It seems that any time there’s civil unrest in authoritarian countries, there’s always a social media angle.
During last year’s Iranian unrest there seemed to be more mentions of Twitter than the Ayatollahs. Features editors from Berlin to L.A haven’t missed an opportunity over the past five years to remind us all how new ‘social’ media technology is being used to challenge authoritarian political orders from Tehran to Beijing. More often than not, they contain rather silly headlines such as, ‘Will Twitter Power bring Iranian Government to Its Knees?’ and ‘Clickivists – The New Digital Revolutionaries!’
The ‘Armchair Activism’ debate
Last week, adherents of social media clashed with US writer and theorist, Malcolm Gladwell on the subject of whether digital activism is an effective channel for change. Gladwell, as anyone who reads the top ten business books knows, is the author of the best selling and highly influential ‘The Tipping Point’. His latest article for the New Yorker Magazine questions the importance of Twitter and Facebook in bringing about social change, and takes apart claims that ‘armchair activism’ had any meaningful impact on the recent social unrest in Iran.
In a provocative broadside to social media elite, he compares the activism of the US Civil Rights activists in the 1960’s to the people who Tweet messages of support during national unrest in far off authoritarian countries like Iran. In his detailed analysis of the US Civil Rights example, he points to the social bonds, moral and political values that defined a generation of people in 1960’s America to challenge segregation in southern states, where college students and their supporters braved cudgels and lynchings on a long road to securing political freedoms.
But the so-called activism displayed through social media isn’t like this at all, Gladwell argues convincingly. Social activism that actually changes people’s lives and the course of history is rooted in hierarchy, taking risks and sometimes, putting your safety on the line to protect your values. Rather than increasing motivation, he maintains, “social media is only effective at increasing participation—by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires. Facebook and the like are tools for building networks, which are the opposite, in structure and character, of hierarchies.”
Publicising an issue isn’t the same as actually following through and bringing about social change
“The Revolution Will Not be Tweeted”
Social media ‘champions’ and online activists were up in arms at the recent Malcolm Gladwell article, but I’m actually on his side on this one. Publicising an issue isn’t the same as actually following through and bringing about social change. More often than not I suspect that ‘online activists’ revel in hanging out in a perpetual online talking shop – ‘Citizen Smiths for the digital age’ if you like.
And you don’t need to travel far to look for an example that would be perfectly suitable for a wave of 1960s style activism. We’re living in the frightening shadow of one of the biggest post-war issues – the aftermath of the banking crash.
The only attempt at a solution from elected governments was to hand over much their sovereign wealth to the people who lost it in the first place – the banks. A bit like an impressionable child giving the last of its savings to a gambling addict on the steps of a casino. Quite why almost no portion of society has become ‘active’ in the traditional sense remains a modern mystery. Maybe they’re too busy tweeting about it.
