Have you ever played tug of war with Ukraine?
How activism is effective with Euromaidan
What is going on in Ukraine is similar to a game of tug of war. Ukrainians wanted to join the European Union but Russia also wants them to join with them. How do they defend themselves and get what they want? There are two different types of activism used, traditional activism and social media activism. Both determined to be effective in different ways. If you could only pick one way to provide help in activism, which would you, chose to be more effective? In “Small Change” by Malcolm Gladwell, he explains why he believes traditional activism works best. In the problem with Ukraine, Euromaidan is a big deal, using social media to get the word around. In “The New Digital Age” by Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen a few chapter were taken out of the text to show its support for digital activism. Every way of activism is effective, just in different ways. Both forms, leading in the same direction just taking different paths to get there. Social media activism can start a change right away, all the power is in the palm of your hand, while traditional activism takes time to organize and execute.
Importance of Social Media
In the Ukraine, protests are being carried on while the Ukrainians try to keep what is theirs. After Ukrainians spent many days fighting and protesting on the streets, they eventually ousted their president, Viktor Yanukovych. There were a few doubts on how social media activism would work out in this situation. Carola Frediani wrote an online article called “How Ukraine’s EuroMaidan Revolution Played Out Online”, the article is about how Euromaidan was started. As Euromaidan became greater, Ukrainians realized how important social media was to this protest, and came to conclude that social media activism would only help them in the long run.
“They gathered in Independence Square (Maidan) in Kiev and used the hashtags #euromaidan and #євромайдан on twitter and facebook”(Frediani).
When they gathered they had decided how they were going to go about protesting with social media.
“Protesters began to mobilize on Nov. 21, 2013, after the Ukrainian government suspended preparations for the EU-Ukraine Association agreement”(Frediani).
This is how the social media activism within the Ukraine got started. As you can see, the president is no longer in power, so their methods of activism are working.
Connecting things on Euromaidan to how it can relate to social media activism is a strong way of showing its effectiveness. In the research we’ve done on Euromaidan, we’ve found a lot of connection to the Internet; it’s one of their ways for the protest. Olga Onuch wrote an online article “Social networks and social media in Ukrainian “Euromaidan” protests”, the article talks about the protesters and who they are and what has worked for them.
“When we asked protesters how they got information about the protests, we found a wide range of sources”(Onuch).
These sources include Facebook, twitter and other social media websites that are more popular in Europe. To show social media is effective, in the article by Onuch there are statistics on how protesters found out about the situation. Social media is becoming more and more popular as time goes on.
“Every society in the future, including those that adopted Internet technology early on, will experience different forms of protest in which communication technologies are used to organize, mobilize and engage the international community”(Schmidt and Cohen).
Social networks played a key role is spreading the word, 47% heard from their friends, 18% from their work colleages, and 15% were their family members. A numerous amount of people found out through facebook(49%) and other social media websites that are popular in Ukraine(35%) and Russia(51%) (Onuch). As our world develops we gain more ways of communication, and they are only going to grow to help us communicate further.
Its Right Now
So far we are very advance and have many different ways of communication. The Ukraine’s time of technology protest is right now. They are engaging with others in the international community to get the word out and show what they want to eventually happen to help their own community. In the reading we are doing today, many different sources of social media are involved with spreading the word.
“The platforms protesters use today, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others, will morph into even more constructive vehicles, as developers around the world find new ways to utilize the videos, images and messages related to their particular missions”(Schmidt and Cohen ).
With spreading the word comes the time when you need to be prepared for the out come. Euromaidan is a big thing that is going on in Europe at the moment and without the many sources of social media it might not be as well known as it is. Technology has the power to travel faster; with this people have been able to get the news around not only more quickly but to more people as well.
“In recent years, we’ve seen how large numbers of young people, armed with little more than mobile phones, can fuel revolutions that challenge decades of authority and control, hastening a process that has historically taken years”(Schmidt and Cohen).
With this said it shows just how powerful a mobile device can be in a person’s hand. You can do many different things with a tiny little cell phone. Social media is a powerful thing and can get the word out to show that protesters mean business and want to get what they want fast and more easily.
Gladwell’s Input
Malcolm Gladwell believed traditional activism was the most successful type of activism. Social media is built around weak ties(Gladwell). Social media wasn’t high risk and didn’t belong under the same category as traditional activism which is a strong tie. Gladwell believed if you wanted to get something achieved you needed to use the traditional method. The traditional method has always been effective and if something is working why change anything?
“History suggests the opposition movements need time to develop, and that the checks and balances that shape an emergent movement ultimately produce a stronger and more capable one, with leaders who are more in tune with the population they intend to inspire”(Schmidt and Cohen).
This just shows that traditional activism is a strong tie and therefore is more effective at getting the job done and seeing results. People like seeing results, maybe not quickly with traditional activism but they know they will they have changed some peoples opinion. Even though social media is becoming a bigger source for activism it doesn’t mean traditional activism is ever going to die down.
“But while revolutions are how some pursue change within the system or express their discontent with the status quo, there will always be people and groups who pursue the same objectives through the most devastating and violent means”(Schmidt and Cohen).
People now a day say that, violence is never the answer, but is that really true. Looking back to how many things were achieved in the past, traditional activism wasn’t only violent, but very effective in seeing results one way or the other.
Schmidt and Cohen have some ideas that relate to Gladwell in one-way or another. Gladwell says that the problem with social media is who is really committed.
“Most people will not identify themselves with a single cause but instead will join multiple issue-based movements spread over many countries”(Schmidt and Cohen).
If you are joining many different groups how committed to each group might you be? This shows that there could be a lot of people to activist group, but who is actually committed and participating, we don’t really know. “There consequence of having more citizens informed and connected is that they’ll be as critical and discerning about rebels as they are about the government”(Schmidt and Cohen). This goes along with participation. More people are finding out and showing their views on it, which will only help in the long run. Gladwell also says things to the effect of social media activism is low risk and doesn’t involve much effort and he believes that is unproductive and not what activism should be about.
“For some, communication technologies will allow them to engage without risk, and to feel the rewards of activism without putting in much effort”(Schmidt and Cohen).
They are stating this is good thing, but it really just goes with what Gladwell says about not putting much effort in and how it isn’t risky, which goes against how Gladwell thinks completely. Gladwell also believes you need a leader, someone to tell you what needs to be done and how to do it. Social media activism is known to be “leaderless” and Gladwell would put that under the category of unsuccessful activism. “Without statesmen and leaders, there won’t be enough qualifies individuals to take a country forward”(Schmidt and Cohen). This agrees with Gladwell in stating that it will be unsuccessful without leaders to guide them to victory.
With traditional activism taking time to organize and execute is key, while social media activism can start a movement overnight. Both ways of activism are extremely successful. Resulting from the past traditional activism is always the go to, because its what people know and has been around the longest. With the new and uprising social media activism, people might not put forth as much effort as needed for traditional activism, but word travels much quicker and to a larger number therefore making it a necessity for Ukraine. Ukraine would have never started Euromaidan without social media. We as a class wouldn’t know about Euromaidan without social media. Strong ties and weak ties are a key factor in deciding whether the type of activism is a success, but they are also determined on many other factors shown throughout.
