Digital Activism; What Works, and What Doesn’t
Activism in the United States has had a long histroy but in new generation of technology and social media platforms, we have seen a shift in how we generate activism. Especially in recent years, we have been able to study the digital activism strategies that have worked well and the digital activism strategies that haven't worked.
Digital Activism has been a great tool to spread awareness and messages quickly and efficently. It can connect people all around the world to unify as one group who stand together. Summer of 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota George Floyd was wrongful killed by police officers in the street that was caught on video and quickly caught attention on social media. People began protesting in the streets and it began a movement around the world. Without digital activism I dont think that this incident wouldve got the attention that it needed to; it would not have caused a roar as loud as we heard in the summer of 2020. Digital activism is an amazing tool when it comes to informing one another wether that be Facebook groups, Instagram story posts, or the use of hashtag. In a youtube video posted by DeRay Mckesson on digital activism he states, “there is no one solution”. This meaning that we as people need to make sure we are staying creative in the ways we use technology for activism to help fix issues. There is no single right or wrong answer. Although digital activism can create a huge amount of change and has been a very effective tool for activism, it is only half of the battle.
In an opinion article written by Yana Sadeghi, they make a couple points of how we have seen downfalls in digital activism. During the protests in the summer of 2020 of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s death caused by police brutality, many people were communicating and getting messages out to each other through the hashtag, #BlackLivesMatter. There was a day called #BlackOutTuesday where everyone started posting black boxes to their social media feeds. While this helped spread awareness and support, it cause a blockage of the hashtag. This meaning that the hashtag was filled with blank black boxes and the information that people needed to get was getting covered by this. Digital Activism is a great way to get momentum but it also needs to influence people to go out and go change what needs to be changed. You can support a cause on social media, but doing things in the real world such as voting is what is going to cause the change.
All in all, Digital Acitivsm unites people and can put pressure on elected officials to make changes that the people want to see but it also takes getting up and going out to make change happen as well. Digital Activism is a new territory and more and more studies have come out about it as we learn what works well and what doesn’t.
