The Power of Hashtag Activism: Twitter’s Role in Driving Online Advocacy and Social Change
Abstract:
This paper explores how social media, in particular twitter hashtags, act as a powerful tool to assert identities and enables users to advocate online and enforce social change. It identifies what online advocacy is and the interconnected processes relating to it. Additionally, the paper recognises social medias importance in developing individuals identity online and why people might be forced to create a fake online persona. The article focuses on exploring LGBTIQ+ hashtags and their purpose to enhance social change, in particularly the #GirlsLikeUs hashtag. The paper also explores how social media promotes online advocacy to enhance social movements. The two examples the paper utilises include the #MeToo movement and the #BlackLivesMatter movement and highlights the importance of both of these social movements to help raise awareness in regard to police brutality, racism and direct attention toward sexual assault.
CONFERENCE PAPER:
Web 2.0 has enabled consumers to gain access to an immense amount of information, which has the potential to influence their own lives (Labrecque et al., 2013). Social media has become a powerful tool for individuals to assert their identities and advocate for social change. Without social media, online advocacy would struggle to promote social modification as it is so reliant on the internet and technology (Melancon, 2007). The use of social media is important in relation to online advocacy and developing one’s personal identity (Melancon, 2007). This is due to social medias characteristics and tools which can help to enhance online identities. These characteristics and tools on social media consist of multiple features including liking and posting, in order for users to share, create and participate with one another (Bowen et al., 2017). Social media networking sites enable people to share similar experiences within groups and organisations, which justifies why it is so popular, as people are able to be themselves (Bowen et al., 2017).
Online advocacy uses the internet and technology to promote social change (Melancon, 2007). Online advocacy consists of four interconnected processes including collecting public information, educating and increasing awareness, coordinating supporters, influencing and pressurising (McNutt, 2006). These four combined functions enable online advocacy to use its resources to its full potential and create the greatest social change on an online environment. Web 2.0 has been a significant influence toward online advocacy over the recent years, enabling cost effective methods which are able to be spread information faster (Özdemir, 2012). Social media networking sites and blogs are two popular platforms for people to reach out, talk in a connective group format to advocate on an online forum.
Social media has influenced individuals to freely express themselves and show their identities in ways that were not possible prior. The term online identity suggests that there is a difference in how people portray themselves online versus in real life (Marwick, 2013). Different social media sites require you to create virtual depictions of yourself. Marwick (2013) recognises identity as subjective, a representation and self – presentation of who we really are. Developing an identity online has a sole focus on self- presentation and is often constructed from the people around us and an interested audience (Marwick, 2013). However, creating an online identity is not necessarily a negative thing if you are differentiating from your ‘real life’ self. Like-minded people, groups and communities are often able to come together to raise awareness as they obtain a strong passion toward social change (Marwick, 2013). For example, if people fear expressing their gender or sexuality in real life, having an online identity makes individuals, groups or communities feel a sense of belonging. Social media is a platform where individuals are able to express themselves freely. The popular platform Twitter utilises popular hashtags including #pridemonth, #equalitymatter, #transrightsarehumanrights (and more) to connect with each other and advocate for their rights (Pelosi, 2020). These platforms have allowed LGBTIQ+ communities to create a sense of community, help to identify their identity and enforce social change.
Additionally, Twitter utilised online advocacy and focused on building a safe community for transgender women on Twitter. The hashtag #GirlsLikeUs, identified that many transgender women struggled to find their identity due to the history of being misrepresented and being stereotyped as violent (Jackson et al., 2018). Research from Jackson et al. (2018), identified that the re occurring hashtags and use of the #GirlsLikeUs tweets held a significant power of transgender women online. The power of this hashtag enabled transgender women to come together to regulate gender citizenship and feel a sense of belonging within present society. The #GirlsLikeUs network was a beneficial online advocacy focus in three ways. The first way was to connect with other people online who were experiencing similar thoughts, feelings and emotions to one another (Jackson et al., 2018). The second way enabled transgender people to open up and advocate on an online platform for their rights. The final way that highlighted success within the network was the ability for the network to steer away from mainstream representations and to emphasise the accomplishments achieved by the community (Jackson et al., 2018).
Social media has been instrumental in facilitating social movements and advocating for change. It is evident that online advocacy creates social change from past social movements including the #MeToo and #BLM movements. The #MeToo movement became a trending Twitter hashtag in October 2017 (Mendes et al., 2018). Members from all over the world came together to advocate toward the issue of sexual violence. Twitter was so important during this period of time and received a great number of media and public attention, which helped boost engagement and direct attention toward these significant issues. Within 24 hours of the first post of the #MeToo hashtag, it had already been used 12 million times (Mendes et al., 2018). #MeToo is one of the most popular online advocacy campaigns to this day and enforces the idea that society is willing to challenge and create change towards significant issues regarding sexism and patriarchy. As multiple online identities came together online, this movement is a suitable example relating to the importance of social media in advocating for social change. Overall, this Twitter hashtag was successful as it did not only advocate toward sexual harassment, but it utilised educational aspects and there was an instant call to action.
Similar to the #MeToo movement, the #BlackLivesMatter movement was driven by social media to highlight and advocate toward racism, inequality and discrimination that African Americans were experiencing, and are still experiencing to this day (Clayton, 2018) (Campbell, 2021). The movement extended a considerable amount of engagement worldwide as in the United States, there were a number of high- profile killings by the police toward African Americans. The movement raises important ethnic and racial social issues. After being exposed to the agony people felt after George Floyd passed away in 2020, social media became a driving force to advocate for African Americans civil rights. The hashtag #BLM has been used roughly 47.8 million times since this horrific incident occurred (Anderson et al., 2020). Both the #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter movements were successful online advocacy campaigns which raised awareness toward police brutality, racism and direct attention toward sexual assault.
Social media and its relation to advocacy enabled communities, individuals and organisations to build a network of likeminded identities. This would not be possible without its functions and tools. Social media tools including social networks, videos and blogs are important in spreading information, to communities, individual and organisations as fast as possible (Scott and Maryman, 2016). In relation to online advocacy, social media implements offline tactics as well as online strategies (Scott and Maryman, 2016). Some of the offline tactics include community building in real life, protests and events, which pressures policymakers to enact change. These methods are often consumed by people who want to engage in traditional ways of communicating without doing it online. Scott and Maryman (2016) identify that offline and online strategies should be used together in order to create the greatest amount of social change. For example, a successful protest about creating a social change would utilise Twitter to spread the word to ensure people gather offline at the protest. Social media also influences advocacy efforts involving spreading information, reinforcing likeminded relationships and enables the ability to strengthen social revolution through an increased pace of communication (Scott and Maryman, 2016).
Although advocacy has many benefits in order to enhance social change, there are also challenges and limitations attached to it. Some of these limitations include lack of privacy and unreliable information being spread (Benjamin, 2018). As social media has become an immense platform to enable communication, it is common that these issues can spread information, which is often false or misinterpreted. This often results in online disagreements which could be avoided. Moreover, content on social media platforms tends to go viral, where information can reach a large audience fast. This concept recognises that rumours are often spread, and some do not know how to communicate appropriately when this occurs (Benjamin, 2018). Online, we often create our own echo chambers and communicate with things we only agree with, as social media enables you to block out unvaluable information to the consumers desires (Benjamin, 2018). Therefore, this also leads to biases and pre-existing beliefs and false spread of information. Benjamin (2018), identifies that the outcome of liking and hash tagging on social media can often equal no result, meaning that the purpose to advocate had no meaning, as it resulted in no action. Therefore, although advocating does work on most occasions, there are still times when it has no influence at all.
Social media has become one of the most powerful tools for individuals to assert their identities & advocate for social change online, especially due to hashtag activism on Twitter. Identities were able to be asserted due to the increased engagement on social media platforms where people were able to express themselves, connect with others who are sharing similar experiences and amplify their voices to create change. This enables individuals within groups and organisations to recognise their identities and advocate for social change in relation to social issues which are being expressed. By including online activism on social media platforms, important social issues were able to be explored & those who were in the wrong were held accountable. The strategic use of hashtags including #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter were powerful network implementations to advocate for social change and is influential in order to raise awareness to the public. Although there are some limitations in advocating for social justice on an online platform, it is essential to recognise how powerful social media can be in promoting social change. Continuing to navigate through our role of participating on social media platforms, it is important to recognise how much power & responsibility we hold in order to effect positive social change.
Reference List
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Hi L, The thing is the paper is mainly concentrated on the African continent particularly.If you make an analysis of…