Difference between revisions of "Online Actions and Social Change Principles"
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Latest revision as of 17:21, 5 May 2015
Social Change and Social Media
Community Organizing Online
facilitated by Ivan Boothe
What are some principles we can determine from successful social change campaigns using social media?
- Campaigns that bridge existing divides
- Should allow discussion
- Should not inhibit discussion
- (i.e. how much nuance is lost in online discussion)
- Create safe spaces
- Role of memes online
- how small idea snippets can spread very fast to huge number of ideas
- brevity makes them both powerful and trivial
- Power of story-telling
- Narrative shaping
- Listen to what people are talking about
- Timing: connected to external event / advocacy hook
- Small initial ask, measured frequency
- Feedback, transparency about action's progress
- Amplifying people's own stories rather than trying to speak for them
- Not everyone is online
- Media kits: offline actions and materials distributed online
- Go where the people are
- One campaign, not divided between online and offline
- Connected to specific, clear action and clear impact
- Theory of change
- Tap into existing online and offline networks
- Faster organizational response to conditions
- Strong emotion: humor / outrage
Notes
- Unplanned aspects can make things spread faster
- i.e. opponent reaction can make things spread
- See "Streisand Effect"
- Making repression / reaction visible
- Online organizing forces reevaluation of "what is a win?"
- small successes amplify aspects of campaign
- Ladder of Engagement
- ask people to do small tasks, and then increasingly greater asks and engagement
- clicktivism can be gateway to broader actions
- Upwell.us has interesting analysis of the life-cycle of an online campaign
- offers issue space analysis for other orgs
- Having institutional infrastructure in place can help when unexpected event catalyzes online campaign
- Orgs can use their position to amplify them online
- Orgs don't have to wait, orgs can find events to amplify
- Theory of power
- Conventional idea: power is at the top of the pyramid and to depose it, you must do so at the top
- vs community organizing: power is at the bottom and can topple top though action
Examples of Actions
- Free Fare Movement in Brazil
- started with relatively small demonstration 100 or so people in Sao Paulo
- crushed by ruthless police repression, recorded by cellphones and shared online
- in a couple weeks 10s of millions people protesting
- major fare reductions in every metropolitan area in Brazil
- nearly shut down Federations Cup football match
- connecting government spending to things not to people
- Critique: Image of delivery of box of printed Facebook thumbs with "Likes" in Philippines
- We are the 99% Tumblr
- MoveOn feedback about success or status of actions and org requests
- San Francisco eviction defense
- very moving story from individual, broadcast widely
- distilled simmering anger at growing gentrification
- Creating a safe space can become insular.
- Discussion of messaging disconnected from their target audiences
- For marginalized communities, social media provide opportunity to reach broader audiences
- Rainforest Action Network had been working on palm oil for a long time
- When Girl Scouts connected rainforest destruction to cookie ingredients issue blew up big
- UC Davis pepper spray
- students had encircled the police
- provoked reaction
- Twitter stories from advocate about how US work on trafficking is having consequences on treatment of sex workers
- results in journalists contacting advocate