CRT Dramaturgy

One of main questions raised in That Poor Girl is whether social

media has ushered in a revival of activism, or has it discouraged

us from direct engagement? As with most complex questions,

there is no simple answer. This section breaks down some of

the pros and cons around online activism.

 

 

Pros of Online Activism:

 

Bringing together Community

 

Social media can unite communities that are geographically divided,

allowing activists around the globe to connect, learn from one

another, and build important networks of support.

 

Getting the Word Out

 

It’s far easier to reach thousands or even millions of people online

than in person or through mail. It is also usually cheaper, which

means that more money can go directly into the cause. Social

media’s power to “get the word out” was highly celebrated during

the Arab Spring, where platforms like Twitter were reportedly used

to let people know when and where protests would occur.

 

We Do Everyone Online Anyway

 

Our world is changing. We spend a ton of time online. It makes sense

that our political and social actions would also occur, at least in part,

online. Meet the people where they are, right?

 

Safety

 

For some people in some political situations, it’s not safe to “take it to

the streets” (a common refrain from 1960s activism). Digital

platforms offer an alternative way to engage.

 

 

 

Cons of Online Activism:

 

Slacktivism 

 

It's very easy to change your Facebook photo or retweet a video. It is a lot harder to call your government representatives, thoroughly educate yourself on an issue, help clean up a waterway or build a community garden, show up for a march, or otherwise engage with your full mind and body. Online activism often gives us the feeling that we are doing something when we haven’t done much at all.

 

Not only that, but the “instant” nature of social media can encourage us to be

uninformed about what we repost. How many of us share a video or article we

haven’t actually watched or read? Did we do any additional research? How

much do we really know about this issue? Social media activism can discourage

careful, engaged, and informed interaction around social issues. Rather than

encouraging good “digital citizenship,” it might perpetuate misinformation.

 

 

 

 

The Echo Chamber

 

Many scholars and media critics have argued that social media is an echo chamber. We only hear the ideas and voices we are already poised to agree with. This means that our activism may have limited effect because it’s not reaching people with diverse points of view, and we aren’t engaging in dialogue with others in a way that will encourage collaborative solutions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Problems that Occur in Activism no Matter Where it Takes Place:

 

We Get Carried Away with Declarations of Solidarity

 

Solidarity, or the act of standing with someone else (virtually or physically), has a long and important history in activism.

In the 1950s and ‘60s, young white activists traveled to the South to sit with African Americans on buses and at lunch counters. They were expressing their solidarity while actively challenging segregation laws.

 

But sometimes we can go too far with our

declarations of solidarity. For one thing, if we

go so far as to declare that we ARE someone

else or that we all have the same experience

(like “I am Alyssa Long” or #allwomen), we are

obscuring our differences. Highlighting

similarities is important, but the problem is

that the most privileged voices tend to rise to

the top, meaning that the particular

experiences of social and racial minorities get

drowned out in these moments. Social media

can magnify this problem because it can

spread causes so quickly. This occurred with

the social media phenomenon around Charlie

Hebdo. After this Parisian newspaper was

attached in 2015 for printing cartoons of the

Prophet Muhammad, the hashtag “I am

Charlie Hebdo” spread around the globe, a

declaration of solidarity with those killed and

support for free speech. The problem, however, was that many in France, the Middle East, and elsewhere actually found those cartoons racist. While that doesn’t justify killing people who worked at the newspaper, it does call into question the global declaration of solidarity with a newspaper that many found problematic. If you changed your social media profiles to “I am Charlie Hebdo,” were you saying “I protest violence,” “I believe in free speech even when its ugly,” or “Down with all Muslims”? Or, most problematic still, did you simply not know what you were saying? Instead of sparking an international debate about the complexities of racism and free speech, “I am Charlie Hebdo” overlooked these issues to the detriment of all.

 

 

Messages Get Corrupted and Oversimplified

 

The discussion of the Charlie Hebdo phenomenon is just one example of how causes are oversimplified in activism. In order to be effect, most activist slogans have to be simple and catchy. In the era of the AIDS epidemic, the organization ACT UP devised the incredibly important and effect slogan “Silence = Death.” This clearly communicated the need to talk publicly about AIDS and gay issues. This was true, and remains true today. But it’s also true that not everyone was in a position to be vocal about such things, and the slogan feels like a judgement of those who may have maintained silence for reasons of personal safety.

 

A more common issue with activism is that it reduces complex problems in order to them feel easier to solve. People can’t afford a house? Build them one! This doesn’t really do anything to address the larger problem of economic disparity in our country, but it does help one family. People are starving? Send $30 a month and feed one child! This won’t stop the civil war that is causing the famine in her country, but at least she will eat. Over and over again, we simplify issues because it’s easier to get people to take action when they see a simple solution.

 

 

It’s about Our Social Status, not the Cause

 

Particularly among the middle class, upper-middle class, and college-educated portions of our society, social engagement is seen as a mark of status. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we don’t care about the causes we support, but that we also care about the social prestige they grant us.

 

 

Privileged “Victims” Get More Attention than Non-Privileged Ones

 

After recent terrorist attacks in Paris, social media once again filled

with declarations of support and solidarity. But why don’t we see

these for the victims of Syria’s civil war, or the thousands of

refugees worldwide? Why do some people and some causes get

attention while others do not? The simple answer is usually that

those we perceive as “innocent” get our attention, and we may have

deep, unconscious bias that inform who we see and innocent and

who we do not.

 

Another good example of this is what the journalist Gwen Ifill called

“missing white girl syndrome,” which describes the way that the

media gives endless coverages to people like Natalie Holloway, but

ignores young women of color who go missing. A similar argument was made about why the murder of Matthew

Shepard, a youthful and innocent-looking young white man, received global

attention, while dozens of other murders of gay and trans youth that same year

did not. 

 

 

We Get Carried away Speaking for Others

 

Speaking up for those who lack a political voice or who are under-represented is important, especially if you have privilege and your voice can carry. But it’s easy to overdo it, forgetting that part of the work must be creating a platform in which they can speak for themselves.

 

 

It Feels Good

 

Giving to charity has been found, in some studies, to activate the pleasure center of the brain, just like sex or eating chocolate. This isn’t necessarily bad. It’s good for society that doing things for others makes us feel good. But it does make us question what exactly motives us!

 

 

We Use Our Power as Consumers

 

Just as in the case above, this is one of things that can be both good and bad. We have tons of power as consumers, and we can use it to encourage major corporations to change their labor laws, pollute less, or otherwise listen to our concerns. We can also use it to support emerging economies and individuals in those economies. On the other hand, if we let our purchasing do all of our activism for us, we might just be playing into hands of global capital, who want us to associate buying with empowerment and forget about structural inequality.