Portfolio #2 — Examining “Activism”
The essay on activism, written by Guobin Yang, focuses on the history and etymology of the term activism as well as the context in which it existed and was used in various cultures. Yang states that activism has never been just one sort of activity or behavior, nor has it ever belonged to any one political ideology or movement. Indeed the meaning of activism has changed drastically over many years. Yang shows this by showing how the connotation of the word “Activism” has changed over the course of the past 60 or so years. According to the graphs he shows, during the mid 20th century, peaking in the 1970s, the term activism was closely tied to terms like “revolution” and “protest”. Now it’s more closely tied to terms like “NGO” and “civil society”. This is the result of a change in both how activism is done as well as in the societal perception of what is successful activism.
In examining the aftermath of the Tianamen Student Protests of 1989, Yang notes that many of the leaders of those protests said “farewell to revolution”, and that today activism is often seen as ineffectual when it isn’t backed by a civil body. Tied into this is the idea that internet activism is seen as lazy or superficial, as evidenced by the use of terms like slacktivism. However, it should be noted that cyberactivism has a longer history than one might expect, even going so far as the 1990s in providing support for the Tianamen movement. It should also be noted that online activism can take a wide range of forms and that, to some degree, just getting online or getting others online can be a sort of political act.
Activism and the relationships people have with both the internet as well as with other people through the internet are inherently tied together. Movements that were once solely regional or solely national can now reach an international stage and draw attention to issues that may otherwise to entirely unaddressed by the global community. This also means that movements that may have applicability on a global scale, such as the #MeToo movement, can get the reach and the attention they need to make a more tangible and lasting impact. But more than anything else, the ability to communicate openly and (for the most part) without government intervention with people in other parts of the world has let people put a human face to what they see and hear in the media and this in turn has helped drive the rise of movements that speak out against wars and genocides and speak in favor of protections for marginalized and persecuted groups all over the world.
