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When political engagement becomes a matter of clicks, the power of the internet as an engine of change becomes a mirageĪfter the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis in 2020, Instagram was filled with black squares in a viral campaign known as #BlackOutTuesday. “In contrast, when you look at Occupy’s global marches that were organized in two weeks, you see a lot of discontent, but you don’t necessarily see teeth that can bite over the long term.” “When you see the March on Washington in 1963, when you look at that picture, where this is the march where Martin Luther King gave his famous “I have a dream” speech, you don’t just see a march and you don’t just hear a powerful speech, you also see the painstaking, long-term work behind it… and if you’re in power, you realize you have to take the capacity signaled by that march, not just the march, but the capacity signaled by that march, seriously,” said Tufekci in a TED talk.
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In the movement against racial segregation in the 1960s in the United States, activists gathered for years to write pamphlets that they then distributed across the country through dozens of organizations. Contemporary movements such as the Gezi Park sit-ins in Turkey, the Arab Spring and the protest movement in Hong Kong, in which the internet played a key role, have lost the benefits of careful long-term planning, according to the scholar.
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Sociologist Zeynep Tufekci, author of Twitter and Tear Gas, concluded in 2015 that activists today share a widespread frustration. For Maribel Tellado, Amnesty Spain’s mobilization officer, “digital activism does not kill or replace the star of the street, but makes it shine brighter.”īut some consider the transience of social media posts and the low involvement of users as undermining systemic change. Its first digital campaign in 2002 helped prevent, with millions of online signatures, two women from being stoned to death in Nigeria. Amnesty International was born in 1967 when its founder called for people around the world to write letters to the Portuguese government over the imprisonment of students. Sometimes, the speed of publishing is a matter of life and death. Visual culture theorist Nicholas Mirzoeff, who spoke to this newspaper by phone from New York University, equates online protests to the overthrow of symbols of colonialism: “ Toppling a statue is just a stepping stone, but it allows you to point out social inequalities,” he said. More informationīyung-Chul Han: ‘The smartphone is a tool of domination. For Noelia García-Estévez, a sociologist specializing in digital activism, although liking or posting a particular photo is “low-involvement activism,” at least it brings an issue to the fore and sometimes manages to get it onto the public agenda. Short, punchy messages spark interest, are easy to understand and connect with the young. Today a young woman dances on Instagram to the Olivia Rodrigo lyrics: “Good for you, you’re doing great out there without me, baby, like a damn sociopath!” while calling out brands that do the bare minimum and call themselves sustainable. “If I can’t dance I don’t want to be part of your revolution,” once said the feminist icon Emma Goldman, long before the internet was born. On social media, where everyone’s voice is supposedly welcome, visibility and immediate connection are prioritized.
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Among grassroots activists out in the field, it can actually be a constant source of frustration. Activists and their organizations have rushed to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn with the aim of bringing about a particular change in the status quo, but online activism is a double-edged sword, where immediate success can mean defeat in the long run. All social movements in existence today were born or are being amplified by the internet.