Ci 2312 Week 7 Online Activism
With the development of the times, Online Activism has become an essential part of our lives. In the past, the public often ignored many social issues due to the lack of technology. It was difficult for people to access enough information to focus on these serious issues. And because people are now paying more attention to what is posted on social media and news from different places, many serious social issues are being brought to the forefront, facilitating discussion and communication. The article mentions that many people believe that engaging in politics through social media is crucial (Anderson, Toor, Rainie & Smith, 2018). This is because many users will explore event-related issues that will have a more considerable impact on society, thus promoting government departments’ attention. I agree with this view because the same thing is happening in China. Due to the strict regulation of the media in China, the government will often block some information in the news so that some bad events will not be explored on a large scale. But due to the development of social media, people in different regions are able to quickly share the information they find in order to bring it to the attention of the public. In this way, government departments quickly intervened in some serious social issues and resolved controversies on time.
In the article #BlackLivesMatter surges on Twitter after George Floyd’s death (Anderson, Barthel, Perrin & Vogels, 2020), the authors mention, “On May 28, nearly 8.8 million tweets contained the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag — making this the highest number of uses for this hashtag in a single day since the Center started tracking its use. “And this situation also happened on Chinese social media platforms, where there has been a surge of people discussing the topic. Since racism is rarely an issue in China, I was shocked to see such a large-scale discussion. Moreover, it proves that Online Activism can not only bring events to the attention of local authorities but can also have a large impact on a global scale. In this way, people are better informed about issues that are happening around the world and can reflect on them promptly.
However, Online Activism can also be problematic, as some people use the discussion of social issues for their own purposes. The Ice Bucket Challenge, for example, has become a way for many video-makers to get attention. The original intent of the Ice Bucket Challenge was to bring attention to a rare disease through such a challenge and mass distribution. But soon, some people began to use these challenges to their advantage. For example, some people would ask their fans to pay for or like the video to satisfy their fans’ desire to see the ice bucket challenge. Such challenges brought huge popularity and profit to the video makers. I think it’s important to keep our critical attitude when engaging with the topic of Online Activism. We shouldn’t be too swayed by what others think and fail to analyze the issue dialectically.
