Digital Activism - Argument Paper

Name Institutional Affiliation Course Code/Title Instructor Date Digital Activism The last two decades have witnessed transformations of political demonstrations through novel strategies, including digital activism with the explosion of Internet technologies and Internet-enabled devices. The advancement in technology has changed the way protests, political procedures, and movements are organized, “helping to mobilize thousands of new supporters to a diverse range of causes (Karatzogianni np).” The emergence of new digital activism in recent years has largely been attributed to the increasing number of protests in modern society and its nature to circumvent the traditional social movements, policy formulation, and rallies. Digital activism benefits from novel technologies in providing alternate mechanisms of organizing world economies and society. Social media and digital activism have become handy tools of creating publicity and the expansion of political movements such as Occupy and the Arab Spring uprisings. Using these approaches, political activists can use mobile apps such as Periscope to video stream in real-time and allow users to take part in discussions. Recently, Ada Colay, a new mayor in Barcelona was capable of organizing a political campaign comprised of more than 5000 through online and public assemblies as well as cyberactivism. Taking the form of “leaktivism”, the Panama Papers expose resulted in massive protests and the subsequent stepping aside of the prime minister of Iceland through the spread of classified papers with political implications (Karatzogianni np). Although the implications of digital activism in effecting socioeconomic changes are recognized, the concept of armchair revolutionary and membership visibility make this strategy ineffective. While there has been widespread hype about the implications of online activism on recent social changes such as the Arab Spring, the fact that “armchair activists” are profound in today’s Internet space renders the approach impractical (Tostevin np). Armchair activists often profess radical aims but fail to take any necessary steps to effect the causes. Tostevin (np) argues that in social media platforms such as Facebook, it is often easy to update profile pictures, like pages, and share video content and articles to raise awareness, but the impact of such actions might not be as deep as perceived. Unlike digital activism, outdoor activism is not for everyone as it demands more than online activities where protesters sometimes get involved in ghastly situations (Tostevin np). With a growing number of people around the world having more than 500 friends on Facebook, social media provides a theoretically potent tool of bro...