Social Media Management – Consulting – Social Media Marketing | Social Media Management Twitter, Facebook, and social activism At four-thirty in the afternoon on Monday, February 1, 1960, four college students sat down at the lunch counter at the Woolworth’s in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina. They were freshmen at North Carolina A. & T., a black college a mile or so away. “I’d like a cup of coffee, please,” one of the four, Ezell Blair, said to the waitress. “We don’t serve Negroes here,” she replied. The Woolworth’s lunch counter was a long L-shaped bar that could seat sixty-six people, with a standup snack bar at one end. By next morning, the protest had grown to twenty-seven men and four women, most from the same dormitory as the original four. By the following Monday, sit-ins had spread to Winston-Salem, twenty-five miles away, and Durham, fifty miles away. The world, we are told, is in the midst of a revolution. These are strong, and puzzling, claims. Some of this grandiosity is to be expected. What makes people capable of this kind of activism? This pattern shows up again and again.
Why Social Media Is Reinventing Activism The argument that social media fosters feel-good clicking rather than actual change began long before Malcolm Gladwell brought it up in the New Yorker — long enough to generate its own derogatory term. “Slacktivism,” as defined by Urban Dictionary, is “the act of participating in obviously pointless activities as an expedient alternative to actually expending effort to fix a problem.” If you only measure donations, social media is no champion. The national chapter of the Red Cross, for instance, has 208,500 “likes” on Facebook, more than 200,000 followers on Twitter, and a thriving blog. But social good is a movement still in its infancy. All of that virtual liking, following, joining, signing, forwarding, and, yes, clicking, has a lot of potential to grow into big change. The Power of One Shawn Ahmed is fond of reminding people that, “I’m not a charity. Beth Kanter and Allison Fine called “just guys” like Shawn “free agents” in their book, The Networked NonProfit. The Power of 1 Million
:: I WANT CHANGE!!! iwantchange.org :: Change What is social media Social media is the collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration. Websites and applications dedicated to forums, microblogging, social networking, social bookmarking, social curation, and wikis are among the different types of social media. Here are some prominent examples of social media: Facebook is a popular free social networking website that allows registered users to create profiles, upload photos and video, send messages and keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues. According to statistics from the Nielsen Group, Internet users within the United States spend more time on Facebook than any other website. Brian Solis created the following social media chart, known as the conversation prism, to categorize social sites and services into various types of social media. Social media is becoming an integral part of life online as social websites and applications proliferate.
Inside Indonesia - a quarterly magazine on Indonesia and its people, culture, politics, economy and environment Indonesia is Facebooking, Twittering and blogging, but what effect is this having on campaigns for social justice? Indonesia is online. The number of Indonesians using the internet increased from two million in 2000 to over 55 million in 2012, the fourth largest number of internet users in Asia (after China, India and Japan). Thushara Dibley This phenomenal growth in access to the internet has been supported by a rapidly growing economy as well as the widespread uptake of mobile phone technology. Indonesian ‘netizens’ have also keenly taken to new social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere. This edition provides a snapshot of the multitude of ways that Indonesian activists, politicians and ordinary citizens use new social media as a tool for activism. The following two articles focus on how activists in particular sectors make use of the online medium to promote their causes. The final two articles in the edition take a more critical perspective.
Home | Ignite Social Media Change Facebook Worldwide social activism demanding change By Graham Peebles Change is afoot. Confronted with state corruption and corporate greed, abuse of human rights, environmental chaos and extreme levels of economic and social injustice, the people, overwhelmingly the young, are taking to the streets demanding change and a new political/economic system that is inclusive and just. With growing unity and confidence, people throughout the world are expressing their collective will and crying out for freedom, justice and equality, and to be listened to – not only by governments, but also by international institutions, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and central banks. These are enormously powerful global bodies which influence and fashion economic frameworks that affect the lives of billions of people. A system dominated by “the market” that places profit and reward above the wellbeing of people and the health of the planet must be fundamentally changed. “The people have awakened” “We” replaces “I” The Occupy movement
Social Media Activism: Not A Cause Worth Getting Behind A spate of school sexual molestation cases in China have been uncovered recently by the media there. Over a 20-day period, eight cases of schoolkids being sexually molested by faculty or government officials have been reported, bringing forward the very important issue of child abuse in the nation. Disgusted and outraged Chinese citizens started an online campaign condemning the assaults by adults who are in a position of trust or power. Of course, these would-be activists don’t actually want to be contacted -- the campaign was designed to troll criminals via a kind of “pick on someone your own size” message. While this particular campaign had a serious goal, it wasn’t long before some users turned it into a joke, a fate that seems almost inevitable when it comes to the Internet. Because of this, social media "activism" is largely ineffective.