Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Activism online: Will it ever be comparable to standing in front of a tank??

As we discussed in class this week, online activism is becoming more and more popular as our society becomes more technological. With technology advancing so strongly, online activism will produce more radical outcomes with more political strength behind them. Also, the amount of work that is done online by large corporations and political parties has increased profusely in the past decade. What I wonder is if online activism will ever have the same effects of offline forms of activism, such as picketing and protesting. The videos we saw in class where protesters were calmly placing flowers in the barrels of guns was very powerful...can hactivism or online activism ever match this strength? Hacking into corporate websites and shutting them down may be effective but I don't believe these forms of activism are as heroic or meaningful as standing in front of a tank or being active at the site of the problem. Will online activism ever be comparable in it's meaning and strength?

5 comments:

  1. As we discussed in class this week online activism has the potential to be incredibly powerful...but I think that the physical presence of actually picketing and protesting cannot be matched in an online setting. I think that the two forms of activism: online and offline complement each other. Having an online forum to meet, collaborate and plan actual physical meets and protests make online activism incredibly useful; as a viable means of global communication online activism has allowed groups and individuals from across the world the opportunity to meet and share their opinions and ideas. It is hard to say whether online activism will ever be comparable to traditional forms of activism (protesting/picketing) but one thing is for sure it has helped these traditional forms gain precedence and global recognition.

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  2. I think you might be confusing the effectiveness of activism with the imagery of activism. Just because an image is powerful, like the flowers in the guns or the Tiananmen square photo, doesn't necessarily mean they were effective. Perhaps, in a world in which we are becoming so connected to our computers and our reliance on the net - as we effectively become cyborgs - we will find imagery in code more powerful than photographic imagery. Or more likely we'll find that the numbers that online activism offer far outweigh the imagery created by real life activism.

    Anyways, that was just a thought experiment. I do agree with Sossa that both online and offline activism compliment eachother. The Anonymous protests against Scientology were a great example of this. The entire movement found its way from anonymous online users to real life protesters.

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  3. I agree with you fulls11, online activism, to me at least is not as powerful as the physical act of protesting. Daily, we can see the effects of online protesting, so does this decrease its meaning in our society? I'd have to say it does, at least to an extent.
    The power that is seen through physical activism is unparalled.
    It's a very interesting topic to think about, what happened to the activism of our parents in the 60s and 70s and what is the motiviating factor behind virtul activism instead of physical?

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  4. I agree that this is an interesting topic, as it is growing in popularity from what has been seen in class. I do not believe that online protesting will ever become as powerful as physically protesting for something. First off, physically protesting something means that you care enough to fight off the potential elements of bad weather and less than perfect conditions, to fight for something that means a lot to you. This is unlike online activism which to me represents a lazy persons attempt at standing up for something they believe in. Secondly, everyone is saying that online activism is better due to ability to connect with others. I disagree, what ever happened to gaining media attention, and becoming part of the 6:00 news? When was the last time someone from the online hacktivism community found themselves on the evening news? I think this shows the weak and narrow abilities of hacktivism.

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  5. The difference between online forms of protest and tangible demonstrations are certainly self evident. The question that remains is whether or not Internet based activism will play as strong a role in social change.

    Traditional forms of activism have long been the "go to" forms of protest and have obviously proven themselves time after time, but with technological advancements I believe that activism conducted over social media networks will have just as large an impact via a broader social network online.

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