Major factors in political and social protest movements.
In recent years, the internet, and especially social media, have been major factors in political and social protest movements. From uprisings in Hong Kong to US presidential campaigns to the nationwide Black Lives Matter demonstrations, social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have been instrumental in organizing and publicizing activist movements for change. On the other hand, however, the past decade has also seen the rise of what some call “slacktivism,” i.e., forms of protest that get a lot of buzz on social media but don’t seem to inspire supporters to do anything more meaningful than retweeting or clicking “like.”
By the beginning of next class, please read/watch the pieces linked below, and then, in the discussion thread, please respond to the following questions:
1. Do you believe that social media is changing the nature of social activism for the better or for the worse? Why?
2. It’s clear that political scientists would be interested in the social media activism/slacktivism topic — but who else in the academy might be interested? That is, what other scholarly disciplines might gain new insights by studying the rise of internet activism/slacktivism? And why?
Please aim to be imaginative in your response to the second question, by thinking about scholarly disciplines that, at first glance, may not appear to have an interest in the topic at all, but that should, you decide, be very interested, indeed. For example, why might philosophers be interested in this topic? How about art historians? Anthropologists? Psychologists?
Sample Solution
Social media is changing the nature of social activism for the better. Websites and social media can garner the support of hundreds of thousands for a particular cause. They can even bring issues to light that might otherwise have been overlooked by mainstream media. Sticking a pamphlet in each door has been replaced by email lists in a lot of places. Standing on the corner with one of those megaphone things has become Twitter. Petitions can easily be shared on Facebook instead of being taken from door to door or standing outside the supermarket. And thousands of people can organize for rallies and demonstrations in almost no time at all. And in some cases, stories that might have been overlooked by the mainstream media are kept alive by online activists, as in the Trayvon Martin Case.
