R8: Social Media Activism

        I agree with Gladwell’s assertion that social media activism is centered around weaker ties to the cause at hand, whereas activism used to draw people with strong ties to the issue.  In the civil rights movement during the 1960’s, the people involved in the sit ins and marches across the country faced serious potential brutality every day.  Those involved in the sit-ins during the Greensboro, N.C sit-ins described their fear in this way, “I suppose if anyone had come up behind me and yelled ‘Boo,’ I think I would have fallen off my seat” (Gladwell, 2010).  During that time people were actually risking their lives to stand up for change that they believe in.  Now with social media, people, for the most part, are not risking bodily harm.  People jump on board with movements to be a part of something.  Sure, many of these people have strong ties to their movements, but I know many people that will support a movement online and not act the part in real life because their image online is what matters more than actually doing something about the issue. 

        Now, this doesn’t imply that social movements today are not strong in their own right.  Social media is tool that effectively spreads the movement and gives many voices in support of a movement, or dissent of the problem at the root of the movement.  In the 1960’s, word of mouth spread the civil rights movement like wildfire, and now social media has exponentially increased the speed and reach of a movement.  And even though many of the people that hashtag and tweet about a movement may not be actively trying to solve the problem, awareness is the first step, especially in movements that are so young like the BlackLivesMatter movement.  In Building Tools for Digital Activism, Opam describes social media’s role in spreading the movement, “… how Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and other social platforms can be used to effectively shine light on injustice, and spark change” (Opam, 2016).  In terms of this BLM movement, the social media activism has started to spread awareness, and from this we have seen, and will continue to see, people start taking action to try and solve the problem one step at a time.  So, even though social media activism is mostly centered around weak ties to the problem, the awareness that it brings to social issues can reach more people that want to spark change.  The mass scale of communication has a pivotal role in society today and proves that there truly is strength in numbers. 

Works Cited

Gladwell, Malcolm, “Small Change,” The New Yorker, 10/4/10, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-3 (viewed 5/4/17)

Opam, Kwame, “Building Tools for Digital Activism” 11/29/16, The Verge, http://www.theverge.com/a/verge-2021/deray-mckesson-interview-black-lives-matterdigital-activism (viewed 5/4/17)