Social media: just a step from activism to “slacktivism”
Media analytics strategist Dana Chinn said, “News is a want, rather than a need.” As a non-necessity, news companies have to come up with their own strategies to reach target audiences. Based on my news consumption habits, it seems social media is one of the better ways to reach people like me who depend on digital devices. Scrutinizing my news consumption habits, I was not surprised to learn that almost 90 percent of the news I consumed in 48 hours (regardless of the news source) came from a click on my social media pages. My typical consumption habit is to browse different social media platforms to get information and news. When I find something interesting, I click the link and get to the source URL. When it’s worth sharing, I share.
Depending on social media to consume news has been a trend, and overly relying on it probably is not ideal. I noticed that for the content I share, it usually takes just a few minutes sometimes seconds. Thus I often share those stories with eye-catching titles. Thinking back, my sharing peek-hour occurs in the early mornings when I am barely conscious so I call this sharing pattern “sleepy-eyed sharing”.
However, what if one keeps sharing news without fully reading through the content? This happens almost every day, the KONY 2012 video that went viral on the Internet is one example. The anti-terrorist video “KONY 2012: Invisible Children” got tweeted, forwarded and “liked” on all kinds of social media, calling for citizens to cover their cities with posters of the wanted Ugandan warlord, Joseph Kony. It gathered amazing click rates during its online campaign. Social media is the most powerful driver behind such promotions. However, the real off-line “KONY 2012: Cover the Night” campaign failed, with only a few appearances- offline. With its unprecedented Internet promotional period, the failure was ironic. The movement’s phenomenal “success” on the Internet was due to highly active bloggers and “clicktivism”.
Some scholars also refer to this behavior as “slacktivism”, combining “slacker” and “activism”. It describes “feel-good” measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little physical or practical effect, other than to make the person doing it feel satisfied that they have contributed. Usually online activism is not equal to offline activism. Apply this to news consumption habits. I believe the key element to tell if a sharing behavior is “slacktivism” or a real activism is whether one is careful enough and fully cognizant. In my case, it might be too harsh to criticize my “sleepy-eyed sharing” as slactivism, but the behavior pattern is essentially quite similar: I click before I fully read through context. In the long run, fully developed stories would be hidden and more superficial but seemingly fancy content is more widely circulated. This is not good news to consumers who depend on social media.
