Digital Activism Proposal

Hello. I'm Jessi lee Mraz and I am a first year graduate student in the M.S. in Interactive Communications program at Quinnipiac University. My graduate work at QU focuses on educational outreach & social change in the digital world or what is often called digital activism. Digital Activism is a new field of study focused on the use of digital tools for social/political/cultural change. My research encompasses the methods used by successful activists, the effectiveness of user experience testing, and the incorporation of creativity and interactivity into digital social change campaigns. My goal is to use digital activism to influence social/cultural change & improve our society. Digital campaigns for change are now able to reach a global audience using social media and web technology. Despite the accessibility & easy use of modern digital tools, many non-profit organizations struggle with digital activism success.

Why is this?

1. Digital tools are available in abundance, but these tools are ever changing. Therefore, it's important for an organization to develop a strategy of goal setting, research, testing, development and user testing to bring a digital activism campaign to reality. Since technological change is inevitable, it's important to have a bigger picture in mind while still being true to your unique story.

2. I have found in my research that successful organizations focus on creating valuable online experiences and giving tangible rewards to participants in a social media campaign. It's all about the user experience and content is king online. Boring your audience online will kill your campaign.

3. Social Media campaigns are still in their infancy; most organizations that reach widespread success usually do so by incorporating traditional techniques as well as digital. In order to reach a wide spectrum of your audience traditional media, marketing and print campaigns will be involved.

What do experts think of digital activism?

Author Clay Shirky expresses his concern that digital activists are contributing to spam and not focusing on mobilizing their community. Shirky states "I think this is the core of rethinking representation. If we don't, there is a risk that digital activism continues to head down the path it's heading, which is to say away from a conversational environment for democratic engagement and increasingly towards crow-sourced PR. I would say that what I want to see most in rethinking the idea of representation is for more effort to be put into helping groups send real signal rather than continuing to engage in competition for increasingly meaningless political noise" (Shirky).

Contrary, author Malcolm Gladwell concludes his NY Times article with, "[digital activism] is simply a form of organizing which favors the weak-tie connections that give us access to information over the strong-tie connections that help us persevere in the face of danger. It shifts our energies from organizations that promote strategic and disciplined activity and toward those which promote resilience and adaptability. It makes it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact. The instruments of social media are well suited to making the existing social order more efficient. They are not a natural enemy of the status quo. If you are of the opinion that all the world needs is a little buffing around the edges, this should not trouble you. But if you think that there are still lunch counters out there that need integrating it ought to give you pause" (Gladwell).

Truly, there are many obstacles we face in the field of digital activism. I think creativity & interactivity are the keys to a successful campaign for social change and I am hopeful for the future of this field. Thank you for joining me today.

References:
Gladwell, Malcolm. "Twitter, Facebook, and social activism : The New Yorker", October 4, 2010. http://www.newyorker.com/repor....ting/2010/10/04/1010

Shirky, Clay. "YouTube - ‪PdF 2010 | Clay Shirky: Rethinking Representation‬‬‏." YouTube, June 11, 2010. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2GyPniW2eM.