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#TruthLoad https://www.instagram.com/p/B0cdMGXgXgI/?igshid=nw75372oldi6

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What is Ordo Templi Orientis? - Truthloader

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Serco and the private companies running your country - Truthloader

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Activism and Protest

Grass roots activism and protesting has historically been born from a physical group/community of individuals that wish to make a change. Activism was shown in the way of physically protesting or marching. With the involvement of media platforms activism has been able to spread further and quicker than ever before. This has allowed organisations to reach large audiences and a range of demographics. This change and progression in platforms and has now formed into individuals being able to join onto a movement without physically leaving their home. The interaction is in the form of following, sharing, commenting, reading and learning. Positively the media has created an avenue for people to become more educated on a particular topic and may build their interest to further protest a cause. In the past they may have not had access to the information but now it is one click away. Issues and causes that they may have not heard about before or did not understand are now easily accessible. This means that groups are able to garner support through education. Negatively it gives an opportunity for people to participate in the lowest level of support that does not have a tangible effect to the cause. They can ‘like’, ‘share’ and leave their comments. However they may not act out these views in real life social situations. There is also a large emphasis on the image that it portrays for an individual. Supporting or being related to activism paints the picture that the person is charitable and is linked to characteristics such as caring, kind and thoughtful.

A cause that has been in the media consistently over the past year is marriage equality. I think this is the perfect example of when society picks up on what is in trend and follows on. Of course there are so many that are passionate and believe in the cause but there are also large amount of people that have joined on to show their support as they are following suit of their favourite celebrities.

Another example that has been seen to occur over the past decade is the #Pray for Paris/London etc when bombings or attacks have occurred. Of course it is fair to say that people are upset and affected by the events however the use of hashtag’s and posting photos of support has no tangle benefit to the cause or the victims of the event. If you did want to have an actual affect on the cause you could show your support in way of donations or getting involved with programs that may help with education, or something similar.

Unfortunately social media has given people an easy out when it comes to making a change and it gives people the perception that they are making a difference. But sometimes its important to take a glass half full approach and understand that any additional awareness or support it may bring is better than nothing.

References:

Bakardjieva, M 2009, 'Subactivism: Lifeworld and Politics in the Age of the Internet', Information Society, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 91-104.

Change.org 2014, viewed 3 August 2016, <https://www.change.org/en-AU>.

Getup 2014, viewed 3 August 2016, <https://www.getup.org.au/>.

Lievrouw, L 2011, Alternative & Activist New Media, Polity, Cambridge, U.K, p. 2.

Truthloader 2013, Joseph Kony 2012: What happened to Invisible Children? – Truthloader , 5 March, viewed 3 August 2016, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okmswBs4rdg>.

[phoebeditommaso-blog]

Activism & Protesting

The term activism brings to mind images of mass crowds creating statements and efforts through mass force to protest and change against our governments.

By definition, activism means “the doctrine or practice of vigorous action or involvement as a means of achieving political or other goals, sometimes by demonstrations, protests, etc.” (dictionary.com)

In today’s digital age, activism and protesting is now supported by a whole other level of ‘mass’ through means of internet accessibility, social media platforms the connected world we now live in.

When looking at digital citizenship, it refers to the ‘ability to participate in society online” (Mossberger, 2008)  With the internet and the accessibility anyone has to be ‘online’ the voices across the political scope have become louder and louder. 

Culture Jamming has been a progressive feature in protesting through-out the years. The concept relates to in context “the joke-y, trollish practice, then prevalent in the C.B. radio community, of disrupting other users’ conversations with obscene or nonsensical interjections; billboard banditry is the neo-situational practice of illegally altering billboards to perversely funny, usually political effect in order to critique consumerism, capitalism, representations of race and gender in advertising, or American foreign policy.” (Dery, 2010) Whilst the ideas behind cultural jamming remain the same – disruptive, anti-establishment, etc. The ability to now ‘share’ this culture has increased with the online world. With analytics on trends & hash tags on twitter and the ability to follow certain groups on other social media platforms, the reach of cultural jamming has expanded dramatically.

 Slacktivsm can be defined as “actions performed via the Internet in support of a political or social cause but regarded as requiring little time or involvement, e.g. signing an online petition or joining a campaign group on a social media website or application.”

Whilst the impact of social media campaigns is undeniable, integrity and credibility must be questioned on the follow through of campaigns and movements online. A case study of the 2012 Joseph Kony and the ‘invisible children” campaign is a prime example of such. Truthloader (2013) explores and questions the campaign, which involved protesets, campaigning and fundraising to act and stop the Ugandan criminal known for childrens armies and slavery across Africa. The campaign saw millions of activations online as well as in person, but once the dust had settles from the campaigning and activations, the question of where the funds had gone and if it produced an outcome or arrest of Joesph Kony were completely null. The social media campaign was like no other, but in reality has probably achieved very little, other than awareness to the situation. Slacktivsm requires actionable change, with a lot to be said for following through after ‘clicking’ your support.

Social Media provides a public forum for activists free from physical boundaries and opens up more opportunity to empower the digital community to push for change.

Truthloader (2013)<http://bit.ly/1pk3M06>

Mossberger, K., Tolbert, C., & McNeal, R 2008, Digital Citizenship: The InternenetSociety, and Participation MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.

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Slacktivism

As a postscript to last week’s blog, I would like to continue the idea of digital citizenship and user-generated political discourse. Social media has made way for users to comment, contest and create political movements. As mentioned last week, this is evident through movements like, Kony 2012, a user-generated political movement created in hope to apprehend warlord Joseph Kony (Truthloader, 2013). This grassroots campaign had over one million views on social media site, YouTube, in less than a week, setting records for the time (Truthloader, 2013). However, despite mass support, profit and growth, the Invisible Children organisation failed to apprehend or even find the warlord. Despite the campaign’s online success, the successes struggled to reverberate into the literal world. Morozov’s (2009) theory of “slacktivism” can help us understand why; slacktivisim refers to an online activism efforts that focuses more on the participants feeling of self-fulfilment rather than actually making a social or political impact. Essentially, those who were sharing, commenting and even donating to the Kony 2012 campaign, were doing so to help themselves feel as if they were contributing to something important.

This feeling is exasperated in an online world where your self image is everything. In my first blog, I spoke of our need to continuously project an image of our ideal selves. This includes what we like and support online. To be seen supporting Kony 2012, you public represent yourself as a philanthropist and as an intellectual up to date with current affairs. As 2013 ticked over, due to the lack of action taken by the Invisible Children organisation, it is evident that the campaign’s focus was on gaining participants, by prying on their need for self-fulfilment, rather than actual impact or the apprehension of Joseph Kony; hence, slacktivism.

However, I will continue to argue that campaigns, despite their presence of slactivism can still generate actual change or impact. Consider the Marriage Equality campaign mentioned last week, whilst most campaign efforts were about awareness, it has come to generate actual change all over the world. Following the US Supreme Court decision backing same-sex marriage, people all over the world were adding a rainbow filter to their profile pictures to declare their support (Ireland, 2016). The following year, social media giant, Facebook, waded into the debate by creating a banner that users could apply directly to their profile picture (Ireland, 2016). Like with Kony 2012, the support was a way for users to express their opinion online and present themselves in an ideal way. However, like with Kony 2012, often those who branded themselves with the banner did not intend on taking real action (Christensen 2011). However, in this instance, I would argue, that this support is what was needed to take the campaign to the next level. Once the issue was taken to parliament, campaigners were able to lead with a realistic vision of what level of support they had from the public. Therefore, when the Australian’s were called to vote, the campaign worked tremendously to build support, and hence more yes votes. The result included changed legislation to marriage laws all over the world.

So for me, I agree with the idea of slacktivisim and concur that it is a prominent challenge for digital communities, however, I believe the true success in the campaign lies behind its makers rather than supporters.

References:

 Christensen, HS 2011, ‘Political activities on the Internet: slacktivism or political participation by other means?’ First Monday, viewed 20 December 2017, <http://firstmonday.org/article/view/3336/2767>

 Ireland, J 2016, ‘Facebook boost for same-sex marriage ‘yes’ campaign’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 March, viewed 20 December 2017, <http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/facebook-boost-for-samesex-marriage-yes-campaign-20160229-gn6awf.html>

 Morozov, E 2009, From slacktivism to activism. Foreign Policy, viewed 8 December 2017, <http://foreignpolicy.com/2009/09/05/from-slacktivism-to-activism/>.

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China's 64 years in Tibet - Truthloader

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Week 6 – Activism and Protest

This week was a further exploration of digital citizenship, with more focus on activism and protest, as well as social movements in general. I left my last blog describing my feelings of guilt around my rainbow profile picture, an action that could be described as ‘slacktivism’. As a platform, Facebook is fast becoming the largest gathering place for activists across the world (Bakardjieva, 2009). It has become easy to add your name to a cause without really having to do anything at all to further that cause, ie, changing a profile picture or signing a petition, and that has birthed the term slacktivism. This term, along with clictivism and subactivism are used to describe an action taken online, which could have great intentions, but will make no lasting impact on the world (Bakardjieva, 2009). I guess that word has stuck with me and convicted me in terms of how much importance I place on my online ‘protests’ or how much I am actually contributing to social change by using social media platforms.

It is easy to see the negatives regarding online activism, or call it lacking in purpose, however as previously stated, it would be silly to negate the value of social media as the largest and most accessible meeting place on earth. The ability of the internet to facilitate the virality of a picture, statement or video has supported the movement called ‘culture jamming’ (Dery, 2010) or adbusting – the practice of using/changing existing media to communicate or comment on a political or social issue, eg the below image. By removing the rest of the text, the caption reads ‘She is a thing’ commenting on our patriarchal society and the idea that women are objects to be owned.

In our weekly materials, the Kony 2012 campaign was raised as a viral campaign that participants felt quite disillusioned about in terms of measurable results.

The social media campaign was wildly effective in terms of how quickly it spread, involving millions of people worldwide and raising over 20million after expenses, however the actual result of getting Joseph Kony arrested was far from achieved. I remember entering into serious debate online with very close friends when this campaign was launched, arguing that from my basic research I could tell them that Kony was no longer in Uganda, and that the campaign was seriously fishy. Yes, I agreed that the idea of making Kony famous and raising awareness for his various atrocities was a great cause, but that the campaign had over simplified issues that were far beyond buying a bracelet and putting up posters. This campaign is a great example of the dangers of ‘slacktivism’ – joining a cause without knowing enough about it, clicking ‘share’ without making any real difference to the issue.

References

Bakardjieva, M 2009, 'Subactivism: Lifeworld and Politics in the Age of the Internet', Information Society, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 91-104.

Collin, P 2015, ‘How to engage youth in making policies that work for us all’, The Conversation, 10th April, viewed 27th January 2019, <https://theconversation.com/how-to-engage-youth-in-making-policies-that-work-for-us-all-39319>

Dery, M 2010, Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing, and Sniping in the Empire of Signs, Shovelware, viewed 26 September 2018, <http://markdery.com/?page_id=154>.

Truthloader 2013, Joseph Kony 2012: What happened to Invisible Children? – Truthloader , 5 March, viewed 26 September 2018, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okmswBs4rdg>.

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Canada's Tar Sands: The most destructive project on Earth? - Truthloader

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Watch “Who are The Carlyle Group, and how are they connected to bin Laden? – Truthloader” on YouTube

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Canada's Tar Sands is the third-largest proven crude oil reserve in the world behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. In 2011 it was believed the reserve amounted to 170.2 billion barrels of oil, or about 11% of total global oil reserves. But the development of Canada's Oil Sands is concerning environmen via Pocket

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Incredible sand sculpture exhibition in Tel Aviv

https://telavivcity.co.il/?p=4886&utm_source=SocialAutoPoster&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Tumblr The City that never sleeps Incredible sand sculpture exhibition in Tel Aviv https://telavivcity.co.il/?p=4886&utm_source=SocialAutoPoster&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Tumblr A Tel Aviv museum has become home to 15 stunning sand sculptures, created over two months by artists from the World Sand Sculpting Academy. International artists from the World Sand Sculpting Academy worked for over two months to create the artworks depicting characters from fairytales and Bible stories. More contemporary characters were also showcased, like Marvel superheroes Captain America, Thor and Iron Man. The museum also set up a sandbox for children to play in, with teachers and artists on site to tutor the kids in sand sculpting techniques. The exhibition is open until August 26. Report by Laurie Blake. Subscribe to ITN News! http://bit.ly/itnytsub Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/itn Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/itn Visit our homepage: http://itn.co.uk More stories from ITN: Rocket explodes after lift-off in Kazakhstan: http://bit.ly/19TyFnc Egypt protests: Muslim Brotherhood HQ set ablaze: http://bit.ly/13rR8ap Gay marriage: Couples line up to wed in San Francisco, California: http://bit.ly/12BJDLX EDL leaders arrested during march to Woolwich: http://bit.ly/14M6gMa Obama speaks about Mandela on board Air Force One: http://bit.ly/19K8L55 Rival drag queens fight at a pageant: http://bit.ly/12b6DwZ GRAPHIC: Peru bullfighter badly gored during ring battle: http://bit.ly/13iSiGj Chinese woman finds half meter-long lizard in her home: http://bit.ly/17DbPPM Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard's resignation speech: http://bit.ly/121Zn6H Dynamo 'levitates' on side of London double decker bus: http://bit.ly/19wCB0q Daredevil Nik Wallenda crosses Grand Canyon on high wire: http://bit.ly/11PaHEm Roller coaster accident: Tourists rescued from ride in China: http://bit.ly/16wm33s Topless Femen activists attack Tunisian PM: http://bit.ly/10mKJdE World's Ugliest Dog Contest 2013: http://bit.ly/17jbMIT Amazing moment deaf three-year-old boy hears for the first time: http://bit.ly/13Xw35c Check out Truthloader, the new home of citizen journalism on YouTube. Subscribe now at http://bit.ly/tldrsub See 2013's Most Watched Videos: http://bit.ly/14iM9r5 See our Top 20 Most Watched Videos: http://bit.ly/11GI36D See 2012's Most Watched Videos: http://bit.ly/18R1boW source #artinsand #biblestories #captainamerica #incrediblesandart #incrediblesandsculptures #ironman #Israel #itn #itnnews #kingsolomon #marvel #marvelsuperheroes #middleeast #peterandthewolf #samson #sand #sandart #sandsculpture #sandsculptures #telavivmuseum #tel-aviv #thor #world TEL AVIV - THE CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS #gaypridetelaviv2019 #museum #TELAVIVPRIDE2019 #Uncategorized

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Hamas rockets vs Israel's Iron Dome - Truthloader

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6. Activism and Potest

Whether it be a revolution, protest or activism social media is having an effect on society, whether we like it or not. Forming subcultures of ‘everyday activism’, ‘subjectivism’ and ‘cultural jamming’, which is being used across more mediums and platforms than ever before. Our unique ‘digital citizenship’ is who we are online in a digital society that is forever changing. We see collective action increase and participation levels rise, whilst, social media platforms are being used to their maximum potentials. Whether it be to bring down regimes or entice community awareness and action. 

Activism and protest have been given a new life from its former grassroots. With social media tools such as, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram its become a very likely avenue to facilitate communication amongst society. 

The benefits of social media in regard to activism and protest are as follows:

build and sustain communities with (lower) geographical restrictions

gain visibility and voice—one of the trickier areas where dealing with violent authoritarian regimes

resist or talk back to dominant views, confront dominant media institutions, politics and structures of power

present alternative or marginal views legitimately

DIY—lowers the barriers for entry into the debate (e.g. proliferation of mobiles with data access and improved network infrastructure).

(canvas, 6.2 Digital activism and digital citizenship, 2018)

‘everyday activism’, ‘subjectivism’ and ‘cultural jamming’

The phrase ‘culture jamming’, popularised by Mark Dery (1990), 'comes from the idea of radio jamming: public frequencies can be pirated and subverted for independent communication, or to disrupt dominant frequencies. Culture jamming is a form of resistance to the hegemony of popular culture, based on the ideas of guerrilla communication and the detournement of popular icons and ideas. It has roots in the German concept of spassguerilla ("fun guerilla") and in the Situationist International' (Marshall, 2004)

Where ‘cultural jamming’ examples, such as the work by artist Banksy is head turning, and often left alone for years due to its relevance at the time.  ‘Subactivism’, ‘slacktivisim’ and ‘clicktivism’ has no real or lasting effect in the world. Another term used is ‘subactivism’, referring to the 'feeble motions immersed in the everyday many times removed from the hot arena of politics' (Bakardjieva 2009, p. 103).

A great example is the KONY 2012 below:

 You can view the original promo video, Kony 2012 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. (Invisible Children 2012), on YouTube.

KONY 2012′s intent was to gain recognition of an African Warlord with the intent to get Joseph Kony arrested. Gaining impressive power through social media. Though, it wasn't long until the population came to the realisation that nothing was going to come of it. 

VIEW BELOW TO SEE WHAT EVER HAPPENED!

Joseph Kony 2012: What happened to invisible children? – Truthloader (2013)<http://bit.ly/1pk3M06> https://youtu.be/okmswBs4rdg <--- link to video 

AGAIN, its hard to draw the line on whats okay and whats not okay on social media. Should we be held accountable for our actions in regard to ‘everyday activism’, ‘subjectivism’ and ‘cultural jamming’? Defamation is very real in a digital society in relation to these terms. 

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Week 6: Don’t Blame Me, I’m Gen Y

I was reading a great article on the weekend about Generation Z; specifically the students who were involved in the protests following the recent school shootings in Florida. The article suggested that the reason that this generation are so politically active is out of necessity; they have never known a time when America wasn’t at war with Iraq & Afghanistan, unlike Gen Y, they didn’t grow up in the optimism (and consequent passivity) of a post-war era.

This, combined with the fact that they are digital natives, goes a long way to explaining why digital activism is so ubiquitous now. The largest generation is also the one who feels empowered to make change.

Furthermore, the frameworks of social platforms lend themselves to creating memorable political messages - namely, hashtags. Most of us know instantly the various campaigns that the following hashtags are from: #yeswecan #metoo #neveragain - hashtags are the new buzzwords. These hashtags become relevant even for people who don’t have or use the platforms they originated from (like me). I don’t have Twitter and would not call myself an active contributor on any of the social media platforms I use. I tend to just lurk and like other peoples’ posts! However, these hashtags are all meaningful to me because they became bigger than their platform - not just on other social media platforms but in mainstream news media, clickbait articles, BuzzFeed, and so on. 

What’s more, these campaigns reference and call for real-world action. Lynch (2011, in Youmans & York, 2012) identified four ways in which social media contributed to collective activism, and this is a key point: digital activism is only useful if it leads to meaningful action. It can generate momentum and support, but in cases where this does not result in real changes, such as the KONY 2012 campaign (the video achieved massive popularity and reach, but Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony was never apprehended), people can feel let down and misled. In the instance of Invisible Children’s Find Kony campaign, they raised over US$20 million, but spent more on marketing than on finding Kony (Truthloader, 2012).

Image: Hijacked

The thing about activism is it comes from a place of discomfort. The people most active in the #neveragain campaign are the people most directly affected by it: the students. In Syria, locals are using citizen journalism to gain reach and worldwide support to help overthrow the Assad dictatorship (Youmans & York, 2012).

From my position of middle class privileged comfort (and Generation Y passivity), it is easy for me to admire from afar - I am a classic slacktivist. I do care about these causes, I’ll sign a petition and even attend a rally every so often, but I am not the driving force behind them. What social media has done is allowed anyone to be that driving force. You don’t need a lot of traditional resources to utilise the power of social media for activism - you just have to have a message that resonates.

References

Lester, A 2018, ‘Generation Z: Politicized by necessity and already changing the world’, The Age (Good Weekend supplement), 28 April, viewed 28 April 2018, <https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/generation-z-politicised-by-necessity-and-already-changing-the-world-20180424-p4zbcu.html>.

Truthloader 2013, Joseph Kony 2012: What happened to invisible children?, viewed 28 April 2018, <http://bit.ly/1pk3M06> 

Youmans, W & York, J (2012), ‘Social Media and the Activist Toolkit: User Agreements, Corporate Interests, and the Information Infrastructure of Modern Social Movements.’, Journal of Communication, vol. 62, no. 2, pp. 315-329.