iRevolution - the impact of Digital Activism

Digital Activism is the new way to show your intelligence and to share a issue or news story that has interests you. For many, that’s as far as this activist movement goes.

Watching the Project on Channel 10 the other night, there was a battle between the generations influence on the world, and in particular, Australia. Baby Boomers and Gen X pointed out that my generation (Generation Y) thinks that they are changing the world by clicking ‘like’ or ‘share’. Despite this action getting awareness throughout society, this doesn’t necessarily bring about change.

A more recent example that caused my Facebook feed to fill up, the US election was such a hot topic, with my Facebook friends acting like political bloggers. It was like a popularity contest, with all status’ supporting Obama and showing off their knowledge and slandering the Republicans. It was all about having the most socially aware status or comment.

By reading about how the online activism in the Middle East is reminiscent of the printing press revolution in Europe, it demonstrates an obvious benefit that the digital activist movement has brought upon the world. At the time European dictators were unable to get ahead of the spread of information but by the time these tools got to the Arab world, political leaders already knew how to keep a handle on things. It brings equality for citizens globally, as people are able to receive information on many topics at any time, and contribute their opinion.

“This is just the beginning, and we will soon outgrow the current online tools. Activist journalism is now catching on. People can no longer tolerate just being aware of what’s going on, they need to be able to do something about it.”

On Change.org, anyone can write up a petition about an issue they care about, and if it concerns an American politician there’s a drop down menu where you can click their name and automatically get it sent to their Email inbox. When comparing this with some social media outlets, it is easy to see how generations before us understand how useless out ‘like’ or ‘share’ method is.

Moving past the useless ‘like’ or ‘share’ on Facebook – digital activism has introduced further ways to influence the way things are. It’s a fantastic tool and it would be empowering if we could have a similar kind of website made by people of the Middle East and in Arabic – this would bring an opportunity for citizens of the Middle East to have an outlet for their frustrations.

Digital Activism helped spark the protesting in Egypt in 2011, Online social networks being used by activists to communicate and organise anti-government protests.

Despite Egyptian authorities blocking internet and mobile services, the action from the government had come too late and Twitter and Facebook accounts had already blown the protesting on a world wide scale through these internet tools.