Posted by The previous two posts I have published here take into account two key themes that will be explored further in this post. The first post looked into how the same social activist movements don’t always have the same effect or impact, depending on where they were featured in the world. The second identified the uses of new media, highlighting how digital technologies can be used to impact not only individuals or general issues, but places of authority, such as Governments.
This post will delve further into how methods of New Media are being used as forms of communication-activism or social change. This can be through offering a platform that can empower those whose voices may have previously gone unheard. For many readers, if you were to think about an activist cause that went viral such as on Twitter, who started the movement and which country were they based in?
As someone who is based in the Global North, it became apparently that many movements brought to attention are also based in the Global North, or at least initially gained traction there, this ties in with the idea that ‘the study of communication has been long dominated by ideas grounded in the West. We could argue that Western theories and arguments are inadequate for understanding local and regional communication processes and phenomena, and this perspective helps us understand why this collection of studies on how new journalistic ideas are spread is so valuable’ (Mutsvairo, Bebawi, Borges-Rey, 2019). This is a pertinent point that identifies the bias brought from the West within the field of communications, but also how this would feed in with New Media.
Platforms offered by technologies and New Media can act as a way for people to be heard, but arguably for true empowerment to be reached in order to achieve impactful outcomes, there need to be methods that ensure any movement can thrive, regardless of who starts it and where in the world it takes place.
What is meant by New Media?
For the purpose of this post, it is first useful to understand what New Media is. New Media is essentially ‘new’ forms of ICT and digital approaches. This can include websites, blogs, social media, podcasts among others. New Media in this discussion is about using these platforms, and their connections, as methods of communication. This can subsequently offer a form of empowerment to drive social change or activism. This could be for large scale messaging to have a global impact, or something at local levels to drive smaller scale change.
New media in its most basic form has had knock on impacts outside of purely working as an alternative method of widespread communication; an example includes how economies have been impacted ‘rapid diffusion of digital technologies has generated new kinds of economic activities (often referred to as the ‘gig economy,’ ‘digital work,’ ‘online work,’ ‘online outsourcing,’ ‘crowd-work’ and ‘virtual work’) across the continent’ (Anwar and Graham, 2020; Kuek et al., 2015) this is useful to know, as it demonstrates the complexity new media presents to society.
Social activism through New Media
New media has enabled many individuals to speak out about causes, events, people, and governments. It offers a platform for people have their voice heard, but also feel safe in the process. The interconnectedness of the internet and platforms where people can express themselves has meant that a movement can start off in one location and then have both direct and indirect impacts across the global turning local global, or indeed global local.
An example of a movement that started in one country and subsequently spread, was the hashtag trending on twitter #Rhodesmustfall. This movement began in South Africa in 2015, and in an article by Sebeelo, who comes to the conclusion that ‘the South African case is a clear indication of this power reversal since the Rhodes statue ultimately fell.’ However, there is arguably more to this hashtag than initially thought. ‘The #RhodesMustFall… is a classic case that signifies the central role that online-based movements play as platforms for resistance in contemporary sub-Saharan Africa… [the case was] urban-based and had objectives as activists sought to make meaningful change in their respective country.’(Sebeelo, 2021).
This is an example of a local case, as it is specifically with regards to Cape Town, however it can be seen to have turned Global when the following year students at Oxford University became part of the same movement with regards to a Rhodes statue at Oriel college, then on 7th June 2020, a statue of the slave trader, Edward Colston was ‘dragged from its plinth by Black Lives Matter protesters and thrown into Bristol harbour. Daubed with red and blue graffiti, and damaged so it can longer stand upright.’ (Gayle D, 2020). Although this was part of the BLM protests taking place in the UK at the time, elements of the approach echo that of #RhodesMustFall, such as through defacing the statue and subsequently leading to its downfall in a fight for justice and a voice to be heard from an underrepresented community.
This then takes us to #BLM. This is an interesting movement to look at because it gained so much traction in 2020, but this is not when it originally began as a movement. ‘In 2013, three female Black organizers — Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi — created a Black-centred political will and movement building project called Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter began with a social media hashtag, #BlackLivesMatter, after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin back in 2012.’ It is interesting to note how this initial movement was set up by black women, arguably 2 groups that are still underrepresented, or ‘heard’ by society, but it wasn’t until the killing of George Floyd in 2020 that the movement really gained significant local and subsequent, global traction.
‘George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis in May 2020 sparked the largest racial justice protests in the United States since the Civil Rights Movement. But the movement went far beyond this nation’s borders — it inspired a global reckoning with racism.’ (Silverstein 2021) It is arguable that the spread of awareness and traction BLM gained was due to New Media, and this is for several reasons, many of which can be directly tied to New Media.
The case of the Black Lives Matter movement is pertinent to this discussion because it ties in with both themes in question: The varying impact depending on where in the world the activism was happening, but also the impact digital technology had in the spread of this movement.
As touched upon, BLM was not a new movement, it had first begun in 2013, but it gained traction across the world in 2020 following on from the murder of George Floyd whereby ‘black activists saw Floyd’s death as a symbol of the intolerance and injustice they face at home.’ (Silverstein J, 2021). It wasn’t the first incident, but it spurred a response both in person and online ‘One reason is cumulative. In enough places around the country, he says, ‘there were enough circumstances that seemed suspect that a critical mass began to see that something is fundamentally wrong,’ (DW.com) this can be seen as an example again of something starting local and turning global, as essentially a series of localised events spurred a global movement.
Despite the BLM movement having been around for several years, it is probable that both New Media and location played a role in its sudden global presence in 2020. As mentioned, the movement gained traction after the George Floyd incident (in which he, George Floyd a black man, was killed in police custody). The incident took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, but it featured in headline news across the globe. When the incident itself happened, ICT and New Media enabled for it to be video recorded, thus working as a form of evidence for information sharing. Something which can spread among societies quickly through social media platforms which are accessible across the world. This movement might be related to BLM, but the principle remains the same ‘the advent of new age social media has the potential to alter the mobilization, strategies, tactics, and outcomes of social movements. By some accounts the social media like Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube played a pivotal role in the extraordinary wave of popular protests’ (Tan et al, 2013) indicator the sense of community empowerment social media gives individuals and groups.
How race and gender ties in with New Media
This particular example is based on race, but there are more complexities that need to be considered aside from movements protesting about race; as it also covers equal rights, inequality and power dynamics. Arguably, New Media allows underrepresented groups to speak up from a safe space, in terms of location, identity and safety in numbers. However, from a wider scale technological viewpoint, there are also elements which suggest modern technologies do not offer a level playing field for everyone and in fact there might be racist elements built into the systems ‘electronic soap dispensers that couldn’t detect black skin, or a camera that thinks that Asian people are blinking’ (Jackson, 2019). Now these examples may not be intentional, but they cause issues, nonetheless.
So, what happens when further racial disparities continue in technology?
‘One mode of white supremacist institutional racism, in which police are targeting some areas and another. Now fast forward to the present, where people, companies, organizations, are employing all types of software systems to predict where crime will happen, in order to more empirically—we’re told—more neutrally, objectively, send police to go, right—predictive-policing type of programs. But these software systems rely on historic data about where crimes happened in the past, in order to train the algorithms where to send police in the future. And so if, historically, the neighbourhoods that I grew up in were the target of ongoing over-policing surveillance, then that’s the data that’s used to train the algorithms to send police today,’ (Jackson, 2019). This suggests an entire algorithmic based system in intrinsically rigged towards a racial bias. Examples such as that could be carried forth in many technological or indeed New Media approaches. It is therefore important to consider how media’s have been set up, who created the algorithms, how does something become popular, and what has led to that. In order for voices to be heard there needs to be a following, but the following should gain organic traction which is difficult to tell on social media. If there are racist biases within the technological algorithm, then minority groups may be constricted in their impact through these mediums.
How location ties in with New Media
It is hard to know if the BLM movement would have gained so much traction if a) it hadn’t started in the USA and b) if there hadn’t already been several other incidents. This movement also gained a lot of attention from celebrities; thus, the awareness levels are likely to have been influenced by the high profile mentions. This relates to the idea of how movements grow, and how reach could be best gained on a local level, especially in countries in the Global South.
Technology and the Global South comes with its own set of barriers which can have a knock on effect for activism, partly because connectiveness only works when everyone has the same access to connectivity, regardless of their age, gender, location or socio-economic background; without technological equalities, there are likely to be biases towards the sorts of posts and movements available through new media ‘the growth in mobile technology to date has not been equal, either across nations or within them. ‘People in advanced economies are more likely to have mobile phones – smartphones in particular – and are more likely to use the internet and social media than people in emerging economies… In emerging economies, too, smartphone ownership rates vary substantially, from highs of 60% in South Africa and Brazil to just around four-in-ten in Indonesia, Kenya and Nigeria. Among the surveyed countries, ownership is lowest in India, where only 24% report having a smartphone.’ (Silver L, 2019). The global variation in access to technology will continue to reduce the accessibility to information and therefore opportunity for already underrepresented members of society to have their voice heard.
Conclusion
On an overall level, New Media offers a safe and quick way for information to be shared. It can result in the quick growth of movements on both a local and global level. Modern technologies and platforms can offer a safe way for people to express themselves and have their voices heard. Yet there are issue that come with this model. As we have seen, racial biases are being built into algorithms which would have knock on impacts, and those with an existing following are likely to gain the biggest reaction. There are disparities between technological ownership, thus advancing the inequalities across the globe.
Essentially the model at present means there is no one way for social movements to be reached through New Media. Local scale issues need to take their own approach, whether this be through arranging specific location meeting points, so that people can then gain on the ground responses, and those who are unable to access information through New Media can still be included. Whatever option people go with, there is not currently a global solution for how activists across the world will communicate.
References:
Anwar and Graham, 2020; Kuek et al., 2015. Between a rock and a hard place: Freedom, flexibility, precarity and vulnerability in the gig economy in Africa. 2021;25(2):237-258. doi:10.1177/1024529420914473
Dw.com https://www.dw.com/en/how-george-floyds-death-reignited-a-worldwide-movement/a-56781938
Gayle D, 2020, The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/04/toppled-edward-colston-statue-display-bristol-blm-protests-exhibition
Howard University, Law Library https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/BLM
Jackson J, 2019. ‘Black Communities Are Already Living in a Tech Dystopia’
CounterSpin interview with Ruha Benjamin on racism and technology. FAIR.
Mutsvairo B, Bebawi S, Borges-Rey E, 2019. Data Journalism in the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan.
Sebeelo TB. Hashtag Activism, Politics and Resistance in Africa: Examining #ThisFlag and #RhodesMustFall online movements. Insight on Africa. 2021;13(1):95-109. doi:10.1177/0975087820971514
Silver, L 2019. Smartphone Ownership Is Growing Rapidly Around the World, but Not Always Equally Pew Research
Silverstein J, 2021. The global impact of George Floyd: How Black Lives Matter protests shaped movements around the world. CBS News.
Tan et al, 2013. Analysing the impact of social media on social movements: a computational study on twitter and the occupy wall street movement. Research Gate DOI: 10.1145/2492517.2500262