SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVISM: ITS IMPACT ON REAL LIFE

1.0. ABSTRACT
The social media activism is increasing day-by-day due to the advent of technology. The
other reason being the continuously increasing penetration of technology in the real world.
The concept of social media activism is increasing, thereby, posing positive as well as
negative impact on the real life. The social media has become the most popular form of
media recently, just because it is a virtual world by which the real life is getting affected.
Thus, because of the improvement in technology, social media is getting popularity, whereby,
social media activism is increasing. There are various social media platforms consisting of
different applications and different websites. It is very well known that social media activism
is employed by the grassroot activists so as to spread all the information, especially those
which are not available on mainstream media and censored news. Thus, it is impacting the
real life to a greater extent. This paper is a creation for those who want to understand the pros
and cons of the social media activism. It will be useful for those activists who want to study
how social media activism be made to reach to a larger audience.
2.0. INTRODUCTION
Today, with the increasing popularity of social media, social media activism is gaining
popularity. Talking about media activism, media activism can be defined as a part of activism
that uses media as a part of communication tools. The media participating in media activism
includes newspapers, video and audio media, campaigns and protests regarding media and
communication policies. This part of activism is used in many forms in diverse fields, to
spread that information which has not been given space in the censored news or mainstream
media. The basic focus of this activism is to bring change in policies that relate to media as
well as communication technologies.
Social media activism is a form of media activism which brings in a larger audience because
of its interactive features towards a great mass. The information that breaks in social media
becomes viral in fractions of second. The campaigns and protests related information on
social media can increase the number of supporters. Thus, social media is far superior than
traditional media. There are various social media platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, where a piece of information can become trending in no time.
Though it is true that a small percentage of social media users express their personal interest
in a cause online as compared to offline mode, the social media interaction stands as the first
step towards social engagement. In the words of Victor Damoso, the participant of Sao
Paulo’s main Paulista Avenue, ”Social media has helped us organize without having leaders.
Our ideas, our demands are discussed on Facebook. There are no meetings, no rules.”
Today, everyone has smartphones on which various social media apps can be operated for
free. There are various apps, too, which offer live streaming. All this stuff has contributed a
lot to social media activism. With the improvement in communication technology,
information can be widespread without any error. With the help of videos being uploaded on
YouTube, information can be sent more easily as compared to publishing of that information
in native language. Thus, it can be defined as the activism behind the screen.
Most of the information is intentionally changed to trending by tagging a great number of
people or by using hashtags or simply through location check-ins. These are the best ways to
put forth one’s opinion about that particular information. Thus, the duplicity and redundancy
of the information sets it in viral category. This also allows the like-minded people to come
together and the unlike-minded people to share their personal opinions.
Social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter help the users to engage
with the trending causes. This is done via liking, subscribing, tagging, sharing, hashtag,
videos or photos. Some of the famous trending causes include #MeToo and
#HumFitToIndiaFit. This type of engagement has caused increase in social media activism.
3.0. LITERAURE REVIEW
Lovink’s body of work includes articles such as ‘Mapping the Limits of New Media’, ‘A
virtual world is possible’ and other contextualizing pieces. In many of his interviews with
other important new media thinkers and activists, questions are raised about how much to
challenge the mainstream media, or the relevance of the fact that much online organizing is
centered around offline events and if this relegates new media activism to eventism. Much of
his work describes the history and origin of the movement with discussion of what he
believes to be its anti-globalization roots. There has also been production of glossaries to
assist in understanding the complex technology and language of new media activism.
Rosalind Gill and Margaretha Geertsema might agree as while the potential and veneer exists
for new medias to be more inclusive of women as producers of media, this remains an
unfulfilled possibility.
In his discussion of the UK riots that took place in August of this year, Christopher Fuchs
writes: ”the BBC took up the social media panic discourse on August 9th and
reported about the power of social media to bring together not only five, but 200
people for forming a rioting "mob". Media and politicians created the impression that the
riots were orchestrated by ‘Twitter mobs’, ‘Facebook mobs’ and ‘Blackberry mobs’. After
one a few month ago told we had ‘Twitter revolutions’ and ‘Facebook revolutions’ in Egypt
and Tunisia, one now hears about ‘social media mobs’ in the UK.” (2011)
Gerbaudo (2012) argues that conclusions can be made only by assessing the interventions
social media makes in specific acts of activism. From such an approach he has identified
social media as providing a “choreography of assembly” – of the creation of symbolic
occupations and physical manifestations that are then propagated across digital space.
Decrying the tendency to view social media as creating a new “virtual” realm, Gerbaudo
argues, drawing on his direct observations of the Arab Spring, that social media is very rarely
its own activity in and of itself – that often it is utilised as part of a broader set of political
activities, a direct challenge to the theories of the slacktivist and the paradigm shifter alike.
Clay Shirky (2011) is one of the early scholars to write about social media as a new social
networking tool for collective action. He argues that over the years, the world communication
system has gotten denser, more complex, and more participatory. People have gained greater
access to information, more opportunities to engage in public speech, and thus, an enhanced
ability to undertake collective action (Shirky 2011). These increased freedoms and
technology can help loosely coordinated public demand change. Traditional organizational
tools used to mobilize would make use of social hubs such as universities, coffee shops,
group meetings, independent news sources, etc. to spread information. However, the rise of
the Internet in the 1990’s marked a changing point for world communication. The networked
population has grown from the low millions to the low billions (Shirky 2011). At the same
time, the creation and adoption of social media such as blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter
have become a fact of life. Citizens, activists, nongovernmental organizations,
telecommunications firms, software providers, governments – are all actors that engage and
participate in social media sites.
4.0. STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
The problem, hereby, to address is the relation between virtual world of social media activism
and real life. This relation is needed to understand because the impact of social media
activism has been moderate till now. But, the need of the hour is to enhance the positive
impact of social media activism on the real life. The problem is that the virtual world is
increasingly throwing different impact on different people on their life, though the need is to
bring the positive out of the virtual world.
5.0. VIRTUAL WORLD VS REAL WORLD
Today, to be said there’s one life of a person but there are two different views to look in
his/her life, one from the lens of technology and the other, that is, real life. In real life, one
can breathe, eat, sleep, play in all his/her senses and in reality. At the same time, in virtual
world, everything is like an illusion, like one can go in a world where nothing is real. Though
virtual world may seem interesting, its just like “All that glitters is not gold”.
5.1. VIRTUAL WORLD
The virtual world came into existence because of the boom in technology, continuously
updated smartphones, new and trending apps. The intention of technology was to make
communication between people sitting in different parts of the world easier and quick.
Though this technology has brought the people living far away closer but at the same time,
the people living closer has gone far.
Smartphones may have brought families closer – but they have also left the elderly feeling
isolated as millennials spend hours online and have little time for real-world conversations.
Close to 80% of senior citizens say that social media has cut into the time family members
have for them, which they consider disrespectful and a form of neglect.
5.2. REAL WORLD
The real world is more interesting if one may learn to enjoy every moment of it. In earlier
times, people actually lived their lives with real aim and real goals. They actually lived a life.
The real life is one in which one can freely breathe, sleep, eat, jump, walk, drink, hear, talk
and other such real life activities.
Real life provides the experiences which are open-ended. They give an opportunity to gain
whatever one wants. The only limitation that exists is creativity as well as the physical
parameters needed in real life. Real life is a value driven life which gives the meaning and the
direction to which a life can be led. Thus, life has a personal meaning and a great importance.

6.0. DATA ANALYSIS

For understanding the social media activism in the real life, the data has been collected from
100 respondents, based on random sampling, belonging to Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. The
collected data has been analysed and drawn in the form of charts as under:
1. Your age
 Your age

Less than 20 21-30 31-40 Above 40

The respondents are more or less equally distributed between different age groups. 35%
of the respondents are less than 20 years, 30% lying between 21-30, 20% lying between
31-40 and 15% above 40 years of age
2. Which phone do you have?

Which phone do you have?

Keypad Smartphone

Out of 100 respondents, only 6% have keypad mobiles while 94% have smartphones.
This shows how the smartphones have taken over keypad mobiles.

3. Do you use any social media?

 Out
Do you use any social media? of
100

Yes No
respondents, 85% used social media and 15% didn’t use social media. This shows that
majority of the people use social media in their daily lives to interact with each other.
4. How much time do you spend on social media?

How much time do you spend on social media?

Less than 1 hr 1-2 hr 3-4 hr More than 4 hr

According to the data collected, 15% of the respondents spend less than 1 hour on
social media while 55% spend 1-2 hour on social media. On one hand, 16% spend 3-4
hour on social media while on the other hand, 14% spend more than 4 hours. This
shows that majority of the people spend 1-2 hour daily on the social media.

5. Have you ever been in a protest or movement?

 Have you ever been in a protest or movement?

Yes No
88% of the respondents have never been in a protest or movement while 12% have
been to protest or movement. This shows that only a minority of people do participate
in a protest or movement.

6. Has social media affected you to join any protest or movement?

Has social media affected you to join any protest or

movement?

Yes No
56% of the respondents have been affected by social media to join the protest or
movement while 44% have not been affected by social media to join the protest or
movement. This shows that the rate affecting to join protest or movement through
social media is almost neutral.

7. How many times do you call or meet your friends?

 How many times do you call or meet your friends?

Once in a month Thrice in a month More than trice in a month

54% of the respondents revealed that they met or called their friends once in a month
while 26% said that they met or called their friends thrice in a month. At the same
time, 20% responded that they met or called their friends more than thrice in a month.

7.0. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

The results which came out of the data analysis are listed below:
 More than half of the population has smartphones.
 More than half of the population use social media.
 More than half of the population spend 1-2 hours daily on social media.
 More than half of the population have never been to a protest or movement.
 The affect of social media on joining the protest or movement is nearly neutral.
 More than half of the population call or meet their friends once in a month.
Based on these results, it can be concluded that in the era of smartphones, a gap is being
widened between the virtual world and real life because of social media. Because of social
media activism, the participation in protest or movement is nearly becoming a trend.
8.0. SUGGESTIONS
According to the results which came out of the data analysis, some of the suggestions which
are the need of the hour are listed below:
 Social media activism should be a balanced one, that is, virtual world and real life
should not hamper each other.
 Any protest or movement can gain popularity over social media. So, it is advised to
go for the positive causes.
 Social media activism should not be mistaken as real-world activism.

9.0. SCOPE FOR FURTHER STUDY

The topic undertaken in the paper can act as a base for many topics. Since technology is
continuously evolving, social media is gaining popularity day by day. Every next day, a new
app or website comes to limelight which makes use of social media. Since, the respondents in
the paper were very less as compared to the population of the society, more respondents can
shape a new conclusion at all.
10.0. REFERENCES
 Nicole Langfield, Social media activism is no joke, Retrieved from
https://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2017-10-27/lifestyle/social-media-activism-is-no-
joke/
 Ben Gilbert, What do you need to know about social media activism, Retrieved from
https://www.engadget.com/2014/07/02/social-media-activism-explainer/
 Taylor Corrigan, Social Media Activism: Effective or Slacktivism, Retrieved from
http://www.branddrivendigital.com/social-media-activism-effective-slacktivism/
 Media Activism, Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_activism
 Dhiraj Murthy, Introduction to Social media, Activism, and Organizations, Retrieved
from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2056305117750716
 Sonja Hohenbild, Shahriar Khonsari, Heather McMullen, and Kalea Turner8Beckman
ComDev , Assignment 1: A Literature Review of New Media Activism, Retrieved from
http://wpmu.mah.se/nmict11group4/files/2011/11/Group-4-New-Media-Activism-
Literature-Review.pdf
 Bradley Allsop, Social media and activism literature review, Retrieved from
http://www.academia.edu/29763585/Bradley_Allsop_social_media_and_activism_lite
rature_review
 Amandha Rohr Lopes, The Impact of Social Media on Social Movements: The New
Opportunity and Mobilizing Structure, Retrieved from
https://www.creighton.edu/fileadmin/user/CCAS/departments/PoliticalScience/
Journal_of_Political_Research__JPR_/2014_JSP_papers/Lopes_JPR.pdf
 Jim Taylor, Technology: Virtual vs. Real Life: You Choose, Retrieved from
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-power-prime/201105/technology-
virtual-vs-real-life-you-choose

11.0. APPENDIX
QUESTIONNAIRE
1. Your age
 Below 20
 20-30
 31-40
 41-50
 Above 50 years
2. Which phone do you have?
 Keypad
 Smartphone
3. Do you use any social media?
 Yes
 No
4. How much time do you spent on social media?
 Less than 1 hour
 1-2 hour
 3-4 hour
 More than 4 hours
5. Have you ever been in a protest or movement?
  Yes
 No
6. Has social media affected you to join any protest or movement?
 Yes
 No
7. How many times do you interact with your friends over call?
 Twice in a week
 Five times a week
 More than 10 times in a week