3 Social Media and Public Culture
PRESENTED PAPERS
How has digital activism affected cultures: A look into activism and slacktivism
Presenter: Shaun Fisk
The purpose of this paper is to look at the impacts digital activism has on the real world instead of just the impacts on the internet. This is done by looking at examples of digital activism from different causes such as Black Lives Matter, Me Too, the Paris attacks and Favella activism in Brazil.
In looking at these events the paper aims to analyze how digital activism has impacted these events and whether there was any significant impact or if the activism in question was just symbolic. This introduces the term slacktivism coined by Wang (2021), which is the idea that people can perform activism online without any impact being made on the event itself. This is done by changing profile pictures or doing something symbolic that doesn’t have any real effect making it different subset of digital activism that does have an impact in real life.
I have found that in many circumstances digital activism has positively impacted different cultures around the world by creating support, community, awareness, and a drive to create change when done within the community. In other circumstances it has created slacktivism where people create hashtags, change their social media profile pictures, and advertise support to people online while not doing anything to support the cause itself. Usually this is found by people who are outside the communities directly affected by the event that has caused digital activism to occur.
It is my hope that in the future people who wish to engage with digital activism will continue to look at digital activism and think of how it can be changed so that instead of just showing moral support direct action can be enacted to change the situation.
President AMLO’s populist use of communication strategies and polarization
Presenter: Karen Iturbide Tarrab
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), the current president of Mexico, is often described as a populist leader. The thesis of the paper is; populist communication created and disseminated by AMLO has resulted in maintaining and growing the polarization gap in Mexican society. Through a literature compilation, the paper explores different characteristics of populist communication including: the use of “us” against “them”, moral framing of good against evil, the leader’s ability of making an accurate diagnostic of unsolved issues that are important to citizens, anti-pluralism, and the use of colloquial language and catchy phrases. By using the “us” against “them” separation, AMLO, creates the illusion that there is only two options to follow for the construction of Mexico’s future. Using content analysis; the paper defines the context of the terms, used by AMLO, to morally frame situations and people involved in them. Through framing, citizens are categorized into binary groups of either standing with him (good and wise people) or against him (conservatives, fifís, power mafia, PRIAN). Leaders like AMLO seize division in high media salience issues and construct their messages in a way polarization is maintained or even augmented. These issues are well known to the civil society and easily recognized as unsolved long lasting economic, political and social issues. Discussion around those topics has become infertile. Media and social media, contribute to the decrease of tolerant and plural debate. Through echo-chamber digital spaces, citizens hear or read what they already believe. This permits AMLO to stay away from real complex discussions that could create policies to address social, political and economic issues. AMLO gives a press conference every day, recreating binary discourses and messages. People are constantly exposed to AMLO’s media coverage, and his provocative messages. They engage in futile discussions that are more about what the leader says and how he says it, than about the underlying issues. Debates, that could begin to detangle plural discussions, which would ideally lead to wellbeing for the majority of Mexicans, become sterile.
SUBMITTED PAPERS
Impact of social media on Activism
Presenter: Oyiyechi Imala
Technological advances have facilitated many processes in the world, one of which is the role of social media activism. Social media has played a crucial role in reinventing and transforming activism, making it more accessible and faster for youths and people to engage in political participation.
People now quickly disseminate sensitive political issues that could potentially initiate a protest with just a click or tweet. Hence, it provides new opportunities for social movement participants to enact change.
This paper seeks to question the normative meanings of traditional activism vis a vis emerging online forms of activism through the lens of two significant theories, which are communication infrastructure theory and moral framing theory, using a case study of the Arab crisis to better understand the underlying concepts in the views.
Furthermore, the paper interrogates if digital activism is a means to change or an opportunity to evade the actual sacrifices and responsibilities accrued to traditional activism. This is to say that people participate in activism because they do not want to go through the hassle of conventional modes of activism, such as gathering and marching on protest grounds and marching as opposed to tweeting and retweeting.
In addition, a concept popularly called slacktivism was also explored, which could also relate to digital activism. This is termed ‘’slacktivism’’ because of the widespread belief that digital activism is associated with disregard and lack of commitment. This concept further helped to investigate the impact of social media on activism and attempted to explore if the benefits outweigh the risks.
The impact of social media on social movement
Presenter: Daniella C. Daniels
Social media plays a significant role in every area of our lives, particularly in the aspect of social movement. The advancement of technology has led to changes in social movements. Unlike televisions, some vital information is being kept away from the citizens. Through different social media platforms like Facebook, Tik-Tok, Instagram, Twitter, and WhatsApp, essential information and footage about injustice are mobilised worldwide. Social media has the power to push people for social movements. However, despite the positive impact of social media on social movement, social media also encourages slacktivism, as people engage in online activities by just liking, sharing, or posting without being physically actively involved in the social movement.
This paper aims to identify the positive and negative impact of social media on social movements for social change. The question I would like to answer in this essay is to what extent has social media helped social movement for social change? or has it encouraged slacktivism? This study uses the framing theory to explain how social media affects social movement. Furthermore, to understand the impact of social media on social movement, data will be collected from past literature using online sources like Google Scholar, Jstor, Ebsco, and the school library.
In conclusion, social media positively encourages people to air out their voices or opinions regarding injustice, which leads to the social movement for social change, and it also plays a negative role on social movement.