The Lonely Activist: a tale of activism without the Internet
Posted: Wednesday, July 28, 2010 by Kathryn McConnachie in Labels: activism, activism without the internet, internet, movement for social change, value of digital activism
Where would activism currently be without new media technologies? Imagine trying to coordinate a movement for social change from scratch, and not having any of the possibilities of digital media at one's disposal:
Firstly, in order to take a specific cause on as one's own, one needs to have been exposed to enough information about it. While many people may read articles in newspapers and feel quite strongly that something should be done, very few would actually begin to construct a campaign to bring about change if that was the only information they had been exposed to. The same thing goes for word of mouth.
To use a personal example, I first became aware of factory farming when it was mentioned by a teacher of mine back in primary school. But of course the exploitation of animals is not necessarily part of the average Grade 6 syllabus. It was only once I became curious about it and actively sought more information on the subject via the Internet that I truly became aware of the extent of the issue and decided that I needed to take action.
But lets assume that the Internet did not exist, and our eager activist who we shall call Bob, has only read a newspaper article and heard some people talking about a specific issue - for argument's sake, let's say that the issue is illiteracy in third world countries.
Bob's first step might be to organise a group people who share his passion for the cause. But where might he find these people? Without access to the Internet, Bob would most likely draw on people from his local community, most of whom will probably be his close friends. He may place an advert in a newspaper to increase interest in his cause, but again, interested parties will be limited to the area in which the newspaper circulates. Also if Bob wanted to organise a meeting with all the people who he now has on board, he would have to contact each of them individually over the phone - or perhaps through another newspaper ad. But the newspaper only circulates every Friday so already we've lost two weeks of valuable time.
Now Bob lives in the small town of Pofadder in the Northern Cape in South Africa. He comes up with a brilliant campaign that with the help of his dedicated team of community members, starts to become very successful - but only within the bounds of Pofadder.
Perhaps over time, Bob's project may receive some wider attention from provincial and national media. Perhaps Bob and his cause are featured on page 16 next to the classifieds, and the few people who find the article think that what Bob has done is brilliant, and they decide to start similar projects in their own towns. Those who do manage to get their projects off the ground, write to Bob and phone him and tell him about how he inspired them to bring about change and they ask for advice.
And so the project slowly grows, but due to poor communication, the projects in other towns are not integrated and fundraising is erratic. Eventually, due to a lack of funding and exhausting of fundraising ideas, the projects begin to dry up around the country.
While the work Bob did in his lifetime was amazing, and the changes he made to schoolchildren's lives through his project were extremely worthwhile, Bob feels that helpless in terms of his ultimate goal of addressing the problem of illiteracy in the third world.
Now if this scenario had been altered by the simple access to and use of the Internet, our little narrative may have been very different. Bob may have established a website, searched online for similar projects and set up cooperatives. He could have even become a local ambassador for the 1Goal education project. He could have set up an online fund, contacted various influential people to support his cause and maybe even have his campaign endorsed by Jessica Alba and Matt Damon. Bob could also market his cause nationally and internationally. He could construct project guidelines and make them available online, and create a forum in which to keep track of satellite projects and to help where necessary.
The possibilities are quite endless, and all they required for fruition was a computer, internet access and the passion for the cause that Bob had all along.
Sometimes digital natives forget the power of activism in the analogue age. The invention of the printing press which inspired the greatest Western theological revolutions of our time in the Reformation, the French revolution and those elsewhere in the USA, Russia and even South Africa. The power of the pen, the book, the pamphlet, the poster, the telephone list, the fax, the contact book - and contemporary mass media. These forms are no more or no less valid than Internet based tools. Synergies offer best results.
Maybe you may want to write a post on how these tools were banned and link these to the contemporary attempts of governments to either ban or monitor the use of social and mobile tools (ostensibly to stamp out terrorism) - but which can also be used for nefarious ends.