What if Martin Luther King Jr.’s “coalition of conscience” had been fueled by social media
Three years ago, in honor of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, the Windsor Historical Society and Archer Memorial AME Zion Church in Windsor, Connecticut asked me to discuss social media and how Dr. King might have used it if it was available when he was alive.
As I considered how to relate social media to Dr. King’s strong legacy in community building and helping to peacefully reconcile differing points of view, the one idea that jumped out at me was Dr. King’s gifted ability to communicate and connect with people.
Dr. King made connections on a very personal level. He moved around a lot, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action. The Nobel Peace Prize website says that in the 11 years between 1957 and 1968, King traveled 6 million miles and spoke more than 2,500 times. He also found the time to write five books and numerous articles.
Yes —Dr. King was a charismatic leader fighting for social justice and civil rights. He was also a relentless communicator.
Dr. King’s words, and his actions exemplifying nonviolent demonstration, inspired people — inspired them to connect to each other, and motivated them to take action.
So how did Dr. King’s message spread without the Internet?
Perhaps people read about him in a newspaper or magazine. Or heard a sound bite on the radio or TV. Or they heard by word of mouth from someone influential in their lives — a family member, friend, pastor, teacher.
If they were lucky, maybe they got to see Dr. King in person at one of his many public appearances.
Those moved by his messages formed a community. The attention of the world on him created what Dr. King called a “coalition of conscience.”
Communities come about through communication — shared experiences, mutual interests, problem solving. The strength of a community depends upon how it interacts.
In the old days, interaction usually meant you had to be physically present with others. But internet technology and social media have inextricably changed that paradigm.
In August 1963, Dr. King most famously directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C. of a quarter of a million people.
That’s when he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
If that event were to happen today, Dr. King could have used social media to interact with and mobilize so many more people.
Dr. King’s message would have been amplified much farther and much faster.
And with social media, it is very likely his message would also have been distorted and challenged and undermined more, as well: see #ReclaimMLK
For better or worse, social networks are an integral part of how people communicate today. It is how many of us share information and our emotional reaction to that information.
What is social media? Tom Standage, digital editor at The Economist, defines it as “an environment in which information is passed from one person to another along social connections, to create a distributed discussion or community.”
Low costs and low learning curve make it is easier than ever for people with common interests to discover each other, share, collaborate and build relationships. Ties can be forged with others at incredible speed regardless of geographical distance.
Interaction through digital devices introduces us to new ideas and new information, which may lead to trust, and eventually action.
Action is key.
Social networks, like other forms of internet communication, are systems of many to many. There is no center. With an independently networked public, you don’t have to go through mainstream media to reach a large audience. Messages can quickly be passed to hundreds of small audiences, person to person.
Reach the right influencers and a message can go viral and potentially reach millions. Social media can help build social momentum.
Yet social media is not a perfect communication tool for activism and positive change.
The nature of online communication is egalitarian. Like the printing press or broadcast television, social media works equally well for spreading negative messages widely and quickly.
Digital communication can be also repressed by governments or employed by opposition groups to spread propaganda and lies.
The effectiveness and intent of the tool depends on who is using it.
Each semester, I remind my journalism students that Internet technology doesn’t make people better or worse. It amplifies all that they already are. Human beings are capable of being both wonderful and terrible, online and offline.
Internet just makes all that communication archived, searchable and shareable. It can also make us lazy: see Slackivism.
If Dr. King had social media back in 1963 for the March on Washington, I think he could have used it in three ways.
First, as an organizational tool.
- Form groups and create discussion
- Discussion leads to new ideas and trust
- Trust motivates people to participate in calls to action.
“Collective action/information cascade” can drive an idea for a protest out of the online world and into the “real” one.
Social media promotes an active participatory culture because digital communication allows for continuous and timely communication between participants in a community, keeping the movement and interest going.
Without ongoing communication, participation and connection dissolves.
Second, Dr. King could have used social media for self publishing, as an alternative press and outlet for citizen journalism.
Blogging, Facebook and other digital self-publishing tools provide an outlet for the discontented. You can bypass mainstream media and take a message directly to your audience. The Internet lets anyone with access to a server take the media into their own hands.
An independent and transparent media is essential to a democratic society, and social media have played a defining role in “acting as a check” on repressive governments.
Social media networks, designed initially for “socializing,” are now used as sources for news, information, advertising, propaganda, and data, too.
Third, Dr. King could have used social media as a tool for generating awareness, both regionally and internationally.
It takes savvy networking with key influencers — those people in the world so seem to have so many more friends than we do. Get those opinion leaders to share the message and virally influence the thinking and behavior of others.
What social media can do is tap quickly into the power of the crowd. The crowd is made up of all kinds of other communities.
The crowd offers an avalanche of information, misinformation, shock, reaction, confusion, commentary, speculation and sometimes truth.
Social media has played a significant role in connecting people with a common goal of change, a platform to share discontent about the status quo.
For internet to be an effective tool, it requires an affirmative action on the part of the users — activism — as opposed to a passive response.
There are other challenges that social media pose to “activism.”
In the past, mainstream media exposed the public to stories, ideas and perspectives the people may not have sought out on our own. Nowadays, it is too easy to find an echo chamber online and stay in it.
Web search and social media allow us such a high degree of personalization, it is easy to filter out anything we don’t like, we disagree with or that we don’t have an affinity for.
Apathy or fatigue can arise when we are exposed to too many messages. The public perception of an issue can get distorted when the loudest voice on a subject is the most extreme.
And lastly, the Internet “allows people who agree with each other to talk to each other and gives them the impression of being part of a much larger network than is necessarily the case,” explained University of California professor Barbara Epstein.
Epstein warned that the impersonal nature of communication by computer may actually undermine the human contact that always has been crucial to social movements.
Social media technology does not cause revolutions, but like any media, it can play a part in accelerating them — or undermining them.
[R]evolutions begin in the minds and imaginations of those driving them. They choose their tools and their mediums for communication, whether it is print, radio, blogging or just word of mouth, but the strength of a movement lies ultimately in the will for activism.”
On this #MLKDay2017, it’s easy to find Dr. King’s “coalition of conscience” alive and well on social media.
Portions of this essay were originally published at www.mariekshanahan.com on January 21, 2014. Adapted from a 2014 MLK Day presentation at the Windsor Historical Society, Windsor, Connecticut. Updated on January 16, 2017.
