The Internet Age of Activism

In his article “Small Change”, Malcom Gladwell discusses he thinks that influence of social media/networking on activist movements will never be as strong as they were in the past. The activists of the civil rights movement used to participate in sit-ins or nonviolent confrontations. Nowadays, many people who consider themselves activists like Facebook pages like “Save Darfur” and then continue to sit behind their computers instead of take action. Gladwell equates this to the fact that when you interact face-to-face with others who are interested in a cause, you create “strong-ties”. Yet, when you connect with people over the Internet about a cause the ties you create are “weak”. In his opinion, this is why organizing an activist movement using social networking sites won’t be possible to successfully complete.

Now I don’t necessarily agree entirely with Gladwell, I think that there are some people who are successful online activists rather than “slactivists”. Also, just because you may have bonded over the Internet with one person or a group of people does not necessarily mean that it is a “weak-tie”. As our society dives further into the digital world, many people have been creating strong connections or friendships over the Internet. It isn’t as weird as it used to be just 10 years ago to meet someone you met online. However, I do agree that in this time and age, we do not like to be inconvenienced. So many social networking consumers think that activism just means liking a picture on Facebook that says, “like and share if you are against animal abuse”. There is much more to activism than saying you agree with a cause. Sharing/liking a post may get it more attention and it may help raise awareness of a cause, but it is just a passive way to make yourself feel good for “helping out a cause”.

The “Egyptian Chronicles” blog (run by Zeinobia and can be viewed here http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/) is a great example of a successful Internet activist. Now, this is not the first time that I have visited Zeinobia’s blog or other social networking accounts. I actually wrote about her blog last year for a class.  And she still continues to keep up an awesome and informative blog. Even though some of her blogging topics are dark or dreary, her blog is bright, colorful and positive. And unlike many people who consider themselves activists (most likely because they liked a picture for Kony 2012) and only pay attention to a large-scale event for about two weeks, Zeinobia actually keeps the world updated about Egyptian affairs almost daily and has been for a few years. Her blog also contains links to multiple different social networking/media accounts including Twitter, Flickr, Youtube and a couple others. This way she is able to get her message out to more than the demographic of people who read blogs or use blogger.

In my own opinion, Zeinobia is an awesome and successful activist. She is able to spread news stories that wouldn’t normally make it to the rest of the world if it weren’t for her blog. Gladwell may have been concerned that we would lose activists due to our “weak-ties” but I think that “strong-ties” can slowly be created out of those so-called “weak” ones.