Is Activism Action?

Technology has had a huge impact on activism and different aspects of it are described in the three articles. In Malcolm Gladwell’s “Small Change” he describes a sit in that happened in North Carolina. The sit in occured before Twitter and Facebook were around but the protest continually grew by word of mouth and spread to surrounding states. Beginning only with four African American students and grew to around 600 people overflowing the restaurant. Without the connections of friends and word of mouth the protest would not have grown to the size it did. In Natalie Walton’s article “How Advocating from the Comfort of Our Own Homes Has Impacted American Politics” she advocates for the strength of social media and the large number of people it can reach. Many people get their news from the internet and the headlines are what grab their attention. Political news is shared on the internet in real time almost constantly, making it possible for people to know what’s happening and when it happens. The ads and articles that people view online can sway their opinions just from having multiple friends agreeing upon the same topic. Twitter is also a great way to connect to congress, a tweet to a congress member that receives hundreds of retweets and likes, is more likes to be responded to. Because social media can reach a multitude of people, many social groups can be made and joined easily. On the other hand people coming together online to rant about an issue has changed how people perceive activism. All the articles explain different events when physical protest were conducted and a change happened. In today’s society simply adding a hashtag to a tweet is considered to make a person an activist. By raising interest in a topic and getting more people involved in a conversation is a great start but does not usually help come to a solution. Bijan Stephen wrote “Get Up, Stand Up: Social Media Helps Black Lives Matter Fight the Power” to focus on the Black Lives Matter movement and the impact social media has had on the conflit. Without technology the stories of the injustices relating to African Americans in the community would not have been such big news. Videos and Tweets went viral and people all over the word were able to learn about specific events in places like Ferguson Missouri and Selma Alabama. Overall the articles are all attempting to stress the idea that social media is a great platform for social activism but it is not all there is. Physical protest are strong in numbers and even though a Tweet might go viral with thousands of likes and retweets it does not have the same magnitude of effect.