Online Movements

Pixabay under CC0 Creative Commons

This week I was reading part of a textbook that I had to read for one of my classes I’m taking. It talks about how online movements share five things in common with each other: visual content, performances, speed, inclusiveness, and masked organizers. Then it gave two examples of the Zapatistas, a Mexican farmer’s rights movement which was later organized online and Black Lives Matter, a black movement focused on equal rights which found its members online. Though I was thinking that not all online movements share all of these points. For instance, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge didn’t have masked organizers and in fact every participant was videotaped and the creator of the tread is well known as Peter Frates. Another example how not all online movements share all these points is Occupy Wall Street movement. They were not going to leave Wall Street till they got their message thru spending months on in tent cities on Wall Street which is not what I call speedy. ISIS, Boko Haram, and Al-Qaida are examples of online movements that were the opposite of inclusive killing all they deemed not worthy. The last two topics are visual content and performances. In terms of performance I feel that the term is too broad to be effective. Performances can range from an onstage play to how well you did in your company to someone posting hate speech on Facebook. Lastly to rule out visual content anything that is formed online is visual content meaning that my stats homework is an online movement. I don’t mean to come across as bashing in any way but I wanted to show how online activism is so different that you can’t be lumped together. Even online movements that have moved to real life protesting and participation can’t be put in the same box. 

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 27, 2017 at 3:33 PM

    Hello Evan,

    I remember when the ALS ice bucket challenge was surfacing social media and I was surprised to see it as often as I did. They were able to do an excellent job of spreading the challenge across the Internet as it was on a variety of platforms and even included celebrity appearances on numerous occasions. The attention they received shows how far one movement can travel if it earns the proper attention, which can relate to our upcoming group projects.

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  2. ImRightAndYou-reWrongOctober 27, 2017 at 8:47 PM

    So I’m actually going to call the ALS bucket challenge a funding raising event. Other than telling you what ALS was and donating money, their wasn’t much else. Mr Jared above me also believes it’s a challenge which is interesting. Was it a good marketing tool to raise awareness and money yes, but this is a disease we’re talking about. ALS is a disease which is determined by your genetics, not something done to you. Are “movements” the same as bringing awareness? Also, thanks for not just repeating what we did in class. This having to respond to people is starting to be straight bullshit. It's like yeah Ada Lovelace did that, I know. I was in the same damn class.

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