When I think of online activism, the MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements immediately come to mind. They both started as online movements which such widespread reach, going beyond international borders, dominating social media discourse for a period. During each movement my Instagram and Twitter feeds were filled with posts putting a spotlight on these topics. If we were to measure the success in these movements by the amount of awareness they generated, there’s no doubt they would each by a resounding success. But does online activism need more then this to have real impact?
Social media tool Hootsuite says that social media activism is an online form of protest or advocacy for a cause, and it promotes awareness largely with a focus on social justice (Hootsuite, 2022).
Which begs the question, is posting about a movement enough? If someone is posting about a popular movement they’ve never spoken on previously, are they being genuine? Does that even matter is if it’s raising awareness on the issue?
Academic, Mariah Wellman uses the example of Black Lives Matter to assert that many influencers who posted on the movement did so out of performative allyship, largely to build and keep credibility with their follower base. With the benefit of hindsight, she believes this did little to have any substantial progress toward diversity and inclusion (Wellman, 2022).
Referring back to the Hootsuite piece, they believe they social media activism should be followed up by meaningful action and measurable commitment to change, and I tend to agree. Genuine offline action is needed to make a real impact, and it could be as simple as making donations to causes regularly, volunteering at an organisation impacted, or supporting businesses/artists/people that are impacted by a topic, and doing so all year round not just when its popular to do so.
Social media activism is powerful as it raises awareness, but offline action needs to follow in order to have a genuine and lasting impact.
References
Social Media Activism in 2023: How to Go Beyond the Hashtag. (n.d.). Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard. https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-activism/
Wellman, M. L. (2022). Black Squares for Black Lives? Performative Allyship as Credibility Maintenance for Social Media Influencers on Instagram. Social Media + Society, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051221080473