How many times have you seen statuses like "Post the color of the bra you're wearing right now in your status to help raise awareness for breast cancer research!" or "Post a picture of your favorite childhood cartoon character to raise awareness for Child Abuse Month."
I'm not sure that finding out my Aunt Mildred's bra is "lavender" is going to move anyone to do something more about breast cancer.
Jason Rickner, a Stetson Alum, did his senior research on the Russian Facebook's capacity to translate into qualitative discourse or activism and found that very little meaningful dialogue was taking place. Obviously, Facebook has played a big role in the recent protests in Russia, but the evidence that the social networking site has been able to encourage any other forms of social activism has been limited.
Perhaps there are positive ways "new media" outlets like Facebook can lead to substantive dialogue and activism. Facebook users can link to blogs (which we need to remember are powerful -- journalists are reading them) or take advantage of forum spaces to get an informed and specific conversation going. Instead of changing your profile picture to Bob the Builder, make a status that high lights the work being done by an organization that combats child abuse. Encourage people to make a contribution or link to the organization's website so that your friends can learn more.
We have to first get over the idea that we can solve problems just by raising awareness. It's a good place to start, and we have a lot of tools at our disposal to do it, but it hurts us if we're lulled into thinking we've done our part when really, we've only "passed the buck" onto someone else.
This idea of online activism is really relevant, and it's interesting you mention Kony 2012. If you ever need a break from homework or just an excuse to procrastinate, I highly recommend watching this clip (link below) from a fairly new show on Al-Jazeera called The Stream. (This might be the second time I've mentioned Al-Jazeera on the blog, so sorry Dr. Hill for not keeping it in the country but this show in particular echoes the theme of your post, Christine.) The idea of "clicktivism" is discussed, and they use quality editorial discretion to choose their guests on the show, as well as the various tweets that they highlight throughout the show.
ReplyDeleteThe show in itself is very interesting, as it is very interactive when watched live. Basically, those that tweet to the hashtag #AJStream influence what is talked about in each show. You might have to copy-paste the link into your browser, but viewing at least the first few minutes are well worth it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN1dzX8Kr20
I find it humorous when I see those statuses on Facebook and the color of your bra or where you put your pocketbook. I never really understood how that was supposed to elicit some sort of activism. I am constantly seeing people "like" pictures on Facebook where there is either a dead infant, a bald child who has cancer, an abused animal and the list can go on and on. These pictures usually have a caption underneath saying "like if you think drug related infant deaths need to end" or "like if you think this child is beautiful" or "like if you want to end animal abuse". While it is a great way of making other Facebook users aware of the issue, it is not going to elicit enough users to get up off their couch and run towards government demanding something be done in order to stop drug related still born deaths. Speaking of Kony 2012, I made a point to look around for posters after April 20th. Well where is Kony's face? Why isnt it plastered all over my town? What happened to cover the night? While people were obviously made more informed, not enough people went out and did something. This particular campaign or facebook picture, didnt just say "like if you want to see Kony found" it actually had a set of instructions on how to go out and do something. Those people who "liked" Kony 2012, stopped at "liking" it, and did nothing to actually elicit change.
ReplyDeleteI've studied "best practices" of humanitarian organizations, and there seems to be an obsession with awareness and education via retweets, likes, comments, and readership of blogs as of late. There's a lot of stock put into the google analytics numbers of website views and such...I think one thing that it leads to is the richer, donation-driven people eventually can find out about causes through the spread through the social media. But I still think it's bologna.
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