comments of social movents and social media

In the past two or so years there has been, within the popular press, frequent discussion of social movements and social media. In general the talking heads have suggested that such activities as the Arab Spring, the Occupy Movement or the Idle No More Movement are in fact social movements that have utilized the connecting power of social media. I don't doubt that all of those  movements have been enhanced by Facebook and Twitter. In fact it could be argued that some of the events would not have happened if there had not been broad access to social media. However, I am just not sure if those activities fit the definition of a social movement. More importantly I think there could be an argument made that social media not only is limited in its capacity to organize the people, but that it could in fact be damaging in the long term.

Social media has proven to be incredibly effective at getting people out on the streets. Thousands of people have become involved in specific acts of protest and civil disobedience because they have read, on various social media, of what is to happen. But social media does not keep people involved once the event is over. Let me give you an example.

A month or so I walked/danced with a hundred or so other people, in the middle of what is claimed to be the busiest intersecting in Peterborough. Our goal was to block traffic just for a quarter of a hour to remind our fellow citizens that the Indigenous people of Canada had legitimate and long standing grievances against the government and that it was time to start to negotiate in good faith. It is well past time.

I did my thing, talked to the one person I knew and when it was over I went home. No one knows I was there or who I was. No one has ever contacted me to come out to the next such civil action. My reading of that Facebook page, in spite of my participating in an activity has done nothing to either get me more engaged in the movement or better educated about the issues. For a social movement to have any longevity it would seem to me that a critical function must be to educate the people who are participating in the activity and to make them want to be more involved. While social media is great at getting people out on the streets, it does nothing to help create within those people any sense of belonging; it does not give those participants a sense engagement or ownership in the outcome. Furthermore it does not provide any information as to what to do next. The consequence of this strategy is that people do it once or perhaps twice and then move on to the next issue.

It has been argued that we live in an age of instant gratification and I wonder if that is part of the problem. Somehow we expect things to get solved quickly without a long term commitment to create change. If one looks at the civil rights movement in the USA, it was a 30 year process just to get it recognized as an issue worthy of a national discussion. And part of that process was the education of both the people who were being oppressed and those who believed that change needed to happen. There is a lovely bit with Pete Seeger talking about Rosa Parks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbpBh6Ts6Mw) and how she was trained to be an activists.

I think  there is a lesson to be learned in that story. Let's use social media to get people out on the streets. We need to use any device or technology available to gather the people. But we need to refine and enhance their commitment, their frustrations and yes even their anger so that they want to remain engaged in the process for the long term. It is not enough that they walk the streets or block some traffic until the TV cameras come, we need to educate and mobilize ourselves. It will be a long fight and we had better get ready for it.