Status Update Activism
If your Facebook newsfeed is like mine, endless variations on "...thinks no one should die because he or she cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because he or she gets sick" have been scrolling down your screen all day. My kneejerk reaction to this new meme was, I'll admit, a crusty cynicism -- status updates don't have votes in the Senate -- but at the same time we should recognize that this sort of identitarian signaling behavior is an increasingly important part of what we "millennials" understand political-cultural engagement to entail. (Perhaps it has even become the central component.)
We saw the same phenomenon early in the summer during Iran's so-called Twitter Revolution, which had two overlapping and sometimes conflicting modes: the use of Twitter by people within Iran as a organizing and news-distributing tool and the use by people *outside* Iran for the purposes of vicarious participation in political struggle. Then, as now, the important thing is to signal you're on the right side of a fight in which you are otherwise just a spectactor -- then by tinting your Twitter avatar green and now by posting a shared slogan as your status update and then leaving it altered for the rest of the day. We could go back to 2008 and 2004 elections, or to any number of other charged moments, and find similar memes at play.
If we are feeling generous, this could look like a new tool for creating solidarity; if we are feeling ungenerous, it looks a lot more like consumerism masquerading as activism.
What have we really done when we "donate" our status update to a cause? While certainly tempting, I think it's wrong to say we've done nothing -- at the very least, we've taken a public stand, we've added our number to a count -- and yet it's very hard to pin exactly what the something we've done is.
It's a question, I think, that takes us to the heart of digital identity. What is at stake in this sort of signaling behavior? What status does your status update have? I think working this out will be crucial as social networking takes on an ever-increasing slice of social experience.
(If you agree, post this as your HASTAC blog entry today.)
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From the digital to the community
I have been thinking about exactly this issue all day, Gerry (I admit my FB status update is about healthy care, although various of my FB friends have added expletives in various part of the status while other of my FB friends have corrected the grammar--that is what a diverse community yields). I recently had a very interesting conversation from a program officer at a national foundation where we discussed exactly this: how one moves from a digital online action to a community action, how you take activism and discussion and move it into an area where social change, social participation, and other elements of democracy have an impact beyond the virtual?
No answer, but I keep thinking about that, and one reason why I'm so honored to be part of the Digital Media and Learning Competition is that many of those projects are exactly about taking certain theories of digital community and actually putting them into practice in actual communities. It is fascinating and sometimes inexpressibly powerful (as a social and political activity) to see the translation actually change the material and psychological conditions of lives. I am not someone who thinks all theory has to have a practical application but I must admit that, when it clearly does, my heart soars a little.
When Allison Clarke (our first Distinguished HASTAC Scholar in Residence), we'll have a reception for her and invite all the area HASTAC scholars. That's September 21. It will be great if we can talk about this issue of translation from digital to communities. Her emphasis on access and digital divide is precisely in the way the digital issues mirror and sometimes magnify (rather than reduce) actual social conditions.
one way we get to "community"
One way this happens, and it may be happening today, is just through sheer numbers; the meme has caught on to the extent that it's starting to be noticed by political bloggers at Daily Kos and MyDD, and I wouldn't all that surprised if it earned a mention on Olbermann or Rachel Maddow in the next few days. If it *really* catches on, it could even earn a mention in Obama's speech before Congress next week -- smaller memes than this have earned that sort of national attention in the past. One of the great triumphs of the virtual is that it really does allow autonomous local actors to achieve wide-ranging global effects, delinked from the usual spatial limitations -- with the accordant risk that we begin to think any and all of our virtual pronouncements will somehow "make a difference."
UPDATE: Whoever runs the Barack Obama Facebook page has seen it and just reposted it themselves: http://www.facebook.com/barackobama?v=feed&story_fbid=149609040843&ref=nf
"catching on": going viral
Loved your post, Gerry. I think you're on to something important. I think digital activism is about the numbers. it's when it catches on, when something like this goes viral that people of capacity and influence listen and respond. The case was made over and over and over again in the high noon of the #iranelection period. Just think Neda (on United for Iran: Global Day of Action for Human Rights) http://bit.ly/4twKVv ~> This photo: Paris.
Neda
That's an amazing photo.
Obama's Speech
Gerry,
I agree, I think it has caught on the the extent that it could appear in Obama's next speech. I, personally, hope it does. The power of viral marketing is unprecedented! As for the facebook fan page, I think it's great! Here's another link you might want to consider. http://twitter.com/#!freedomiq/BARACKOBAMA
Another interesting thing I
Another interesting thing I sometimes find happening with the status repost convention is that for a particular issue--say health care or Sudan or something--even when everyone is aware of the general issue, often the repost will bring a particularly surprising, inspiring, or useful statistic or image from amidst the often monotone message (such as the 62% bankrupcies health related that Cathy Davidson posted recently on facebook vs just a 'health care good' type of post). I would imagine that the most culturally salient points, arguments, stats, etc might natural select to be the ones that cover the most ground, and so the repost convention could potentially help to focus or shape the nature of the debate for the crowd that sees it, and whereas a 'health care good' post might not especially change anything for a supporter of health care, I could see something like the harvard study stat being a much more effective catalyst for galvanizing supporters or turning opponents. Without that kind of viral spread such relevant points require constant centralized broadcast effort to distribute and will not have the same reach or life. I also would imagine that from a scholar's perspective the srpead of the various types of messages might greatly illuminate what the really salient points of an issue are for the anonymous mass disseminating the message.
Great post thanks.
Great post thanks.