Blog Post #3 - Unit 2 Takeaways

Social media is a huge part of all of our lives in the digital age we take part in today. The internet has really redefined what it means to be part of the world, and what it means to be a "public." One of the bigger takeaways from this unit was Boyd's idea of "networked publics," the kind of publics that exist over the internet, or connected by their cellphones or any manner of technology. This is particularly noticeable in the way that social media sites have almost completely redefined social interaction with a group of friends or acquaintances, promoting online chatting or "liking" of a huge group of friends, rather than the traditional methods of going out and actually interacting. Additionally, the idea of these networked publics speak to the shifting of the world into a more digital era, where the "public" is less defined as the mass of people you might see as you walk around on the street, and more often their digital selves, as seen on sites like twitter or facebook. This is especially interesting when you take into account that over half the world is still not online, and that this "networked public" that many herald as the amalgamation of all the world's people, with the internet serving as the catalyst for worldwide social interaction, only takes into account less than half of the world's people, completely leaving out entire nations in the "global" voice. Especially on social media sites, the primary users are people in developed nations that have near unlimited access to the web, giving them the ability to use social media the way that we consider it for the purpose of a networked public, and those in poorer nations, those who may not have computers at all, are more and more becoming overshadowed by the staggering presence of those with the power to participate in the online game.

The second and biggest takeaway from this unit has to be social media's place within the sphere of activism, and the idea of "slacktivism." We read Gladwell's article about how social media, while it has its uses, isn't really "true" activism, because it doesn't foster the kind of communal bonds formed between people faced with adversity. Going back a bit to the idea of a networked public, this criticism seems to hold up. Since the world is so easily connected now through social media and the internet, those kinds of communal ties that Gladwell is talking about are evaporating everywhere, not just within the sphere of activism. However, the dissolving of these kinds of ties is no reason to write off social media activism, colloquially coined "slacktivism" for the slacker kind of attitude it fosters, allowing people to support a cause without having to actually "do" anything. Rather, I believe, as does Mirani, that this new world we live in calls for a re-interpretation of what "activism" really means. In the modern age, while there are certainly those who go out and picket, those who make signs, march on business, all those acts of "old fashioned" activism, the use of social media to raise awareness and the ability of people to pledge to a cause from the comfort of their own home is still a form of doing something, and as such still counts as activism. As we learned from our projects, even actual activist groups, ones who are out doing "real" activism, use social media in such a way as to foster the exchange of information, to alert people to the causes they're fighting for, because they know that most people aren't going to care enough to just get up and start doing something right off. All of these groups use social media in conjunction with their physical activism to garner people to their cause, and to further their activist goals. While sharing an article on facebook certainly isn't as impactful as creating a billboard in protest to a product, you are still able to potentially open the minds and hearts of others, and if nothing else spark debate over the issue at hand, and at its core, that's what activism is really all about.

Blog Post #2

     After taking a look at the social media use of the environmental group Friends of the Earth, it is apparent that the group very much falls into the category of "slacktivism" that Gladwell discusses in his article, at least in the case of their social media usage.

     As a group that started in the 1970's, Friends of the Earth started on Gladwell's ideal kind of social activism, the kind where people would go out and picket, group together and sign petitions, old fashioned kind of lobbying. With the advent of media technology, as a prominent environmental activist group Friends of the Earth wanted to get in the social media game in order to attract a wider group of people to their cause. In the case of one of their largest social media endeavors, Twitter, FoE's activism tends to fall into the category of slacktivism.

     As seen above, rather than actually grouping people to a cause of doing any kind of hard activism, FoE uses their twitter posts to links to their articles, and keep their followers in the loop on the news surrounding the goings-on of the environmental group.

     However, contrary to Gladwell's harsh take on the role of slacktivism nowadays, I believe that FoE's twitter outings, though not an example of hard activism, they do succeed in their goal of gathering a larger group of people together towards their cause. Even though their posts about articles or news in the group doesn't necessarily rally anyone to take up arms against environmental aggressors, the lack of hard activism apparent in their social outings makes people more likely to want to be involved in any way that they can. And if even one of those people they attracted with their "slacktivist" social media decides to join the core group in their outings of hard activism, then the social media was a complete success. In this way, while slacktivism may not get anything significant done, it facilitates the continuation of the hard activism that Gladwell is so in support of.