Acristickid
Well-known member
Post up them streams cause you know- it's conservation!
Slacktivism emerges as questionable online way to support causes
Thursday, December 30, 2010
By Carolyn Davis, Philadelphia Inquirer
Victoria Joseph noticed recently that many of her Facebook friends were changing their profile picture to a favorite childhood cartoon character. The effort, some online explanations said, was to show support for child-abuse prevention.
The University of Pennsylvania student estimates that 40 percent of her 800 Facebook friends obliged and became part of the cartoon cascade that officially ended Dec. 6. But not Ms. Joseph, a 21-year-old senior.
"I thought it was just unnecessary," she said. "At the end of the day, what does changing your profile picture even mean?"
Minimally, it means you worship Wilma Flintstone or dote on Underdog. Its impact on the cause celebre, however, is blurrier than the Road Runner whizzing past Wile E. Coyote.
This type of crusading has become so common online that a word has been coined for it -- slacktivism. It's not a term of endearment. Definition: Activism, often done on a computer, that requires a slacker's amount of effort and is of questionable effectiveness.
Why raise money doing a breast cancer walk when you can easily update your Facebook status with the color of your bra? (That Facebook meme happened in January.) Maybe you wanted to encourage Iran's prodemocracy demonstrators last year. To show your support, all you had to do was tint your Twitter avatar green or add to it a virtual green ribbon.
It's not that low-impact activism is new. For years we've sat in traffic and read a bumper crop of bumper stickers proclaiming drivers' concern for the rain forest, support for a political candidate, or pride in little Eddie or Emma making the school honor roll. Walk down the street and you'll see people making statements with T-shirts and rubber wristbands.
But social-media websites up the ante by expanding the audience exponentially for a fraction of the effort. Without getting off the sofa, you instantly can tell your friends about your pet topic. If you want to get involved in a cause but don't know how, you can follow the lead of those who have mentioned their pursuits on Facebook, Twitter or MySpace. No research needed.
"You can make the case that slacktivism is important because it makes people feel affiliated to a movement and be part of it, and talk about it," said Ethan Zuckerman, a fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Future Civic Media.
Associating ourselves with people and places helps us define our place in the world, says Patricio Abinales, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.
"It's social bonding," Mr. Abinales said. "You have the feeling you're not alone."
The flip side is that taming a complicated problem such as child abuse requires moving beyond bonding -- and that is where these Internet campaigns may fall short.
"The question is: How do you get from affiliation to deeper involvement?" Mr. Zuckerman said.
Some experts say slacktivism has the potential to do more harm than good -- that exerting a single, simple effort could make people complacent when otherwise they might have become more active.
Mass online actions also can dilute the heft of a campaign because they suggest a weak commitment on the part of the people involved.
"The easier it is to show support for the cause, the more easily [the action] is dismissed," said Harvard University's Tom Sander, who studies civic engagement as executive director of the Saguaro Seminar at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
When Dr. Sander worked in Washington for Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, it was common lore among legislative staffers that e-petitions "signed" online were not taken as seriously as ones that bore actual signatures. The same was true for letters in which writers cut and pasted their messages from a master copy on the Internet, he says.
Sometimes, inaction can be lucrative. One of slacktivism's proudest moments may have been this month when a group of celebrities, including Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys and Justin Timberlake, earned money to help children with HIV/AIDS in Africa and India by doing nothing. Starting Dec. 1, World AIDS Day, they pronounced themselves digitally dead.
"That means no more Twitter or Facebook updates from any of them," said the effort's website. "No more knowing where they are, what they had for dinner. ... Every single dollar helps Keep a Child Alive [Ms. Keys' nonprofit] fight this terrible disease. And when $1 million is reached, everyone will be back online and tweeting in no time."
On Dec. 6, the campaign said it had reached its goal.
Though stunts like that won't work for everyone, experts say it's up to people and organizations to figure out how to harness social media's potential -- and drop the slack from slacktivism.
To dismiss the trend, said Mr. Zuckerman, doesn't acknowledge that it's "a really interesting way of starting to get people involved."
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10364/1114281-454.stm#ixzz19bmmoW1l
Slacktivism emerges as questionable online way to support causes
Thursday, December 30, 2010
By Carolyn Davis, Philadelphia Inquirer
Victoria Joseph noticed recently that many of her Facebook friends were changing their profile picture to a favorite childhood cartoon character. The effort, some online explanations said, was to show support for child-abuse prevention.
The University of Pennsylvania student estimates that 40 percent of her 800 Facebook friends obliged and became part of the cartoon cascade that officially ended Dec. 6. But not Ms. Joseph, a 21-year-old senior.
"I thought it was just unnecessary," she said. "At the end of the day, what does changing your profile picture even mean?"
Minimally, it means you worship Wilma Flintstone or dote on Underdog. Its impact on the cause celebre, however, is blurrier than the Road Runner whizzing past Wile E. Coyote.
This type of crusading has become so common online that a word has been coined for it -- slacktivism. It's not a term of endearment. Definition: Activism, often done on a computer, that requires a slacker's amount of effort and is of questionable effectiveness.
Why raise money doing a breast cancer walk when you can easily update your Facebook status with the color of your bra? (That Facebook meme happened in January.) Maybe you wanted to encourage Iran's prodemocracy demonstrators last year. To show your support, all you had to do was tint your Twitter avatar green or add to it a virtual green ribbon.
It's not that low-impact activism is new. For years we've sat in traffic and read a bumper crop of bumper stickers proclaiming drivers' concern for the rain forest, support for a political candidate, or pride in little Eddie or Emma making the school honor roll. Walk down the street and you'll see people making statements with T-shirts and rubber wristbands.
But social-media websites up the ante by expanding the audience exponentially for a fraction of the effort. Without getting off the sofa, you instantly can tell your friends about your pet topic. If you want to get involved in a cause but don't know how, you can follow the lead of those who have mentioned their pursuits on Facebook, Twitter or MySpace. No research needed.
"You can make the case that slacktivism is important because it makes people feel affiliated to a movement and be part of it, and talk about it," said Ethan Zuckerman, a fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Future Civic Media.
Associating ourselves with people and places helps us define our place in the world, says Patricio Abinales, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.
"It's social bonding," Mr. Abinales said. "You have the feeling you're not alone."
The flip side is that taming a complicated problem such as child abuse requires moving beyond bonding -- and that is where these Internet campaigns may fall short.
"The question is: How do you get from affiliation to deeper involvement?" Mr. Zuckerman said.
Some experts say slacktivism has the potential to do more harm than good -- that exerting a single, simple effort could make people complacent when otherwise they might have become more active.
Mass online actions also can dilute the heft of a campaign because they suggest a weak commitment on the part of the people involved.
"The easier it is to show support for the cause, the more easily [the action] is dismissed," said Harvard University's Tom Sander, who studies civic engagement as executive director of the Saguaro Seminar at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
When Dr. Sander worked in Washington for Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, it was common lore among legislative staffers that e-petitions "signed" online were not taken as seriously as ones that bore actual signatures. The same was true for letters in which writers cut and pasted their messages from a master copy on the Internet, he says.
Sometimes, inaction can be lucrative. One of slacktivism's proudest moments may have been this month when a group of celebrities, including Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys and Justin Timberlake, earned money to help children with HIV/AIDS in Africa and India by doing nothing. Starting Dec. 1, World AIDS Day, they pronounced themselves digitally dead.
"That means no more Twitter or Facebook updates from any of them," said the effort's website. "No more knowing where they are, what they had for dinner. ... Every single dollar helps Keep a Child Alive [Ms. Keys' nonprofit] fight this terrible disease. And when $1 million is reached, everyone will be back online and tweeting in no time."
On Dec. 6, the campaign said it had reached its goal.
Though stunts like that won't work for everyone, experts say it's up to people and organizations to figure out how to harness social media's potential -- and drop the slack from slacktivism.
To dismiss the trend, said Mr. Zuckerman, doesn't acknowledge that it's "a really interesting way of starting to get people involved."
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10364/1114281-454.stm#ixzz19bmmoW1l
