Pritam's Blog
More Than Just Clicking, Less Than Traditional Activism
Clicktivism or online activism has come under a lot of fire in the past few years during which we have witnessed a tremendous increase in the use of internet, social media in particular, to support and promote a cause.
While some of the criticisms of this kind of activism are well-justified, critics of clicktivism should keep in mind that clicktivism is in no way an alternative to the traditional offline form of activism. It is merely a tool for activism, and it is quite effective if done properly.
Clictivist activities include a wide range of online activities, like signing online petitions, joining an organization/group, campaigning, organizing protests, facilitating boycotts, crowd-funding, liking and sharing, even producing original contents for social media to support, promote, discuss, and debate upon particular cause.
There is no denying to the fact that none of these activities can replace traditional activist activities, but at the same time, clicktivism is not just activism through ‘clicking’ without having to move from one’s arm-chair as the critics of this form of activism say. In fact, some of these clictivist activities need hard-work. For example, keeping your supporters’ interest on the cause itself is a difficult task when the attention span of people on the internet is too less. Creating content is another rigorous process which needs extensive research.
Critics of clicktivism would ask if everyone who supports clicktivism go through these tedious processes. Or do they just ‘click’ (like, share, etc) on social media about the issues concerned and feel good about having made a contribution for a cause?
No, most of the people just ‘click’ but then again they are not clicktivists. They are merely supporters of a particular cause, just like a crowd led by a few activists protesting offline, who only show their support to a particular cause but are not activists in the truest sense of the word themselves. Nevertheless, they are important elements in the process of activism- both online and offline.
As for ‘feeling good’ about having made a contribution just by ‘clicking’, well, what is wrong in that? Especially when this ‘feel good’ is not at the expense of doing harm to someone? In fact, there are multiple instances where ‘clicking’ too made a huge difference. Be it Greenpeace’s online campaign against Nestle demanding the latter changing their source of palm oil to Obama’s political activism through Facebook and Twitter, clicktivism has shown immense effectiveness, although there were other factors at work too.
The point here is in an era of internet and social media when everything from shopping to news consumption to entertainment happens online, resorting to internet and social media for activism was inevitable, especially because the internet has an extraordinary reach to disseminate information lakhs of people around the world. Thus, it has become an important tool for activism as well among other things.
Of course, most of the campaigns would not sustain and succeed solely on clicktivism. Nevertheless, campaigning online alongside the traditional offline activism would definitely add to its support base, generate more attention, even funding, etc. As for critics complaining that clicktivism doesn’t encourage people to engage properly, well, this is indeed a serious concern if people are resorting solely to clicktivism for a particular cause. Offline activism and grass-root activism are of utmost importance because you cannot block the road of your village online to stop a particular politician from entering.