For today’s blog post, I’d like to respond to a particularly interesting podcast called “Digitical Activism: What Happens when Activists Take Their Work Online”. It’s an entertaining debate between Mary Joyce, an activism consultant, and Ethan Zuckerman, director of the MIT center on Civic Media, on how activism has increasingly taken a place in the digital world and how ethical and effective this is. Zuckerman and Joyce explain how digital activism is whenever someone uses the power they do have instead of the power they’re supposed to have. What does that mean exactly? People on social media are expressing themselves in a way that is unfiltered by the media and they are grabbing the tools themselves in looking to change the world. It’s hard to avoid because there’s a blurring effect: no distinct boundaries between activism and social media’s purpose, which is to keep people up to date with their family and friends.
As I have observed the people and organizations I follow regarding my issue of the gender gap in computer science, there’s a similar trend going on. I follow @NCWIT, which is the National Center for Women & Information Technology: “revolutionizing the face of technology by increasing the participation of girls and women” and @KaporCenter, which pursues creative strategies to leverage tech for progressive change. In Kapor’s case, the account posts a lot of articles surrounding how our current tech companies are fostering unfair work environments and how in the current state of things, employees are underrepresented. There’s a lot factual info being tweeted here. On NCWIT, the attitude is more towards a hopeful future, such as retweeting events that empower women in tech or tips and advice to becoming successful as a female in CS. So both of these accounts are promoting awareness and advocating for change, but it always has me questioning: is this really enough? According to Zuckerman’s response, it isn’t. People should be tweeting and having discussions on social media, but that has to be in addition to whatever actions are happening as well. At the end of the day, change comes with passing laws and exerting influence, not by retweeting 40 characters. For example, it’s something that the NAACP has been successful with, alongside the #BlackLivesMatter movement. I think that the activism we see on Twitter may not have social change that we can physically see, but it’s a catalyst in what’s to come. The beauty of social media is that it reaches people who aren’t expecting to be persuaded by this particular activism. It creates a splash effect, which is not attempting to change the behavior of solely the target audience, like tech companies themselves, but rather the perspective of each individual who is viewing the post or tweet or what have you. My point is that digital activism is truly powerful, but it’s only just a start.