Social Media Activism: The Implications of Social Media on Collective Action by Marissa Perez

Living in the age of modern technology has made social media the most prominent form of networking. In the past two decades, the means of gaining visibility, gathering educational material, and spreading awareness about civic issues have completely shifted.

(Graphic Illustration by Rachel Macias)

The digital world, a world where news is distributed through the click of the instantaneous “Share Post” button, and public discourse is facilitated in a comment-reply fashion. Through platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, people can engage in socio-political issues on a widespread scale, increasing the power everyday citizens have when conducting societal change. Such power has transformed the organization of the political landscape, in which the grounds of networking, the showcasing of individual identity, and the unification of collective minds administer action in both online and in-person contexts. This puts into question the effectiveness of these forms of media in contributing to ongoing movements as we move forward in an ever-changing environment. When, if ever, do the activities seen online become of significance to transform legal policy and elicit social reform?

The interplay of social movements and social media activism

Identifying how social media is translated into real-life is critical in understanding its impact on previous movements that have persisted through multiple generations. From the systematic effects of the civil rights movement and the #BlackLivesMatter campaign, to the silencing of female voices in male-dominated institutions and the #MeToo conversation, the most pressing matters showcased digitally are consequentially based upon a collective opposition of rigid societal norms that began way before the age of technology.

According to sociologist Charles Tilly, a social movement is defined as “a sustained series of interactions between power holders and persons successfully claiming to speak on behalf of a constituency lacking formal representation, in the course of which those persons make publicly visible demands for changes in the distribution or exercise of power, and back those demands with public demonstrations of support” Classical social movement theory emerges from structural tensions where marginalized individuals unable to be integrated into a self-benefitting system come together to achieve a specific goal. These groups are inherently excluded from the dominating authoritative powers that operate the most important decision-making processes, making them the primary target to pressure for reform in the policies or practices found to be problematic. There are many different methods of action, but the fundamental aspect of these movements is their collective nature.

Oftentimes, collective behavior was deemed unorganized and spontaneous as mass enthusiasm was fueled by the emotionally charged reactions to the problem at hand. The rather irrational assumption of these movements is combatted by the existence of mobilizing structures—that is the informal and formal vessels through which people mobilize and engage in collective action—observed in community or non-profit organizations, pre-existing institutional structures, protest groups, or any other environment with the ability to translate the current circumstances and the conditional means for change into wider societal opportunities.

However, modern social movement theory suggests that because of new participation channels for mobilization and communication, the line drawn between social life and political spheres blurs. This is where social media comes into play. Serving as a novel and efficient catalyst, online platforms have become the basis to express political issues, voice opposition, and challenge authority. In addition, the plethora of networking tools allow like-minded people to easily band together without any physical boundaries. Activism has evolved.

A Comprehensive Pros and Cons List

Found below is a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of utilizing social media for socio-political purposes.

Comparative Factor	Pros	Cons
Means of Mobilization	Social media is radically transforming political participation allowing for low-cost mass mobilization which would result in overall increased levels of political participation	Virtual actions (signing petitions, joining social networking sites' groups, publishing and sharing compaign content, participating in short-term boycotts) are ineffective and frivolous attempts for change
Population Reach & Conduct of Collective Behaviour	Mass influence redistributes citizen-government power, democratizing the battle ground for activists	The internet stresses participation based on quantitative factors, in which many people can join the "cause", but it is ineffective in connecting people on a deeper level
Type of Engagement	Uncomplicated and accessible ways to share information and statistics, provide links, showcase visual, etc.	Terms such as "clicktivism" or "armchair activism" were coined due to the minimal effort to contribute, limiting real civic engagement
Access to Resources	Participatory politics are based on the information available; social media has provided an outlet for disenfranchised communities to access resources	Economic digital divide requires technological devices that most of the global population cannot afford, though unintentionally, forces a gap between classes

The Impact on Identity Politics

Activism, as a social phenomenon, is based on:

a. Contentious issues

b. Collective action

c. Solidarity or collective identity

d. An effort to solve problems using communication

The political sphere is filled with an intricate web of crossing identities, each with its own set of characterized experiences and limitations rooted in externally imposed events, prejudices, and injustices. Being the foundation of a social movement, activism can only function when individuals find solace with others going through the same ordeals, hence the collective action and solidarity required to solve problems (as seen above).

Social media helps define the relationship between personal collective forms of identification. The nature of collective identity is evolving with the new identities that are forged and expressed on online platforms, which calls for investigation regarding the purpose of social media as simply a new instrument to facilitate communication, or if it has crafted an entirely new culture of community building altogether. For instance, the frameworks of formal mass organizations are replaced with increasingly flexible digital activities, shifting the weight to symbolic processes easily represented on the media.

When identifying with a particular group, the amount of interactivity with content related to one's position as a marginalized individual can be associated with the tactics involved in declaring their stance through an online persona. From changing a profile picture to the movements symbol of solidarity, to boosting the algorithm to a stream of awareness posts by sharing and reposting, collective identity is now arranged by a system of engagement to adequately align the values of togetherness since there is not always physical action to show for their support. The concepts of identity must be backed up by a very apparent case for its need of attention, as it is visibility that dictates relevance in the visually oriented design of social media sites.

Hashtags, Trends, and Slacktivism

From 2013 to 2018, the #BlackLivesMatter tag was used 17,200 a day, which is approximately 31 million times. In comparison, in just the 2-week period of May 26th to June 7th, 2020, alone the same tag was used 47.5 million times at a rate of 3.7 million times/day.

As statistics prove, there has been a rapid increase in platform engagement. During one of the most memorable social media campaigns in the past decade, the world saw how people could band together and lead a movement with passion and intention for radical rebellion against extreme injustice. There is no doubt that online forums would be effective, when there were millions upon millions deeply angered by the tragedy of George Floyd, all with a collective goal for widespread change.

To further support this, the Informing Science Institute (ISI) study administered an electronic survey to students from 2019 through 2021 attending a high school dual enrollment program in the Mid-Atlantic United States. This study concluded that most considered themselves to be “informed” or “well informed” about current issues in which 81% of them reported they obtain their news from social media. Moreover, 78% of respondents had educated friends or family about an important social or political issue, 48% had donated to a cause of importance to them, 26% had participated in a march or rally and that same percentage had also boycotted a product or company. Altogether, 37% consider themselves to be social activists.

Quantitative numbers show for a rather united and collective system credited to the perks of social media. Nevertheless, the collective behavior can quickly veer into a beehive mindset that lacks genuine intentions.

Hence why the term “slacktivism,” a portmanteau combining “slacker” and “activism”, is used to reevaluate the participation of social media users. What are the lasting benefits of retweeting or captioning a post with a hashtag? Can these “movements” phase in and out as easily as a social media trend? And does individuality still exist, or are people simply following the most popular opinion? Such questions are essential to consider, as the selfish purpose of virtue signaling in attempts to demonstrate good social consciousness is more detrimental to the cause than good. It can be hard to differentiate those consistently putting in efforts for gathering support in implementing broad social change, and those who are doing it to feel good about themselves or worse, for performative reasons.

Contemporary sites have led to collective identity constructs that threaten the underlying principles of social movement that transcend further into the objectives of governmental intervention for reform or formal changes in policy. To put it simply, social media politics can be messy when there are claims of self-serving reasons. Its communicative techniques can falsify and undermine the central purposes of bringing justice to oppressive transgressions.

How can social media be an advocate for law?

To culminate the different themes explored within this article, we can investigate social media’s ability to be used as a tool in the practice of law.

1. Enablement

Lawyers in the context of advocates must frame their legal issues. As established, there is an effect on modern movements that all can further educate themselves on, no matter if their individual identity is a part of the affected community or not, due to the interconnected processes that find itself on common grounds in social justice arenas. The persuasive nature that influences large groups of the public reaches further to legal advocacy, as it widens the scope of the situation and increases the potential for client cases to integrate the culture around a particular issue to their own individual problems. Such is why the social conditions that have shaped one's individual identity is critical, for it signifies their private and personality rights that informs “who they are.” For marginalized communities in particular, it demonstrates the client’s position in relation to a specific issue that has the support of many constituents. This impacts their access to justice.

2. Discourse

Through social media networks, legal framework is viewed as an outcome of the collective minds of a community and their thought processes. This democratic mediascape allows for freedom of expression, enforces government accountability, and alters lawmaking strategies. For legislative actions to evolve with meaningful culture shifts, social media is the best way to give voice to the people. MIT scholar Amy Zhang and Microsoft researcher Scott Counts found that proposed policy measure from social media posts could pass with an approximately 80% accuracy rate.

For example, when there were threats to defund Planned Parenthood by Congress in the United States in 2015, a woman named Lindy west created the #ShoutYourAbortion campaign to destigmatize abortion. Across Twitter platforms, women shared stories about how abortion transformed the course of their lives. The purpose of this campaign was to influence perception on abortion to eliminate the taboos surrounding it to ensure safer access. In this case, the goal was more than just legal reform but more so cultural change.

Connecting online movements and offline activities intertwine the exterior factors that are not directly injected into litigation proceedings. Known as “law in context,” this law-and-society theory “identifies the ways legal norms and institutions are conditioned by cultural and social organization.” The rule of law and its place in the customs of morality effectively directs and redirects legal order in society.

3. Implementation

The major divide between social media and law is the rigidness of law versus the fluidity of social media. As Lisa Silver’s, professor at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Law, well-put statement says “the Internet works at the blink of an eye. Social media is a virtual space and yet the law is tethered to a jurisdiction or a static place.” Law requires both paper and legal boundaries while social media is boundless. Law is rooted in tradition and social media is everchanging at rapid paces. Law must have documented evidence whereas social media brings forth risks of false information and backless “slacktivism.”

The pressured formation of causes resulting from an overwhelming number of individuals who express themselves online risks several gaps in collective conduct and limits the ability for the structured organization required in litigation alone. Without a doubt, public support for reform does strengthen cases and can assist in implementation, but there has yet been a formal imparting procedure that smoothly converges the passionate socio-cultural online movements to trusted formal decisions regarding the wellbeing of citizens.