Nora's Narrative: A Journey Through Words

Over Thanksgiving my grandmother asked me how I can “turn off” posts she was seeing that were related to politics. She complained about not fully understanding those kinds of posts, and it getting in the way of other content she wanted to see. I’m sure you can imagine my grandmother’s disappointment when I told her there was not a true way to simply “turn off” the posts that she wanted to avoid. 

Social media continues to play significant roles in shaping major social justice and global political movements. Platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook give ordinary citizens the power to amplify their voices in ways that would seem unimaginable a decade ago. Social media oftentime forces the general public to look at movements and campaigns that make many people uncomfortable – like my grandmother. But, this cannot be avoided and it leaves users with no choice but to face what is actually taking place in the world. By being unable to ignore social justice movements, users are also forced to formulate thoughts and opinions on what they see (even if it’s unconscious). 

During the Arab Spring, social media served as a major catalyst for governmental change. After Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in a protest against governmental corruption, several uprisings and riots ensued (2018). These uprisings were driven by a combination of political, economic, and cultural grievances that originated in Tunisia back in December 2010 (2018). These uprisings rapidly escalated into nationwide uprisings and the ousting of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. While all this chaos was taking place across North Africa, there was significant documentation going viral on every single social media platform (2018). The Arab Spring became infamous and quite literally took the world by storm in a matter of days. 

I believe the Arab Spring is one very concrete example of how social media is able to circumvent traditional media censorship and governmental control. It allows individuals to directly communicate with the world, and empowers marginalized communities to speak up and expose the injustices they are facing. There is solidarity formed among activists, and social media platforms facilitate the creation of many virtual groups that can be linked through common goals (Bruns et al., 2013). As valuable as this is however, it is critical to acknowledge the limitations of social media. While social media platforms allow for a very quick spread of information, this spread of information alone is not nearly enough to create true change. Social media certainly aids in spreading awareness and keeping people updated to the happenings in other countries, but in order to create policy change there must be action. The idea of ‘slacktivism’ often keeps individuals from pursuing collective action since it is so easy to show support from a device in the comfort of your home (Lodewijckx, 2020). A lot of times, this is why popular social justice campaigns die out as quickly as they came in – because there was not enough action that kept the campaign alive. We often get into a habit of thinking a viral campaign is a successful one, but simply going viral on Instagram does not equate to real world success. 

Ultimately, the impact of social media on social and political movements depends largely on how it is utilized, and if it inspires collective action or not. It is certainly valuable in the sense that it helps shine a light on global injustices, but sustained offline organization and institutional reforms truly leads to social change, and it is crucial to keep this point in mind when supporting social campaigns only through social media platforms. 

Citations:

YouTube. (2018, May 8). Here’s how the arab spring started and how it affected the world | history. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgcd5ZcxDys 

Bruns, A., Highfield, T., & Burgess, J. (2013). The arab spring and social media audiences. American Behavioral Scientist, 57(7), 871–898. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764213479374

 Ilona Lodewijckx She/her. Digital Content Creator at CitizenLab. Copywriter. Em dash (—) enthusiast., Ii. (2020, July 1). “slacktivism”: Legitimate action or just lazy liking? CitizenLab’s Blog. https://www.citizenlab.co/blog/civic-engagement/slacktivism