Jennifer Earl, associate professor of sociology and Director of the Center for Information Technology and Society at the University of California, Santa Barbara, presented her studies of online activism on April 15 at Hamilton. Earl suggested that online activism reflects significant changes in the structure and practice of activism, and is worthy of further scholarly attention.
Earl's studies of both specific online movements and broad samples to capture a wide range of activism on the Internet have led her to divide online activism into three basic types making up 96 percent of content. The plurality (42 percent) of online activist content, dubbed "brochure-ware," is essentially informational and non-interactive in nature; activists and organizations simply use the Internet to distribute information about issues or raise awareness. Far less frequent is content that seeks to inspire offline action, such as online tools to coordinate protests or meetings; these make up 7 percent of Internet activist material.
The third area, which Earl believes deserves greater study, involves the use of online-only content. Such content ranges from online petitions and letter-writing campaigns to more elaborate concepts such as strategic voting (a tactic developed in the 2000 and 2004 elections in which individuals who wanted to vote for a third-party candidate without spoiling their vote for a major party would agree to trade their vote in a battleground state for another person's vote in an "safe" state). Online-only activism makes up 36 percent of activist content online (with another 11percent of sites mixing online and offline activism), yet Earl finds if has attracted relatively little study and is often denigrated by movement activists who see online-only actions as reflective of less commitment.
To develop the study of online activism, Earl examined the process differences between online and offline activist activities. While in many cases internet technologies are simply used by activists to reach a wider audience with the same basic tactics and messages as offline, Earl reflected that the Internet has both reduced the costs of engaging in activism and has enabled people to act in concert without needing to meet physically.
These changes have wide-reaching effects; Earl noted that many online activists and leaders do not tend to think of themselves as "activists," unlike activists in traditional organizations who tend to be socialized as devoted to "enduring struggles." Rather, online activists are often interested in a particular cause, and are less concerned about adopting specific decision-making structures or hierarchies that are used to maintain organizations in the long term. Thus, online movements can appear and disappear quickly, and 40 percent of online activists do not consider themselves affiliated with an organization.
While some have questioned whether online activists lack a sense of commitment to important issues because of this transitory nature, Earl pointed to both the potential of activism to act as a "gateway drug" that will bring individuals into deeper social movements through repeated exposure, and the power of "flash flood" temporary actions (a technique pioneered by MoveOn.org), which mobilize a large number of online individuals quickly about a specific issue to cause institutional change without requiring a long-term presence.
Earl also noted the way that online activism has changed the causes, targets, and tactics of traditional activism. While traditional activist organizations tend to protest about social justice, 10 percent of online activism focuses on non-political concerns, such as the fan protest campaign to resurrect the Angel television show after news of its cancellation. The anonymity of online events makes such activism especially attractive to stigmatized groups (ranging from white supremacists to individuals with non-traditional lifestyles), thus allowing greater leeway for those groups to organize and express their views. Online activists also may engage in tactics such as denial of service attacks (shutting down servers of a target through concerted effort, much like jamming a phone line) and radically decentralized idea generation ("crowd-sourcing") that are made uniquely possible by the online world.
Although there are concerns that online activism may not reflect the deep commitment necessary to inspire change, and that the nature of the technology tends to simplify issues unnecessarily, Earl argued that online activism has considerable potential. Ultimately, she suggested, people "finding something they care about and working toward it collectively" is just as interesting whether or not they are part of an organized structure. The lecture was sponsored by the Levitt Center.
-- by Kye Lippold '10
Earl's studies of both specific online movements and broad samples to capture a wide range of activism on the Internet have led her to divide online activism into three basic types making up 96 percent of content. The plurality (42 percent) of online activist content, dubbed "brochure-ware," is essentially informational and non-interactive in nature; activists and organizations simply use the Internet to distribute information about issues or raise awareness. Far less frequent is content that seeks to inspire offline action, such as online tools to coordinate protests or meetings; these make up 7 percent of Internet activist material.
The third area, which Earl believes deserves greater study, involves the use of online-only content. Such content ranges from online petitions and letter-writing campaigns to more elaborate concepts such as strategic voting (a tactic developed in the 2000 and 2004 elections in which individuals who wanted to vote for a third-party candidate without spoiling their vote for a major party would agree to trade their vote in a battleground state for another person's vote in an "safe" state). Online-only activism makes up 36 percent of activist content online (with another 11percent of sites mixing online and offline activism), yet Earl finds if has attracted relatively little study and is often denigrated by movement activists who see online-only actions as reflective of less commitment.
To develop the study of online activism, Earl examined the process differences between online and offline activist activities. While in many cases internet technologies are simply used by activists to reach a wider audience with the same basic tactics and messages as offline, Earl reflected that the Internet has both reduced the costs of engaging in activism and has enabled people to act in concert without needing to meet physically.
These changes have wide-reaching effects; Earl noted that many online activists and leaders do not tend to think of themselves as "activists," unlike activists in traditional organizations who tend to be socialized as devoted to "enduring struggles." Rather, online activists are often interested in a particular cause, and are less concerned about adopting specific decision-making structures or hierarchies that are used to maintain organizations in the long term. Thus, online movements can appear and disappear quickly, and 40 percent of online activists do not consider themselves affiliated with an organization.
While some have questioned whether online activists lack a sense of commitment to important issues because of this transitory nature, Earl pointed to both the potential of activism to act as a "gateway drug" that will bring individuals into deeper social movements through repeated exposure, and the power of "flash flood" temporary actions (a technique pioneered by MoveOn.org), which mobilize a large number of online individuals quickly about a specific issue to cause institutional change without requiring a long-term presence.
Earl also noted the way that online activism has changed the causes, targets, and tactics of traditional activism. While traditional activist organizations tend to protest about social justice, 10 percent of online activism focuses on non-political concerns, such as the fan protest campaign to resurrect the Angel television show after news of its cancellation. The anonymity of online events makes such activism especially attractive to stigmatized groups (ranging from white supremacists to individuals with non-traditional lifestyles), thus allowing greater leeway for those groups to organize and express their views. Online activists also may engage in tactics such as denial of service attacks (shutting down servers of a target through concerted effort, much like jamming a phone line) and radically decentralized idea generation ("crowd-sourcing") that are made uniquely possible by the online world.
Although there are concerns that online activism may not reflect the deep commitment necessary to inspire change, and that the nature of the technology tends to simplify issues unnecessarily, Earl argued that online activism has considerable potential. Ultimately, she suggested, people "finding something they care about and working toward it collectively" is just as interesting whether or not they are part of an organized structure. The lecture was sponsored by the Levitt Center.
-- by Kye Lippold '10
