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The Role of Social Networks in the Political and Social Activism of Citizens
Introduction
In the era of information technology, social media has reached a new stage of its development, where the speed of message delivery and the possibility to reach even remote corners of the Earth created a platform for global communication with no limits whatsoever. The fact that major political changes started occurring at a slightly faster pace with the update of social media begs the question whether the latter, in fact, has anything to do with activism and revolution on both local and global scales.
Despite the common misjudgment of the subject matter being the outlet for peoples emotions and, therefore, stifling social activism, social media allows for enhancing peoples investment into the social and political changes by exposing the personal significance of the latter two for an individual.
Social Media as a Platform for Activism
The unifying ability of social media is, perhaps, the hallmark that defines its significance for the encouragement of social and political activism.
A recent study examining the effects of exposing a Twitter user to a certain political or socially dubious issue has shown that a rapid increase in awareness and activism is expected with the promotion of social media: Integrating network and content analyses illustrate the vital role that networks play in studying political communication and interactions, particularly those that take place online (Himelboim, McCreery and Smith 170).
In other words, the availability of the relevant data, as well as the exposure to the entire palette of the existing opinions regarding the subject matter and the opportunity for sharing ones ideas in a conversation increase the possibility of people finding a certain social or political issue relatable and, therefore, deciding to act in order to change the current social or political situation correspondingly.
Social Media as the Battlefield
At the same time, one could argue that the ostensible unification role that social media plays in the lives of people willing to change the political landscape of their country may be viewed as a double-sided sword.
The availability of communication and the lack of any obstacles in conversations between the adepts of a certain social or political change may finally lead to the lack of actual activity and the transfer of the communication process into the realm of the social network. In other words, the significance of participation in online discussions of a certain topic may oust the significance of change and instead raise the sense of shared victimization (Lim 242).
A Tool for Raising Awareness
While admittedly incomparable to the effects of a traditional communiqué, social networking still must be deemed as rather efficient in terms of raising political awareness among people and inviting them to participate in the political life of the state.
Breuer and Farooq study, for example, dismisses the idea of online political participation as feelgood activism that will produce little effect other than increasing the satisfaction of the person engaged in it (Breuer and Farooq 15) by showing that active use of social media and the subsequent social activism were registered among people of all ages when it came to discussing recent political events.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be assumed that the role of social networks in the political and social activism of citizens is truly immense. The ubiquitous media content created by network users is preeminent in its ability to evoke a social response by outlining the personal relevance of the subject matter for all the people involved in the communication process.
As a result, the role of social media in general and the discussion of the specified media in social networks, in particular, serves as a major boost for the development of activism and the occurrence of revolution on the world stage.
Works Cited
Breuer, Anna and Bilal Farooq. Slactivists or Activists? The Impact of Social Media Use on Individual-Level Political Participation: Evidence from the Brazilian Ficha Limpa Campaign. International Communication Association. Phoenix, AZ: All Academic, Inc. 119. Print.
Himelboim, Itai, Stephen McCreery and Marc Smith. Birds of a Feather Tweet Together: Integrating Network and Content Analyses to Examine Cross-Ideology Exposure on Twitter. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 18.2 (2013), 154174. Print.
Lim, Merlyna. Clicks, Cabs, and Coffee Houses: Social Media and Oppositional Movements in Egypt, 20042011. Journal of Communication 62.2 (2012), 231248. Print.
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