Social Activism in the Postmodern Age
Social
campaigns are grown and molded by the culture and technology of their specific
age. Civil rights activist would use traditional media to reach the masses,
showcase their movement and hopefully bring about a change in society. Martin
Luther King for instance utilized the television to broadcast his message and
ideals.
Today’s
social movement scene is created and spread in an entirely different, and in my
belief, more effective method.
The
BlackLivesMatter movement was first conceived in 2013 following the shooting of
Trayvon Martin. The means to which it started? A single hashtag on Twitter. It
has since grown into one of the greatest social media movements which at first
was solely created and driven by the spread of thoughts through social media.
Hence this movement and its success is entirely the result of the postmodern
age and the technology it provides (e.g. Web 2.0).
As
Cullors-Brignac, a leader of the BLM movement states, "because of social
media we reach people in the smallest corners of America… there is a network
and a hashtag to gather around.
Mckesson
also builds on this emphasizing that “the tools that we have to organize and to
resist are fundamentally different than anything that’s existed before in black
struggle.”
BLM
found a means to building the campaign through the medium of social media. The
benefits of this medium include the rapid spread of information, the ability to
bring about a participatory culture for the cause and the means to
exponentially increasing the campaign’s audience. The postmodern age also
allows for Transmedia Storytelling. This concept revolves around depicting a
story across multiple media formats. BLM succeeded heavily in this as their
ideal was started in Twitter, spread throughout social media and participation
and collaboration was achieved with petitions being made and strikes being
organized online.
Benkler
depicts this rapid escalation by conveying that relatively small communities
online can reach regional and often international ones through such means. Poster
builds on this stating that such virtual communities allow for intense
experiences that build identity in the user and furthers the cause to more
audiences.
This
very interaction brought about by the postmodern age is entirely decentralized.
As Cullors-Brignac states, “you can't kill the movement by killing the leader
because there are many. But decentralization does not mean disorganization.”
BLM has managed to create an incredible participatory culture around a single
ideal through Transmedia Storytelling.
In fact
this was so successful that the movement appeared in a Law & Order episode,
a Scandal episode, a documentary called Bars4Justice and even a Macklemore song
called White Privilege.
It is
clear just how great a campaign can become through the use of technology in the
postmodern age.
Joseph
Badaan
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