Activism on the internet has a long history. Before the era of social media, the medium for civic activism and campaigning was by email and on various online forums.
In 2020, campaigning and activism is easier than in the 1990s and has become part of our daily lives. Social media has also become a way to get organised. However, activism taking place on social media also has a flip side. The information overload that people face every day is so vast and diverse that individual campaigns often get lost in the abundance.
Digital media is increasingly being used to support a change within society.
Digital activism has given birth to fairly negative-sounding concepts like slacktivism, clicktivism and hacktivism. Even though these terms are dismissive words, the phenomena behind them are just about to reach their full potential.
Digital media is increasingly being used to support a change within society. For example, in organising events during the Arab spring, social media already played a major role.
As another example, the #metoo campaign that started in 2017 has to this day resulted in much debate about and even some legal actions against gender-based discrimination and violence globally. This campaign gained significant momentum when celebrities joined it.
The information overload that people face every day is so vast and diverse that individual campaigns often get lost in the abundance.
To help in the understanding of this, Amnesty International has published an activism guide [https://www.amnestyusa.org/activism-guide/], which anyone can use to start a campaign to support human rights and increase awareness of human rights violations. The guidebook also gives advice on how to execute campaigning to reach as many people as effectively as possible. There are also websites offering tools to create public petitions, which can be initiated by anyone.
Activism in itself can of course be bad or good in nature. Hate speech campaigns, hacking and spreading private information may also be classed as web or social media activism.
A successful advocacy campaign
Civic activism and advocacy campaigns have the potential to make vast social changes when a significant number of people engage. In addition to support, a successful global campaign often calls for wide social and traditional media coverage, and allies in the midst of politicians, celebrities or influencers. Worldwide public marches and protests are also beneficial in terms of increasing visibility and getting the media to engage.
A well-known example of a successful advocacy campaign is the school strike for climate. The wider movement was initiated in 2018 by Greta Thunberg, a then 15-year-old Swedish activist, who begun to strike for climate on the steps of the Parliament House of Sweden on Fridays. She refused to go to school before the policymakers of the world started taking serious initiative to fight the climate change. The movement gained support quickly, as students around the world started protesting for climate action. #Fridaysforfuture-hashtags and photos spread, millions of protesters took to the streets and Greta Thunberg gave speeches at the World Economic Forum, U.S. Congress and United Nations’ Climate Action Summit.
While the school strike for climate has been one of the largest activism campaigns in history and has gained significant global attention, the question remains – what next?
The 2019 IPCC report estimates that the global temperature rise must remain below 1.5 °C above pre-industrial temperatures to prevent a climate catastrophe, while current climate commitments will result in the temperature rising by over 3 °C. The school strike for climate has been a successful advocacy movement, but much remains to be done.
Reflection:
Can you come up with more examples of successful internet campaigns?
Keep Reading:
How to use social media as a business or a community; Introduction to human rights
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This article was updated on January 14th 2020.
