Tag Archives: technology

I know, things are hard enough these days, without going out and looking for trouble, right?

And, yet, here we are.

Here’s the problem: there’s increasing evidence, I believe, that the kinds of online advocacy about which we were so excited just a few years ago are, in fact, too easy.

Because we’re not the only ones who know that it doesn’t take much to get people to sign an online petition or click to send an email to their member of Congress (I know, it’s sometimes not as easy as it sounds, but that, unfortunately, usually has more to do with the nature of our relationships with those we’re trying to get to advocate than with the actual, technical difficulty of taking that particular action, and that’s an entirely different problem.)

A relatively recent survey of nonprofit activity on Facebook, for example, found that, while only 40% of organizations were able to convert their Facebook fans into donors or volunteers, about 66% saw an increase in people taking an advocacy action. And while that sounds great, because we can always use more activists, it makes me wonder:

If it’s known that people would rather sign a petition than give you a dollar, how much is that signature really worth?

This is related, too, to the common wisdom (enforced by our own experiences) that there’s just SO MUCH out there, and that it can be hard to sort through all of that information. Certainly policymakers feel that way, too, which contributes to their desire to wade through the noise and find that which most resonates with them. Since we can’t count on always aligning with their way of seeing the world, or having their trusted advisors lend us their voices, that means that we need to either make a compelling case related to their constituency (harder to do, somewhat ironically, in the context of online global networking, because of difficulties precisely locating advocates’ geographies) or develop powerful actions that can rise above the chatter…or both.

This question, and the doubt it reflects, matters not just in the short-term, when we really want people to listen to what our advocates are saying. Ultimately, key to building strong movements is people’s recognition that their individual contributions are, collectively, part of something far greater. And, so, if that’s not really the case–if me calling my member of Congress on my own would really make a bigger impact than joining with others to sign a petition or click “like”, then am I really part of a movement after all?

Are we authentically inviting people to transcend themselves and transform their lives, with the sacrifices that such affiliation entails? Or are we selling them the idea of advocacy, in a way that may forever distort their understanding of the real thing? If it’s the latter, what will that mean for the times when we have a really big “ask” of our advocates, if we haven’t been building, at all, but rather engaging in a sort of pseudo-organizing?

Lest we start off the last month of this year with a complete downer, I think that there are some real opportunities to utilize some of the same utilities on which we currently rely to leverage advocacy with real impact. Here are some of my ideas, and I’d love to hear yours, both in your reaction to this whole “time for a game-changer” proposition, and for ways to maximize the power of our online advocacy strategies and dodge the impotent, as we continually react to how our successes raise the stakes.

There is a debate, of sorts, at the intersection of traditional activism and avant-garde technology, about whether advocacy on Facebook (and other social media, but it mostly seems to center on Facebook) is a poor substitute for “real-world” activism and a diversion from important work, or, conversely, whether such online activities represent the future of organizing and a replacement for more traditional campaigns.

This week, as I think and write about my use of social media and my observations in that field, in response to my reading of The Facebook Effect, I’m wondering what if, in fact, it’s kind of neither?

What if putting your politics in your status updates and inviting your friends to community events, which are both relatively passive actions that nonetheless require being “out” with one’s concerns and preferences for social change, is kind of like an interim step towards the kind of organizing that can build lasting movements, and the kind of advocacy that can take down whole regimes?

Because, sure, there have been some pretty dramatic examples of Facebook campaigns that have resulted in significant “real-world” impact, like the anti-FARC work in Colombia but, on the whole, most people’s use of Facebook is a whole lot more mundane. And there may even be some evidence that having an online outlet for policy frustrations reduces one’s willingness to take those complaints directly to those in power, although I haven’t seen any conclusive research to that effect (and I have been looking). The concern is that people will feel that “they’ve already taken care of it,” and stop short of real change. On the other hand, Facebook is now one of the first places people air grievances, and some studies suggest that these actions foment offline activism, too.

Even casual use of social media, though, makes obvious the ways in which political conversations seep into interactions, and the ways in which people practice defending their beliefs, and seeking out the likeminded, in an online forum.

And I think of that as baby steps.

Because organizing is always about asking people to make a leap, to step out of the private life that, while not necessarily comfortable, is at least known, into a public realm that promises conflict and tension and inevitable disappointment. And getting people to do that from scratch has always been hard.

But if today’s potential advocates have already seen that the world doesn’t fall apart when people don’t agree with you, or even when few respond to your invitation, then maybe they’ll be less reluctant to step out. And, conversely, if activists have used social media to discover that they’re not totally alone in their passions, then maybe the alienation and apathy that are an organizer’s worst enemies can be chiseled away, at least a little.

I don’t think the revolution will be on Facebook, although it’s also unlikely that it will be a complete bystander.

And maybe, just maybe, the revolutionaries will have practiced some of their arguments, refined some of their skills, and connected with some on their comrades, on this platform.

Our challenge, from this view, is to neither glorify or denigrate this online activism, but, instead, to recognize, translate, and leverage it in the social change arena. That requires getting past the outdated (and never that true in the first place) idea that social justice work necessarily equates with painful sacrifice, and creating movements with enough room for people to enter at multiple points.

And, then, we can all take some big steps together.