers of social activism also enable its filtering and repression, and thus, more extreme states of information asymmetry may result in which powerful elites preserve their status and impose a greater digital divide.
In one study, a discussion of a developmental model of political mobilization is discussed. By citizens joining groups and creating discussion, they are beginning their first stage of involvement. Progressively, it is hoped that they will begin signing petitions online and graduating to offline contact as long as the organization provides the citizen with escalating steps of involvement (Vitak et al., 2011).
The issue of the mass media's centrality has been highly contested, with some people arguing that it promoted the voices of marginalized groups while others believe it sends forth the messages of the majority alone, leaving minority groups to have their voices robbed.
Examples of early activism
One case that has to do with the history of online activism is the one of Lotus MarketPlace. On April 10, 1990,
Lotus announced a
direct-mail marketing database product that was to contain name, address, and spending habit information on 120 million individual U.S. citizens. While much of the same data was already available, privacy advocates worried about the availability of this data within one database. Furthermore, the data would be on
CD-ROM, and so would remain fixed until a new CD-ROM was issued.
In response, a mass e-mail and E-bulletin-board campaign was started, which included information on contacting Lotus and
form letter
A form letter is a letter written from a template, rather than being specially composed for a specific recipient. The most general kind of form letter consists of one or more regions of boilerplate text interspersed with one or more substitution p ...
s. Larry Seiler, a
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...
-based computer professional, posted a message that was widely reposted on newsgroups and via e-mail: "It will contain a LOT of personal information about YOU, which anyone in the country can access by just buying the discs. It seems to me (and to a lot of other people, too) that this will be a little too much like
big brother, and it seems like a good idea to get out while there is still time." Over 30,000 people contacted Lotus and asked for their names to be removed from the
database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases s ...
. On January 23, 1991, Lotus announced that it had cancelled MarketPlace.
In 1993, a survey article about online activism around the world, from
Croatia
, image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg
, image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg
, anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capit ...
to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, appeared in ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...
'' magazine, with several activists being quoted about their projects and views.
The earliest example of mass emailing as a rudimentary form of
DDoS
In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connec ...
occurred on Guy Fawkes Day 1994, when the
Intervasion of the UK
The Intervasion of the UK was a 1994 electronic civil disobedience and collective action against John Major's Criminal Justice Bill which sought to outlaw outdoor dance festivals and "music with a repetitive beat". Launched by a group called The ...
began email-bombing John Major's cabinet and UK parliamentary servers in protest against the
Criminal Justice Bill
Criminal Justice Act (with its many variations) is a stock short title used for legislation in Canada, Malaysia, the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom relating to the criminal law (including both substantive and procedural aspects of that ...
, which outlawed outdoor rave festivals and "music with a repetitive beat"
In 1995–1998, Z magazine offered courses online through Left Online University, with lessons on "Using the Internet for Electronic Activism".
The practice of
cyber-dissidence
A cyber-dissident is a professional journalist, an activist or citizen journalist who posts news, information, or commentary on the internet that implies criticism of a government or regime.
The practice of cyber-dissidence may have been inaugu ...
and activism per se, that is, in its modern-day form, may have been inaugurated by Dr. Daniel Mengara, a Gabonese scholar and activist living in political exile in New Jersey in the United States. In 1998, he created a Website in French whose name ''Bongo Doit Partir'' (Bongo Must Go) was clearly indicative of its purpose: it encouraged a revolution against the then 29-year-old regime of Omar Bongo in Gabon. The original URL,
http://www.globalwebco.net/bdp/, began to redirect to
http://www.bdpgabon.org in the year 2000. Inaugurating what was to become common current-day practice in the politically involved blogosphere, this movement's attempt at rallying the Gabonese around revolutionary ideals and actions has ultimately been vindicated by the 2011 Tunisian and Egyption revolutions, where the Internet has proven to be an effective tool for instigating successful critique, opposition, and revolution against dictators. In July 2003, Amnesty International reported the arrest of five Gabonese known-to-be members of the cyber-dissident group ''Bongo Doit Partir''. The five members were detained for three months (See: Gabon: Prisoners of Conscience and Gabon: Further information on Prisoners of conscience).
Another well-known example of early Internet activism took place in 1998, when the
Mexican rebel group
EZLN
The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (, EZLN), often referred to as the Zapatistas (Mexican ), is a far-left political and militant group that controls a substantial amount of territory in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico.
Sin ...
used decentralized communications, such as cell phones, to network with
developed world
A developed country (or industrialized country, high-income country, more economically developed country (MEDC), advanced country) is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy and advanced technological infrastruct ...
activists and help create the
anti-globalization group
Peoples Global Action
Peoples' Global Action (PGA) was the name of a worldwide co-ordination of radical social movements, grassroots campaigns and direct actions in resistance to capitalism and for social and environmental justice. PGA was part of the anti-globalization ...
(PGA) to protest the
World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation
in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and ...
(WTO) in
Geneva
, neighboring_municipalities= Carouge, Chêne-Bougeries, Cologny, Lancy, Grand-Saconnex, Pregny-Chambésy, Vernier, Veyrier
, website = https://www.geneve.ch/
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevr ...
. The PGA continued to call for "global days of action" and rally support of other anti-globalization groups in this way.
Later, a worldwide network of Internet activist sites, under the umbrella name of
Indymedia
The Independent Media Center, better known as Indymedia, is an open publishing network of activist journalist collectives that report on political and social issues. Following beginnings during the 1999 Carnival Against Capital and 1999 Seattl ...
, was created "for the purpose of providing grassroots coverage of the WTO protests in
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
" in 1999. Dorothy Kidd quotes Sheri Herndon in a July 2001 telephone interview about the role of the Internet in the anti-WTO protests: "The timing was right, there was a space, the platform was created, the Internet was being used, we could bypass the corporate media, we were using
open publishing
Open publishing is a term used by Matthew Arnison in March 2001 to describe the online process of creating text, audio and video news by methods that are fully transparent to the readers. In the early 2000s, the term was widely associated with the ...
, we were using
multimedia
Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradit ...
platforms. So those hadn't been available, and then there was the beginning of the
anti-globalization movement
The anti-globalization movement or counter-globalization movement, is a social movement critical of economic globalization. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalis ...
in the United States."
In the UK, in 1999, the Government introduced a new employment tax called IR35. One of the first online trade associations was created to campaign against it. Within weeks they had raised £100,000 off the Internet from individuals who had never even met. They became a fully formed trade association called the Professional Contractors Group, which two years later had 14,000 members all paying £100 each to join. They presented the first ever e-petition to Parliament and organized one of the first flash mobs when using their database, to their surprise and others, 1,000 came in their call to lobby Parliament. They later raised £500,000 from the Internet to fund an unsuccessful High Court challenge against the tax, though ultimately they secured some concessions. Their first external affairs director, Philip Ross, has written a history of the campaign.
The engagement in the practice of strategic voting was another development that came with Internet activism. People coordinated their vote pairing by entering their contact information into an online database, thereby reducing cost completely.
''
Kony 2012
''Kony 2012'' is a 2012 American short documentary film produced by '' Invisible Children'' creators Invisible Children, Inc. The film's purpose was to make Ugandan cult leader, war criminal, and ICC fugitive Joseph Kony globally known so as ...
'', a short film released on March 5, 2012,
was intended to promote the charity's "Stop Kony" movement to make African cult and militia leader, indicted war criminal and the International Criminal Court fugitive Joseph Kony globally known in order to have him arrested by the end of 2012, when the campaign expired. The film spread
virally.
A poll suggested that more than half of young adult Americans heard about ''Kony 2012'' in the days following the video's release.
It was included among the top international events of 2012 by
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
and called the most viral video ever by ''
TIME
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
''. The campaign resulted in a resolution by the
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and pow ...
and contributed to the decision to send troops by the
African Union.
Uses
Internet activism has had the effect of causing increased collective action among people, as found by Postmes and Brunsting (2002), who discovered a tendency among internet users to rely on internalized group memberships and social identities in order to achieve social involvement online.
The Internet is "tailor-made for a populist, insurgent movement," says
Joe Trippi
Joseph Paul Trippi (born June 10, 1956) is an American political strategist who has worked on several gubernatorial, United States Senate, and Congressional campaigns, including Jerry Brown for Governor of California and Doug Jones for U.S. Sen ...
, who managed the
Howard Dean campaign. In his campaign memoir, ''The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,'' Trippi notes that:
he Internet'sroots in the open-source ARPAnet
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical fou ...
, its hacker culture
The hacker culture is a subculture of individuals who enjoy—often in collective effort—the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming the limitations of software systems or electronic hardware (mostly digital electronics), to a ...
, and its decentralized, scattered architecture make it difficult for big, establishment candidates, companies and media to gain control of it. And the establishment loathes what it can't control. This independence is by design, and the Internet community values above almost anything the distance it has from the slow, homogeneous stream of American commerce and culture. Progressive candidates and companies with forward-looking vision have an advantage on the Internet, too. Television is, by its nature, a nostalgic medium. Look at Ronald Reagan's campaign ads in the 1980sthey were masterpieces of nostalgia promising a return to America's past glory and prosperity. The Internet, on the other hand, is a forward-thinking and forward-moving medium, embracing change and pushing the envelope of technology and communication.
Spreading information
The Internet is a key resource for independent activists, or E-activists, particularly those whose message may run counter to the mainstream. "Especially when a serious violation of
human rights
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
occurs, the Internet is essential in reporting the atrocity to the outside world."
Listservs like Freedom News Group or BurmaNet assist in spreading news that would otherwise be inaccessible in these countries.
Internet activists also pass on E-petitions to be sent to the government as well as to private and public interest groups and organizations to protest against and urge for implementing positive policy changes in areas from the
animal testing
Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and ''in vivo'' testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments that seek to control the variables that affect the behavior or biological system under study. This ...
to
arms trade Arms trade may refer to:
*the global markets for any product of the arms industry
*Small arms trade
*Illegal arms trade (arms trafficking)
See also
*Arms Trade Treaty
*Arms control
*Nuclear proliferation
* Chemical weapon proliferation
*Arms race ...
. Many non-profits and charities use these methods, emailing petitions to those on their email list and asking people to pass them on. The Internet also enables organizations such as
NGO
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...
s to communicate with individuals in an inexpensive and timely manner. Indeed, many non-profit and advocacy organizations rely on the internet to launch campaigns with socially conscious messages to maintain a constant stream of revenue. Gatherings and
protest
A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration or remonstrance) is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one.
Protests can be thought of as acts of cooper ...
s can be organized with the input of the organizers and the participants.
Lobbying
In politics, lobbying, persuasion or interest representation is the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying, which ...
is also made easier via the Internet, thanks to
mass e-mail and its ability to broadcast a message widely at little cost. Vegh's concept of organization/mobilization, for example, can refer to activities taking place solely online, solely offline but organized online, or a combination of online and offline. Mainstream
social-networking sites
A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...
, most noticeably
Facebook.com, are also making e-activist tools available to their users. An active participatory culture is enabled by the communities on social networking sites because they permit communication between groups that are otherwise unable to communicate. In the article "Why We Argue about Virtual Community: A Case Study of the Phish.net Fan Community", Nessim Watson emphasizes the necessity of communication in online communities. He claims that "without ongoing communication among its participants, a community dissolves". The constant ability to interact with members of the community enriches online experiences and redefines the very word community.
Hashtag activism
Hashtag activism is the use of
hashtags for fighting or supporting a cause through the usage of
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
outlets. The term "hashtag activism" first started circulating within journalism in 2011.
Since then, its use has been associated with movements such as
#MeToo,
#BlackLivesMatter,
#SayHerName, and many more.
One example of the powerful rise of hashtag activism can be seen in the black feminist movement's use of hashtags to convey their cause. The famous hashtag "IamJada" was an internet backlash to the mocking "#Jadapose" that went viral, ensuing after sixteen-year-old girl Jada Smith was photographed following her gang rape In this instance, a hashtag was employed to convey a powerful anti-rape message.
Yet another instance of where this type of activism was utilized for the matter of feminism and women's right, occurred in
China in relation to the outbreak of
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...
. While the rule of the country put efforts into trying to hide and downplay the start of what would develop into the
pandemic, pressured hospitals were in need of supplies in form of menstrual protection and related products. Supplies which they, despite the fact that the vast majority of the medical workers is made up of females, were not given access to.
Amongst others, hashtags such as #RefusePeriodShame, circulated in protest to the ongoing situation and the
Wuhan
Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei Province in the People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the ninth-most populous Chinese city an ...
hospital authorities, who were considered responsible for it. Soon to follow on the same thread, one of the
VTubers
A , or , is an online entertainer who uses a virtual avatar generated using computer graphics. Real-time motion capture software or technology are often—but not always—used to capture movement. The digital trend originated in Japan in the mid ...
of the Chinese Communist Youth Party League (CYL), known as Jiangshanjiao, an avatar displayed as a youthful female, gave rise to #JiangshanjiaoDoYouGetYourPeriod. The hashtag initially sparked from a post on Weibo where a user sarcastically wrote that exact question, to point out the absurdness in the societal denial of women's biological functions and needs. #JiangshanjiaoDoYouGetYourPeriod, while, like the previous hashtag mentioned, being censored and taken down by the government, had time to spread and catch a lot more attention than what #RefusePeriodShame did, and up until 15 March 2020, it accumulated over 89,200,000 views.
Other notable instances in which marginalized groups have used hashtags as organizing tools for social justice include responses to racial violence and police profiling, as in the case of #BlackLivesMatter and
#JusticeForTrayvon, along with misogyny and gendered violence, such as #MeToo and
#YesAllWomen.
Black Lives Matter
![Black Lives Matter, Rome](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Black_Lives_Matter%2C_Rome.jpg)
One of the most prominent uses of hashtag activism is
#BlackLivesMatter, a social justice movement that first began after
George Zimmerman
George Michael Zimmerman (born October 5, 1983) is an American man who fatally shot Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old black boy, in Sanford, Florida, on February 26, 2012. On July 13, 2013, he was acquitted of second-degree murder in '' Flori ...
was acquitted for the
shooting and killing of Trayvon Martin, an African American teenage boy. The movement started as a hashtag and now it has been at the forefront of the fight against police brutality and racial profiling across the world.
After the killing of Martin on February 26, 2012, several people wanted justice. The hashtag started to grow in popularity, with a
Change.org
Change.org is a worldwide nonprofit petition website, based in California, US, operated by the San Francisco-based company of the same name, which has over 400 million users and offers the public the ability to promote the petitions they care abo ...
petition calling for an investigation and prosecution of George Zimmerman.
Social media users, including many celebrities retweeted, shared, and created new petitions, eventually raising over 2.1 million signatures combined by March 26, 2012. By April 11, 2012, Zimmerman was charged with the second-degree murder of Trayvon Martin.
After George Zimmerman was acquitted on July 13, 2013, a "letter to Black folks" was posted to Facebook by
Alicia Garza. Garza ended her letter with the statement "Black lives matter", which her friend turned into a hashtag below. From here, #BlackLivesMatter or simply "BLM" became the movement against police brutality and killings of unarmed African Americans, as well as hate crimes and racially motivated crimes.
#BlackLivesMatter's impact does not end online. The formation of Black Lives Matter allowed for activists across the United States to organize in-person protests and rallies together, no matter where they may be located. U.S. politicians—such as
Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—have endorsed Black Lives Matter, aligning themselves with a push for racial justice.
The most recent display of how the Black Lives Matter movement has been used as a platform for offline activism is the
2020 BLM protests that occurred after 17-year old
Darnella Frazier live-streamed on
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
the
murder of George Floyd
On , George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's ...
by then-police officer
Derek Chauvin. Protests took place in all 50 states, as well as in many countries around the world.
March For Our Lives
After the
Parkland, FL mass shooting at
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSDH or MSD) is a public high school in Parkland, Florida, United States. It was established in 1990 and is part of the Broward County Public Schools district. It is named after the writer Marjory Stoneman D ...
on February 14, 2018,
#MarchForOurLives was born. Students came together to create this hashtag to fight for gun control in the U.S. This hashtag turned into an entire movement of over 800 protests across the United States with the main protest taking place in Washington, D.C. There was an estimated 200,000 people in attendance at the Washington, D.C. protest, alone.
TikTok activism
TikTok
TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes.
TikTok is an international version o ...
's platform has been increasingly used for raising up social issues through creative short videos, especially after an allegedly make-up tutorial turned into a call to action on China's treatment of Muslim Uighurs. The tutorial was banned for 50 minutes on November 26, 2019. Eric Han, the heads of TikTok's US content-moderation team, claimed the banning was due to a “human moderation error”. The Chinese owners declared the app does not remove content based on sensitivities to China.
TikTok also partnered up with UN Women in a campaign fighting women violence in India which kicked off on November 25, 2019. The campaign can be found under the hashtag
#KaunsiBadiBaatHai and features short videos with positive and negative examples of men interacting with women.
In July 2020, the TikTok platform played a major role in the
#FreeBritney movement surrounding
Britney Spears and
her conservatorship dispute. Though such activism led to a significant increase in public awareness of the case, it was criticized for spreading
misinformation
Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information. It differs from disinformation, which is ''deliberately'' deceptive. Rumors are information not attributed to any particular source, and so are unreliable and often unverified, but can turn ...
regarding the conservatorship alongside a number of
conspiracy theories
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources:
*
*
*
* The term has a nega ...
of varying accuracy.
Use in political campaigns
2004 Presidential Campaign
When discussing the
2004 U.S. presidential election candidates, Carol Darr, director of the
Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet at
George Washington University
The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Chartered in 1821 by the United States Congress, GWU is the largest Higher educat ...
in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, said of the candidates which benefited from use of the Internet to attract supporters: "They are all charismatic, outspoken mavericks and insurgents. Given that the Internet is interactive and requires an affirmative action on the part of the users, as opposed to a passive response from TV users, it is not surprising that the candidate has to be someone people want to touch and interact with."
A more decentralized approach to campaigning arose, in contrast to a top-down, message-focused approach usually conducted in the mainstream. "The mantra has always been, 'Keep your message consistent. Keep your message consistent,'" said John Hlinko, who has participated in Internet campaigns for
MoveOn.org
MoveOn (formerly known as MoveOn.org) is a progressive public policy advocacy group and political action committee. Formed in 1998 around one of the first massively viral email petitions, MoveOn has since grown into one of the largest grassroot ...
and the electoral primary campaign of
Wesley Clark
Wesley Kanne Clark (born December 23, 1944) is a retired United States Army officer. He graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1966 at West Point and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford, where he obtained a degree ...
. "That was all well and good in the past. Now it's a recipe for disaster. You can choose to have a
Stalinist structure that's really doctrinaire and that's really opposed to grassroots. Or you can say, 'Go forth. Do what you're going to do.' As long as we're running in the same direction, it's much better to give some freedom."
2008 Presidential Campaign
![Social media image](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Social_media_image.jpg)
Two-thirds of Internet users under the age of 30 have a SNS, and during the 2008 election, half of them used a SNS site for candidate information (Hirzalla, 2010). MoveOn.org endorsed then-Senator Barack Obama in 2008, and used this endorsement as an opportunity to encourage grassroots advertising. MoveOn hosted a competition that requested submissions from ordinary citizens with the criteria the digital ads were positive towards Obama. The contest drew 1,000 entries of 30-second ads for Obama that streamed on YouTube.
This endorsement by a grassroots organization, and the ensuing contest, is an example of agenda setting that scholars have been studying ever since social media and digital content began influencing presidential politics.
Studies delving into the 2008 presidential campaign examined inequality online of various ideologies deriving from various socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. Scholars concluded the 2008 race, and the influence of online politicking, did not see an empowerment of new voices. The idea that digital literacy become a concept taught in school, with educators incorporating blogging, commenting, and creating content as part of their curriculum, has been bandied about among social and political scientists in an effort to turn online enthusiasm from young people into demonstrable results at the ballot box.
2016 Presidential Campaign
The 2016 presidential election changed the digital landscape again. Digital media scholars note that the hopes of developing digital literacy post 2008 turned into a fomenting distrust of traditional news media. People of all ages and political inclinations gravitated towards social media sources that acted as echo chambers, and online personalities and organizations were held in higher esteem than traditional news sources.
Non-traditional activism
The Internet has become the catalyst for protests such as
Occupy Wall Street
Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was a protest movement against economic inequality and the influence of money in politics that began in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Wall Street financial district, in September 2011. It gave rise to t ...
and the
Arab Spring
The Arab Spring ( ar, الربيع العربي) was a series of anti-government protests, uprisings and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in Tunisia in response to corruption and econo ...
as those involved have increasingly relied on social media to organize and stay connected.
In
Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
, online news paper Freedom News Group has leaked some government corruption and fuel to protests.
In 2017, the
Sleeping Giants
Sleeping Giants is a social media activism organization aiming to pressure companies into removing advertisements from conservative news outlets. The campaign started in November 2016, shortly after Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 Unite ...
cyberactivist group, among others, launched a boycott campaign against controversial, conservative webpage
Breitbart News
''Breitbart News Network'' (known commonly as ''Breitbart News'', ''Breitbart'', or ''Breitbart.com'') is an Radical right (United States), American far-rightMultiple sources:
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* syndicated news, opinion, and commentary ...
, getting more than 2,000 organizations to remove it from ad buys.
Corporate activism
Corporations are also using Internet activist techniques to increase support for their causes. According to Christopher Palmeri with ''BusinessWeek'' Online, companies launch sites with the intent to positively influence their own public image, to provide negative pressure on competitors, to influence opinion within select groups, and to push for policy changes.
The clothing manufacturer,
American Apparel
American Apparel Inc. is an online-only retailer and former brick-and-mortar stores operator based in Los Angeles, California. Founded by Canadian businessman Dov Charney in 1989, it was a vertically integrated company that ranked as one of the ...
is an example: The company hosts a website called
Legalize LA that advocates
immigration reform
Immigration reform is change to the current immigration policy of a country. In its strict definition, ''reform'' means "to change into an improved form or condition, by amending or removing faults or abuses". In the political sense, "immigration ...
via blog, online advertising, links to news stories and educational materials.
Protest groups have responded by posting
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
videos and establishing a
boycott website.
Corporate methods of information dissemination is labelled "
astroturfing", as opposed to "grassroots activism", due to the funding for such movements being largely private. More recent examples include the right-wing
FreedomWorks
FreedomWorks is a conservative and libertarian advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. FreedomWorks trains volunteers, assists in campaigns, and encourages them to mobilize, interacting with both fellow citizens and their political representat ...
.org which organized the "Taxpayer March on Washington" on September 12, 2009, and the Coalition to Protect Patients' Rights, which opposes universal health care in the U.S.
Religious activism
Cybersectarianism
Cybersectarianism is the phenomenon of new religious movements and other groups using the Internet for text distribution, recruitment, and information sharing.
As an organizational type
The term, as coined by political scientist Patricia M. Thorn ...
is a new organizational form which involves: "highly dispersed small groups of practitioners that may remain largely anonymous within the larger social context and operate in relative secrecy, while still linked remotely to a larger network of believers who share a set of practices and texts, and often a common devotion to a particular leader. Overseas supporters provide funding and support; domestic practitioners distribute tracts, participate in acts of resistance, and share information on the internal situation with outsiders. Collectively, members and practitioners of such sects construct viable virtual communities of faith, exchanging personal testimonies and engaging in collective study via email, on-line chat rooms and web-based message boards."
Political activism
Online extremism
The Internet is widely accessible by everyone and as a result, it has since its beginning increasingly become a place where various opinions are expressed and not seldom are those opinions ones from some very far end of the spectrum. Extremists of different sorts have come to heavily rely on the Internet, to the point where it is no longer just a means amongst others to achieve a certain objective, but more than often it is where the main part of a movement takes place.
Activities such as the conveyance of, perceivably extreme, bureaucratic ideas, or even the outlining of strategic acts of violence or destruction, are ones nowadays likely to occur online. This type of "online extremism" could, though difficult to precisely define, in other words be described as the subcategory of Internet activism that is brought forward by, or connected with, stand alone persons or bodies of persons, that possess what are generally viewed to be extreme opinions.
However, while it is indeed problematic to interpret exactly what to define it as, online extremism can be traced back to as far as the 1980s, and despite the tendency and appearance of it continuously and quickly changing, it is expected to remain frequently utilized be extremists for the future to come.
White Nationalism
In 1998, former
KKK Grand Wizard
David Duke
David Ernest Duke (born July 1, 1950) is an American white supremacist, antisemitic conspiracy theorist, far-right politician, convicted felon, and former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. From 1989 to 1992, he was a membe ...
wrote on his website, “I believe that the internet will begin a chain reaction of racial enlightenment that will shake the world by the speed of its intellectual conquest.”
White nationalists
White nationalism is a type of racial nationalism or pan-nationalism which espouses the belief that white people are a raceHeidi Beirich and Kevin Hicks. "Chapter 7: White nationalism in America". In Perry, Barbara. ''Hate Crimes''. Greenwoo ...
quickly saw the potential of the Internet as a platform to effectively disseminate their message to a mass audience.
This exploitation of technological innovations is not a novel concept for this group. In the early 20th century, with the emergence of film technology, the KKK created their own film companies and produced films like ''The Toll of Justice (1923)'' to spread their message. Then, a century later, with the rise of digital technologies, the KKK adapted to the changing media landscape to become a digital movement. They not only adapted to the digital age, but also found vulnerabilities through which they could most quickly and efficiently insert their ideologies. Examples of this included strategic domain names and hidden propaganda content.
Today, white nationalists' efforts to push their principles on the Web combined with tech companies' belief in the Internet as "raceless" motivate white nationalists to continue to exploit
algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...
s and influence digital spaces such as Twitter. As algorithms work in a self-reinforcing manner, they worsen the psychological effects of
confirmation bias. They provide search results that confirm one's beliefs and biases and, further, connect one to communities of like-minded people. This works in favor of white nationalists; for example, search engines' autocomplete features suggest racist notions, and make White supremacist sites readily accessible to users.
Environmental activism
One of the earliest books on activism was
Don Rittner
Don Rittner is an American historian, archeologist, anthropologist, environmental activist, educator, author and film maker living in the Capital District, Schenectady County, New York. He is the former Schenectady County Historian, responsi ...
's ''Ecolinking: Everyone's Guide to Online Environmental Information'', published by Peachpit Press in 1992. Rittner, an environmental activist from upstate New York, spent more than 20 years researching and saving the Albany Pine Barrens. He was a beta tester for America Online and ran their Environmental Forum for the company from 1988 to when it launched in 1990. He took his early environmental knowledge and computer savvy and wrote what was called the bible of the online environmental community. It showed new Net users how to get online, find environmental information, connect to environmentalists around the world, and how to use those resources to save the planet.
In August 2018, a movement of environmental activism was initiated in Sweden, by now widely known climate activist
Greta Thunberg
Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg (; born 3 January 2003) is a Swedish environmental activist who is known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action for climate change mitigation.
Thunberg's activism began when she persuaded ...
. It all started with Greta, 15 years of age at the time and influenced by the creation of
#MarchForOurLives, giving her opinion on the ongoing climate change, by displaying a large sign in front of the Swedish
Riksdag (parliament) in protest.
This act would start the "
School Strike for Climate
School Strike for Climate ( sv, Skolstrejk för klimatet), also known variously as Fridays for Future (FFF), Youth for Climate, Climate Strike or Youth Strike for Climate, is an international movement of school students who skip Friday ...
" (SSC) (Swedish: ''Skolstrejk för klimatet''), a movement that would eventually spread, largely through attention in media, across the globe and develop into something that came to be internationally named "
Fridays for Future
School Strike for Climate ( sv, Skolstrejk för klimatet), also known variously as Fridays for Future (FFF), Youth for Climate, Climate Strike or Youth Strike for Climate, is an international movement of school students who skip Friday ...
" (FFF). Through having children miss classes on Fridays to participate in the strike, it has from the moment it started until today, reached and affected leading governments of the world by raising environmental awareness.
In 2020 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the
National Trust
The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
began the #
BlossomWatch
#BlossomWatch is a British environmental campaign designed to raise awareness of the first signs of Spring by encouraging people to share images of blossoms via social media. The campaign was begun by the National Trust in 2020, during the COVI ...
campaign, which encouraged people to share the first signs of Spring with one another, in particular images of
blossom.
Sexual assault activism
Activism against sexual assault is often led on the internet, where individuals may feel comfortable talking about uncomfortable topics. One such movements is the #NotGuilty movement. This movement began in April 2015 when Ione Wells, an
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...
student shared a "letter to her attacker" in her college paper. The letter described how she was sexually assaulted and how she chose to respond and build from that point in her life. At the end of the letter she urged readers to send a letter back describing their own sexual assault experience with the hashtag #notguilty. She received so many letters from locals that she decided to create a website called "notGuiltyCampaign.co.uk". This caused global attention and inspired many to share their stories.
The
Me Too movement
#MeToo is a social movement against sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and rape culture, in which people publicize their experiences of sexual abuse or sexual harassment. The phrase "Me Too" was initially used in this context on social media in ...
is a similar movement that started in Hollywood. Initially, the activist
Tarana Burke
Tarana Burke (born September 12, 1973) is an American activist from The Bronx, New York, who started the MeToo movement. In 2006, Burke began using MeToo to help other women with similar experiences to stand up for themselves. Over a decade late ...
created the phrase back in 2006 to "empower women through empathy", but first over a decade later, the actress
Alyssa Milano
Alyssa Jayne Milano (born December 19, 1972) is an American actress. She has played Samantha Micelli in '' Who's the Boss?'', Jennifer Mancini in '' Melrose Place'', Phoebe Halliwell in ''Charmed'', Billie Cunningham in '' My Name Is Earl'', Sa ...
gave birth to the usage of the saying that would lead to the eventual spread of it, after using it in a post on twitter, in which she acknowledged several accusations of sexual assault against film producer
Harvey Weinstein
Harvey Weinstein (; born March 19, 1952) is an American former film producer and convicted sex offender. He and his brother, Bob Weinstein, co-founded the entertainment company Miramax, which produced several successful independent films includ ...
.
It would from there on not be long until it stretched and attached on various online plattforms, and in no more than a day after Milano's tweet, the #MeToo hashtag had been reused over 500,000 times on that same media, as well as 4.7 million times on Facebook. The phrase was first used to demonstrate the amount of sexual assault that happens to young actresses and actors in Hollywood, and it was largely due to the early involvement of several well known individuals from the entertainment industry, who used the hashtag in their own posts, that the movement achieved the spread that it did.
It soon expanded to apply to all forms of sexual assault, especially in the work place, and with time it also came to move from concerning mainly white
heterosexual
Heterosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction or sexual behavior between people of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" ...
women, to eventually being used by both men and women with different sexualities and ethnicity.
These movements were intended to create an outlet for men and women to share their experiences with those with similar views without blame or guilt. They brought widespread attention to sexual assault and caused much controversy about changes that should be made accordingly.
Criticism around movements such as these centers on concerns about whether or not participants are being dishonest for their own gain or are misinterpreting acts of kindness. However, the same Me Too movement, which also reached
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
showed the adverse side of the activism where witness detention in one of the high-profile rape cases highlighted the prioritisation of traditional social morality by the government over women's rights in the country.
Hacktivism
Denial-of-Service attack
In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host conn ...
s, the taking over and vandalizing of a website, uploading
Trojan horses
The Trojan Horse was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in Homer's ''Iliad'', with the poem ending before the war is concluded, ...
, and sending out
e-mail bombs (mass e-mailings) are also examples of Internet activism. While the concept is difficult to exactly pinpoint, the phrase "
hacktivism
In Internet activism, hacktivism, or hactivism (a portmanteau of ''hack'' and ''activism''), is the use of computer-based techniques such as hacking as a form of civil disobedience to promote a political agenda or social change. With roots in hac ...
" summarizes the act of somehow utilizing hacking capabilities as a means to achieve some type of political goal, and the expression is occasionally also referred to as a variation of "cyberterrorism".
The varieties of different routes groups of hacktivists choose to approach the organization, website or forum that they are taking on, can be categorized into different tactics. Some examples of those tactics or strategies are "
DDoS attacks", "
Doxing
Doxing or doxxing is the act of publicly providing personally identifiable information about an individual or organization, usually via the internet. Historically, the term has been used interchangeably to refer to both the aggregation of this in ...
", and "
Webdefacement", all of which are slightly different ways of reaching an often similar end goal.
For additional understanding and explanation, as well as for more specific examples of these types of subversive actions, see
hacktivism
In Internet activism, hacktivism, or hactivism (a portmanteau of ''hack'' and ''activism''), is the use of computer-based techniques such as hacking as a form of civil disobedience to promote a political agenda or social change. With roots in hac ...
.
Impact on everyday political discussions
According to some observers, the Internet may have considerable potential to reach and engage opinion leaders who influence the thinking and behavior of others. According to the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, what they call "Online Political Citizens" (OPCs) are "seven times more likely than average citizens to serve as opinion leaders among their friends, relatives and colleagues… Normally, 10% of Americans qualify as Influentials. Our study found that 69% of Online Political Citizens are Influentials."
Information communication technologies
Information communication technologies (ICTs) make communication and information readily available and efficient. There are millions of Facebook accounts, Twitter users and websites, and one can educate oneself on nearly any subject. While this is for the most part a positive thing, it can also be dangerous. For example, people can read up on the latest news events relatively easily and quickly; however, there is danger in the fact that apathy or fatigue can quickly arise when people are inundated with so many messages, or that the loudest voice on a subject can often be the most extreme one, distorting public perception on the issue.
These social networks which occupy ICTs are simply modern forms of political instruments which pre-date the technological era.
People can now go to online forums or Twitter instead of town hall meetings. People can essentially mobilize worldwide through the Internet. Women can create transnational alliances and lobby for rights within their respective countries; they can give each other tips and share up-to-date information. This information becomes "hyper textual", available in downloadable formats with easy access for all.
The UN organizations also use "hyper textual" formats. They can post information about upcoming summits, they can post newsletters on what occurred at these meetings, and links to videos can be shared; all of this information can be downloaded at the click of a button.
The UN and many other actors are presenting this information in an attempt to get a certain message out in the cyber sphere and consequently steer public perception on an issue.
With all this information so readily available, there is a rising trend of "slacktivism" or "clicktivism". While it is positive that information can be distributed so quickly and efficiently all around the world, there is negativity in the fact that people often take this information for granted, or quickly forget about it once they have seen it flash across our computer screens.
Viral campaigns are great for sparking initial interest and conversation, but they are not as effective in the long term—people begin to think that clicking "like" on something is enough of a contribution, or that posting information about a current hot topic on their Facebook page or Twitter feed means that they have made a difference.
Fundraising capability
The Internet has also made it easier for small donors to play a meaningful role in financing political campaigns. Previously, small-donor fundraising was prohibitively expensive, as costs of printing and postage ate up most of the money raised. Groups like
MoveOn
MoveOn (formerly known as MoveOn.org) is a progressive public policy advocacy group and political action committee. Formed in 1998 around one of the first massively viral email petitions, MoveOn has since grown into one of the largest grassroot ...
, however, have found that they can raise large amounts of money from small donors at minimal cost, with credit card transaction fees constituting their biggest expense. "For the first time, you have a door into the political process that isn't marked 'big money,' " says Darr. "That changes everything."
The Internet also allows ordinary people to contribute materially to Humanitarian relief projects designed to intervene in situations of global disaster or tragedy, as in the case of the "
Hope for Haiti Now
''Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief'' was a charity telethon held on January 22, 2010 from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (January 23, 2010 from 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. UTC). The telethon was the most widely distri ...
" telethon event, which was launched three days after the
2010 Haiti Earthquake
A catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake struck Haiti at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest department, approximately west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's c ...
. The telethon and its broadcast became an effective vehicle to present a plea for support and to collect contributions quickly, facilitating a relationship between entertainment and humanitarian fundraising that has developed in response to historical and economic market conditions.
Ethics
With
internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
technology vastly changing existing and introducing new mechanisms by which to attain, share and employ information, internet activism raises ethical issues for consideration. Proponents contend internet activism serves as an outlet for social progress but only if personal and professional ethics are employed.
Supporters of online activism claim new information and communications technologies help increase the political power of activist groups that would otherwise have less resources. Proponents along this line of thinking claim the most effective use of online activism is its use in conjunction with more traditional or historical activism activities. Conversely, critics worry about facts and beliefs becoming indistinct in online campaigns and about "sectors of online activism
eingmore self-interested than socially interested."
These critics warn against the manipulation commonplace to online activism for private or personal interests such as exploiting charities for monetary gain, influencing voters in the political arena and inflating self-importance or effectiveness. In this sense, the ethical implication is that activism becomes descriptive rather than transformative of society.
One of these reviewers suggests seven pitfalls to beware of in internet activism: "self-promotion at the expense of the movement... unsolicited bulk
email
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...
...
Hacktivism
In Internet activism, hacktivism, or hactivism (a portmanteau of ''hack'' and ''activism''), is the use of computer-based techniques such as hacking as a form of civil disobedience to promote a political agenda or social change. With roots in hac ...
... violating
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...
... nagging... violating privacy... and being scary." Many of the ethical criticisms against the prevalence of online activism are further discussed in the criticisms section of this article.
Criticism
Demographic issues
Critics argue that Internet activism faces the same challenges as other aspects of the
digital divide, particularly the
global digital divide
The global digital divide describes global disparities, primarily between developed and developing countries, in regards to access to computing and information resources such as the Internet and the opportunities derived from such access. As with ...
. Some say it gives disproportionate representation to those with greater access or technological ability. Groups that may be disadvantaged by the move to activist activity online are those that have limited access to technologies, or lack the
technological literacy
Technological literacy (Technology Literacy) is the ability to use, manage, understand, and assess technology. Technological literacy is related to digital literacy in that when an individual is proficient in using computers and other digital devic ...
to engage meaningfully online; these include ethnic and racial minorities, those of lower socioeconomic status, those with lower levels of education, and the elderly. Issues like racism and sexism are issues that internet activists reportedly deal with.
A study looked at the impact of Social Networking Sites (SNS) on various demographics and their political activity. Not surprisingly college students used SNS for political activity the most but this was followed by a more unlikely group, those that had not completed high school. In addition the probability for non-White citizens to consume political information was shown to be higher than that of Whites. These two outcomes go in the face of normal predictors of political activity. Despite these surprising findings older generations, men and whites showed the highest levels of political mobilization. Acts of political mobilization, such as fundraising, volunteering, protesting require the most continued interest, resources and knowledge (Nam, 2010).
Real debate?
The experience of the echo chamber is easier to create with a computer than with many of the forms of political interaction that preceded it," Sunstein told the ''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. "The discussion will be about strategy, or horse-race issues or how bad the other candidates are, and it will seem like debate. It's not like this should be censored, but it can increase acrimony, increase extremism and make mutual understanding more difficult.
On the other hand, Scott Duke Harris of the ''
San Jose Mercury News
''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidia ...
'' noted that "the Internet connects
ll sides of issues, not justan ideologically broad anti-war constituency, from the leftists of
ANSWER
Answer commonly refers to response to a question.
Answer may also refer to:
* Answer (law), any reply to a question, counter-statement or defense in a legal procedure
Music
* Answer, an element of a fugue
Albums
* ''Answer'' (Angela Aki alb ...
to the pressed-for-time '
soccer moms' who might prefer
MoveOn
MoveOn (formerly known as MoveOn.org) is a progressive public policy advocacy group and political action committee. Formed in 1998 around one of the first massively viral email petitions, MoveOn has since grown into one of the largest grassroot ...
, and conservative activists as well."
Another concern, according to University of California, Santa Cruz professor Barbara Epstein, is that the Internet "allows people who agree with each other to talk to each other and gives them the impression of being part of a much larger network than is necessarily the case." She warns that the impersonal nature of communication by computer may actually undermine the human contact that always has been crucial to social movements.
Another concern, expressed by author and law professor
Cass Sunstein, is that online political discussions lead to "
cyberbalkanization"—discussions that lead to fragmentation and
polarization rather than consensus, because the same medium that lets people access a large number of news sources also enables them to pinpoint the ones they agree with and ignore the rest.
Moving to offline action
Famed activist
Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader (; born February 27, 1934) is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes.
The son of Lebanese immigrants to the U ...
has stated that "the Internet doesn't do a very good job of motivating action", citing that the
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
, corporations and
the Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a meton ...
do not necessarily "fear the civic use of the Internet."
Ethan Zuckerman
Ethan Zuckerman (born 1973) is an American media scholar, blogger, and Internet activist. He was the director of the MIT Center for Civic Media, and Associate Professor of the Practice in Media Arts and Sciences at MIT until May 2020, and the a ...
talks about "
slacktivism
Slacktivism (a portmanteau of '' slacker'' and ''activism'') is the practice of supporting a political or social cause by means such as social media or online petitions, characterized as involving very little effort or commitment. Additional fo ...
", claiming that the Internet has devalued certain currencies of activism. Citizens may "like" an activist group on
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
, visit a website, or comment on a blog, but fail to engage in political activism beyond the Internet, such as volunteering or canvassing. This critique has been criticized as Western-centric, however, because it discounts the impact this can have in authoritarian or repressive contexts. Journalist
Courtney C. Radsch
Courtney Radsch (born 1979) is an Americans, American journalist, author and advocate for freedom of speech, freedom of expression. She is the author of ''Cyberactivism and Citizen Journalism in Egypt: Digital Dissidence and Political Change'' and ...
argued that even this low level of engagement was an important form of activism for
Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
youth because it is a form of free speech, and can spark mainstream media coverage.
University of North Carolina
The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...
professor Zeynep Tufekci has argued that the need to put in significant organizing time in the pre-Internet era is what gave street protests their strength.
Slacktivism
![Sofaaktivismi](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Sofaaktivismi.jpg)
Scholars are divided about whether the Internet will increase or decrease political participation, including online activism or "slacktivism".
Those who suggest political participation will increase believe the Internet can be used to recruit and communicate with more users, and offers lower-costs modes of participation for those who lack the time or motivation to engage otherwise. Those concerned that the Internet will decrease activism argue that the Internet occupies free time that can no longer be spent getting involved in activist groups, or that Internet activism will replace more substantial, effortful forms of in-person activism. The Pew Research Center has found that platforms create distraction resulting in consumers and online activists believe they are making a difference while their sharing their post is only furthering the echo chamber of media.
The Pew Research Center has also found that about 79% of adults believe that "slacktivism" distracts consumers from issues that are truly important
and that the majorty of adults found that social media resulted in some of form of negative result.
Journalist and writer
Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Timothy Gladwell (born 3 September 1963) is an English-born Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1996. He has published seven books: '' The Tipping Point: How Little ...
argues that activism through social media and the internet cannot be successful because they promote a 'lazy' way of activism that doesn't require people to put in meaningful effort. For example 'liking' a protest related post on social media, people feel like they have contributed to a cause, which makes them less likely to take more costly, and some would argue more effective, action like joining a protest.
With cases such as the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements, it shows how internet activism can become more than slacktivism. Scholars have found that internet activist communities and offline activist communities work closely together, rather than being two separate entities. With internet activism, activists can organize without the constraints of physical location. The Pew Research Center has found that eight-in-ten Americans have been proven effecting in spreading information and awareness for varying public issues.
Whether this is due to physical, mental, or financial constraints, internet activism may be the most accessible and comfortable for disabled people. If able to attend a physical protest, the inaccessibility of public spaces is often too large of a roadblock to participation. In some cases, such as protests involving the subject of disability, alternative protest options may be available, but this is not common for public protests. This is something to take into account when evaluating slacktivism. If there are no options available, internet activism can be a way for those who are passionate about an issue to be able to advocate for it.
Performative activism
Similar to "slacktivism",
performative activism
Performative activism is activism done to increase one's social capital rather than because of one's devotion to a cause. It is often associated with surface-level activism, referred to as slacktivism.
The term gained an increased usage on soci ...
refers to the action of acting as if one is an advocate or activistoften on social mediafor personal gain. This term is used as a negative term towards those who seem to be untruthful or exaggerating their activism work. Performative activism became frequently used after the
2020 BLM protests, this term started to become widely used as many took to social media to participate in the Black Lives Matter movement. The intentions of a lot of new activists and allies were questioned. On June 2, 2021, the social media platform, Instagram, was flooded with millions of the same image. These images were black squares under the hashtag,
#BlackoutTuesday. The purpose of this online protest was to amplify Black voices on social media. However, many criticized this protest, arguing that the protest had the opposite effect as the squares flooded the important #BlackLivesMatter hashtag. People started to accuse those who participated in Blackout Tuesday, but did not do anything else in regards to the Black Lives Matter movement, of being performative activists.
Clicktivism
Another criticism is clicktivism. According to techopedia, clicktivism is a controversial form of digital activism. Proponents believe that applying advertising principles such as A/B testing increases the impact of a message by leveraging the Internet to further its reach. Opponents believe that clicktivism reduces activism to a mere mouse-click, yielding numbers with little or no real engagement or commitment to the cause.
Micah M. White argues, "Political engagement becomes a matter of clicking a few links. In promoting the illusion that surfing the web can change the world, clicktivism is to activism as McDonalds is to a slow-cooked meal. It may look like food, but the life-giving nutrients are long gone."
He argues that political engagement becomes a matter of clicking a few links and neglects the vital, immeasurable inner-events and personal epiphanies that great social ruptures are actually made of. It reduces activism to a mere mouse click.
Micah M. White goes on to argue that "clicktivism reinforces the fear of standing out from the crowd and taking a strong position. It discourages calling for drastic action. And as such, clicktivism will never breed social revolution. To think that it will is a fallacy. One that is dawning on us".
State repression
In ''Net Delusion'', author Evgeny Morozov argues against cyberutopianism. He describes how the Internet is successfully used against activists and for the sake of state repression. China presents a good example of this. Internet censorship in China has often been used as a way to achieve political stability of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
See also
*Activism
*Advocacy
*Community informatics
*Community organizing
*Cyberactivism in North Korea
*Data activism
*Digital humanitarianism
*E-democracy
*Grassroots
*Internet activism in South Korea
*Internet vigilantism
*Online petition
*Online social movement
*Protests against SOPA and PIPA
*Psychological warfare
*Slacktivism
*User revolt
*Virtual community
*Virtual volunteering
*Volunteering
Notes
References
Further reading
*
*
* Eric J.S. Townsend
E-Activism Connects Protest Groups. Web Makes It Easy To Organize Rallies Quickly, But Sheer Volume Of E-Mail Can Hinder Cause ''Hartford Courant'', December 4, 2002.
* Steven F. Hick and John G. McNutt, ''Advocacy, Activism, and the Internet: Community Organization and Social Policy'', Lyceum Books, 2002. .
* Garance Franke-Ruta,
Virtual Politics" ''The American Prospect'', Volume 14, Issue 9, October 1, 2003.
* Ghobadi, S., Clegg, S. 2014
‘these days will never be forgotten': Critical Mass Approach to Online Activism Information and Organization, Vol 25 Issue 1, pp 2–71
* Joss Hands, "@ is for Activism: Dissent Resistance and Rebellion in a Digital Culture", Pluto Press, 2011.
* Amy Harmon,
" ''New York Times'', January 25, 2004.
* Mark Surman & Katherine Reilly,
" ''Yes Magazine'', Spring 2004.
* Carlos Watson,
The Rise of the Online Citizen" CNN.com, March 17, 2004, suggests that blogs may be "Democrats' answer to talk radio," citing a study by George Washington University showing that "online political citizens" outnumber Republicans almost 2 to 1 (49% to 27%).
* Matt Stoller,
" The Blogging of the President 2004, April 4, 2004.
*
Joe Trippi
Joseph Paul Trippi (born June 10, 1956) is an American political strategist who has worked on several gubernatorial, United States Senate, and Congressional campaigns, including Jerry Brown for Governor of California and Doug Jones for U.S. Sen ...
, ''The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything'' (Regan Books, 2004), .
* John Emerson,
An Introduction to Activism on the Internet" January 2005.
* Michael Dartnell, ''Insurgency Online: Web Activism and Global Conflict'' University of Toronto Press, 2006.
* Molly Beutz Land,
Networked Activism', Harvard Human Rights Journal / Vol. 22, 2009, p. 205–244. (PDF, 225 kb)
* Richard Kahn and Douglas Kellner
New Media and Internet Activism: From the ‘Battle of Seattle' to Blogging New Media & Society / Vol 6; 2004, Pages 87–95. (PDF)
* Xu Ling, ''Network actions - new media and political confrontation in the Internet age (Chinese Edition)'' (Huazhong Normal University Press (December 1, 2011)), .
{{Media manipulation
Politics and technology
Technology in society
Activism by type
Internet activism