Media Revolution
Change is at your fingertips
In discussions of activism, one controversial issue has been social networking. It has been said to start revolutions on the internet when activists bring their campaigns to sites like Twitter. A revolution will only start if the campaign successfully leaves Twitter. Malcolm Gladwell, a writer for the New Yorker discusses this “social revolution” or lack there of in his article published in Emerging. Dan Savage and Urvashi Vaid are also published in Emerging as they discuss the “It Gets Better” campaign that was started on Youtube. Reading “Small Change” by Malcolm Gladwell and “It Gets Better” by Dan Savage shows the strengths and weaknesses of both traditional activism and social media activism. On the one hand, Gladwell argues that social networking is ineffective. On the other hand, Savage started his campaign by using social networking. My own view is that activism works best using both strategies together because it gets the point across in multiple messages. Social media is a good way to spread the campaign but the campaign would go unnoticed if it never left the internet. Recent articles like these shed new light on how social media impacts activism which previous studies could not address that were pre-social media.
Social media is a great tool for connecting people with similar interests, but the problem with this is that it only really connects people that have the same beliefs, making activism more challenging. Savage found ways to use networking for social activism. Gladwell believes that activism online won’t work because of weak ties.The It Gets Better Campaign was made up of strong ties. Gladwell’s example of the sit in protest during the civil rights movement says, “They would all have remembered the murder of Emmett Till in 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott that same year, and the showdown in Little Rock in 1957”. These boys lived through some big social movements and wanted to take things a step further. Part of Gladwell’s idea of strong ties was people being affected by the same events in life. This campaign connected people who had lived through the same past, even though they don’t know each other personally. Savage can only speak at schools that he is invited to speak at which limits his audience. His It Gets Better campaign only took off because of social networking allowing him to reach out to audiences he wouldn’t otherwise be able to reach out to. Social media is a starting point to getting people actively involved,
“In the meantime, while we work to make our schools safer, we can and should use the tools we have at our disposal right now- social media and YouTube and digital video and this book- to get messages of hope to kids who are suffering right now in schools that do not have GSAs and to kids whose parents bully and reject them for being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender” (Savage).
Activism is not as black and white as Gladwell makes it appear.
An important element of social networking activism is that social networking provides a community for people to share similar life experiences around the world. In the article “It Gets Better”,Savage discusses an anti gay bullying campaign that he and his husband started on youtube. Gay teenagers are usually bullied by peers and sometimes even authority figures, which could lead to suicide. Savage reports,
“ Nine out of ten LGBT students report experiencing bullying in their schools; LGBT teenagers are four to seven times likelier to attempt suicide. LGBT children who are rejected by their families are eight times likelier to attempt suicide and at much higher risk of winding up homeless and living on the streets.”
This outreach spreads the message and hopefully changes people’s attitudes towards the LGBT community. The goal of this video campaign is to show teenagers that life gets better.Savage and his husband shared their story on youtube which then led to other adults sharing their stories. If social networking didn’t connect people with similar stories with each other, this campaign would’ve never taken off.
Urvashi Vaid is an activist for the campaign launched by Dan Savage. In the article “Action Makes It Better”, Vaid writes about how to get involved with groups to start social change, because groups are an important place for activism to start. Not only is she a woman who is Indian in America but she is also a lesbian. Vaid writes,
“Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people did not have the right to have sexual relationships without violating criminal laws until 2003 (only eight years ago!). Or think about India: The LGBT movement just got a court to overturn the laws criminalizing same-sex/same-gender behavior in 2009 (two years ago!)” .
The LGBT movement is still fighting for more gay rights because they are still not treated equally.She writes a lot about how activism has made her life better and she enjoys fighting for change when change is needed.
The question with social media activism is whether or not it is effective. In order to make a change, people need to get off their computer and make their ideas well-known in the community. Gladwell believes that in order for activism to work, one must be actively involved in making a change. “Weak ties seldom lead to high risk activism” (Gladwell). High risk activism requires organization. There must be clear set goal, which Gladwell describes as hierarchy. Having just one leader will make the activist group stronger and work towards their one single goal. Vaid writes about how being part of activists groups isn’t always fun but gives her meaning. Vaid writes, “Social activism is all about optimism, even when you lose. The process of doing something about it all generates lots of adrenaline and serotonin that just make you feel better, like a sweaty dance to music you love” . If you are passionate enough to take a risk then you won’t let one failed attempt keep you from trying to fight for the rights you deserve. Being active and rallying people up with one goal in mind and a clear set plan that everyone sticks to is the best way to go about a social change.
There is nothing to be gained by looking back or dwelling on the past, Savage acknowledges,
“There wasn’t anything we could do about the bullying we had endured in school and, for too many of us, at the hands of our families” .
Savage knows the only way to make a change is to focus on the future. In Savage’s view ,
“Without gay role models to mentor and support them, without the examples our lives represent, they couldn’t see how they might get from bullied gay teenager to safe and happy gay adult” .
Since he can’t change his past, the campaign focuses on a brighter future. He’s making other teenagers’ lives better by showing that his life got better.
Gladwell would believe that Savage’s campaign would be successful based on weak ties. The question is whether or not these “weak ties” can become strong ties. Gladwell acknowledges that, “The internet lets us exploit the power of these kinds of distant connections [acquaintances] with marvelous efficiency” . Savage takes advantage of the power of weak ties by posting video campaigns on a social network. These videos quickly become strong ties, based on similar backgrounds and goals. Savage reports that, “The video that I had made with my husband, Terry, a week earlier, the very first It Gets Better video, had been live on YouTube for just a few hours when e-mails and likes and friend requests started coming in so fast that my computer crashed”. Savage was able to reach out to the audience in a way that made them feel comfortable to talk to him about the campaign he had started. People that didn’t even know him instantly jumped on board with the campaign.
Social media activism is low risk activism. It works because people don’t have to make much of a sacrifice. “But how did the campaign get so many people to sign up? By not asking too much of them. That’s the only way you can get someone you don’t really know to do something on your behalf” (Gladwell). Watching a YouTube video and passing it on to a friend is about as low risk as activism can get. Convincing others to share their stories in videos isn’t really asking too much of people either. Savage reports, “The second It Gets Better video arrived within twenty-four hours. Three days later we hit one hundred videos. Before the end of the first week, we hit one thousand videos. Terry and I were relieved to learn that we weren’t the only people out there who wanted to reach out to LGBT kids in crisis”. Asking people to talk about how their life has gotten better to reach out to people in the same situation that they were once in, isn’t asking much. In America, a person won’t get beat up by the police and thrown in jail for making a video about being gay. It takes courage to share a story but there’s very little risk.
Although the It Gets Better Campaign cannot end LGBT bullying altogether, it can give people hope for a better future. Savage reminds us that, “It [the It Gets Better campaign] won’t solve the problem of anti-gay bullying, everywhere, all at once, forever, overnight. The point of the project is to give despairing LGBT kids hope”. Savage knows that videos alone won’t stop anything, and that the responsibility of ending it is put on the viewers to take a stand. Gladwell agrees when writing, “Fifty years after one of the most extraordinary episodes of social upheaval in American history, we seem to have forgotten what activism is”. Anyone can watch an anti-bullying video that doesn’t take much time to watch. Taking a stand against bullies is a lot more to ask of people.
Combining the network of strangers that have a common background with some high risk activism would be most effective. Gladwell considers high risk activism, “ A challenge to the establishment mounted with precision and discipline”. Liking a facebook page isn’t going to change anything on its own but it will connect a person with other people wanting to make a change. This page could network people who then go out and prove they are passionate about the issue. Liking a page is too easy and low risk, a person typically has to make a sacrifice in order to prove their point.
