Climate Activism in modern times – an online only protest?
“Without social media, I don’t think it would have worked.”
This statement by climate activist Greta Thunberg is exemplary for how modern activism works. Even though their most effective tools are still marches, human chains and big gatherings, the online world has become the place to connect with a global audience. Then the Corona pandemic happened. It was a cut in everyone’s life, but especially for activist groups. All of a sudden the mentioned offline tools were not an option any more. So a community, which was used to organize and spread the word online, but not to protest, needed to become an online only community. So it is clear that Social media plays an important role in the everyday life of activists. But for what exactly do activist groups use Social media in regards to their organization?
This question and more will be further investigated in my paper about online climate activism, which you can find here: Climate activism in the digital age
Dear Marc,
I think the topic of your work is very interesting. The introduction to your subject is very well written and I could follow the formulation of your topic. In my opinion, your paper pursues a very current issue, which influences many areas of our everyday life. Environmental activism has been of enormous importance in the fight against climate change for some time now and I find it very fitting that you connect this to social media which can promote people’s engagement in it. Your paper shows that in times of corona not only individuals migrate towards the use of more digital technology but also activist groups which actually heavily rely on offline tools for their campaigns on change. As I am not part of an activism group myself, I personally haven’t thought much about the reorganization of activist groups in the light of the corona pandemic, which is why I find your research to be very informative in regards to the currently changing structures of society. Nice work!
Dear Mark,
Lets start with thanking you for raising awareness to such an important issue that impacts all of us. I think this needs much more attention worldwide and therefore it is a very well chosen topic. Activism in a digital environment is something that is very much happening, but I feel like people sometimes may misinterpret it with hoax or even with hackers . So maybe for future research on this particular topic you can write a paper or even your thesis about it and make a link with hoax and hackers. It is interesting to examine the impact of these hoaxes on the activists end goal of being more seen and heard in an online environment. Besides, another topic that you can link this with is; algorithms. Since the algorithms of Facebook, Instagrams, Youtube and other big platforms have a huge influence on peoples digital footprint and what they will see. So maybe you can then research how algorithms have an influence on online activists and their message to be spread? Overall, well done and I really liked your topic!
Best,
Frederique
Dear Mark,
As you could have expected I really liked the topic of your paper and enjoyed reading it. I think that studying activism is very relevant nowadays with the rising of social movements around the world. Especially climate activism with the numerous climate march that took place around the world these past few years. In addition, connecting this topic to the pandemic we are going through increases the accuracy of your paper in the current context. There is one topic that I really found interesting in your paper. This is the raising concern about keyboard activism when people feel that a share or a like are enough to be involved in activist movements. I think that some researches about this topic could be interesting to conduct. You could for example look at the outcome and consequences of social movements with and without social media. I hope this short comment is going to help you a little bit in your future choice for your thesis.
Best regards,
Thomas