THE ROOTS Back to the Roots: Social Media and Public
Running Head: BACK TO THE ROOTS
Back to the Roots: Social Media and Public Advocacy Shannon N. Cantrell
Abstract Social media advocacy has become a popular tool of campaign strategy since the 2008 US elections. However, the online world has also become a platform for social and local political protests. Although social media has the potential to aid campaigns in certain aspects, the online world severely lacks legislation to protect the rights of those involved in any range of political debates. Furthermore, the convenience of online campaigns insight a Slacktivist attitude in much of the population, disregarding the necessity of physical assembly and local petitions to affect policy change within a society.
Keywords: Political Activism, Social Media, Online Politics, Slacktivism, Social Issues, International Leadership, Political Communication, Group Identity Politics, Collective Action
BACK TO THE ROOTS
2 Introduction
First, reply to messages. Second, check email. Third, scroll through Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook feed. This is a morning checklist shared by millions across the world, connected by rectangular substitute-brains which store a user’s memory and control his/her peace of mind. An informant, confidant, and relational tool, there is no question as to why phone companies are dually christened network providers. And through these social networks, the majority of technology owners receive their social, political, and entertainment-related news. In fact, as Figure 1 shows, two-thirds (68%) of Americans receive at least a portion of their news from social media sites, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, consisting of 4,581 U.S. adults aged 18 and above (Shearer & Matsa, 2018). Speculatively, a similar study conducted of adults aged 18 to 60, would portray an even larger percentage of the population as retrieving or being exposed to news through social media resources. More research needs to be done in this regard.
BACK TO THE ROOTS
3
News and Social Media
32% 68%
Use SNS
Use Other
Figure 1: A Pew Research Center Study finds that 68% of U.S. adults use social media to receive news updates (Shearer & Matsa, 2018). However, where Americans or citizens from other countries around the world are receiving their news in the modern age is not an issue of frequent debate, except for perhaps within the journalism and media communities, but rather the impact that digital convergence has upon political organization and collective action. As the means of knowing change within a society, coincidingly the ways of doing also become altered. Despite possessing access to the same material online as if reading print, social media allows users to engage politically by simply pressing the “like” or “share” button. In this way, social media has negatively affected political organization by enabling users to appear politically active without physical participation in protests or advocacy campaigns. Furthermore, malicious software bots influence the process of spreading news online by manipulating campaigns through sharing false information and slandering individuals without factual evidence. Limited governmental policy exists regarding such actions. The combination of these factors indicate social media is a pretensive platform for
BACK TO THE ROOTS
4
political issues as information a consumer views is potentially heavily manipulated by biased sources. Overview of political advocacy Despite being recognized as an international human rights law, freedom of assembly and petition is one protected by only a few constitutions in the world, namely the United States, the UK, Hong Kong, and select others. But even countries who have such guarantees are still restricted in various ways according to country. For example, Article 11 of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) both offers and restricts the right to assembly in participating countries by bestowing governments with a “margin of appreciation” which allows governments the legal ability to restrict assembly under certain conditions dealing with security, safety, and protection of other’s rights (2014). However, the legislature regarding freedom of assembly has rarely affected the prominence of such petitions within world history. Some of the biggest protests have been held by those who were not guaranteed the right to do so, such as the uprisings in Colonial Africa, Tiananmen Square, and Tahrir Square, etc.. Although only a few of these protests were effective in overthrowing government or changing policy, the reigning leaders during these historical events were highly threatened by such actions, as their authoritative legitimacy and “monopoly of violence”, as prescribed by Weber’s well-known Bureaucratic Theory, were questioned (Weber & Henderson, 2012). Because of this, dictatorships and regimes of all shapes and sizes restrict the rights of their citizens regarding freedom of expression and assembly. For example, a recent US Embassy report on North Korea claims that North Korean officers are sent abroad to specifically watch citizens who are working in foreign countries to censor the worker’s movements and repatriate those attempting to gain
BACK TO THE ROOTS
5
asylum (2017). Not only are citizens within the country being monitored, but those exposed to new ideologies and technologies are even more so. Because of similar instances throughout the world, the right to assembly is an important issue within any society as the action of petitioning a government allows the people agency within a government’s operational process. However, the introduction of social media campaigns, most notably beginning in the United States with President Obama’s presidential campaign, has somewhat reconstructed the framework of how citizen’s utilize the freedom of assembly and expression, as the online world has become a new haven for ‘elite’ alongside ‘layman’ politics (Krzyżanowski & Tucker, 2018). While presidential and congressional candidates, or their campaign managers, are using Twitter to connect with potential voters, potential voters are perhaps unwittingly aiding in “spreading the news” to others, whether in a negative or positive light, aiding in awareness success, but not perhaps campaign success as intended. Social media advocacy Although success of a campaign is largely based upon a specific campaign’s goals, for the sake of this discussion, a working definition of success is needed. Most campaigns are focused upon one major social or policy-related issue. If a campaign becomes excessively broad. the campaign leaders risk having minimal impact on society, as the campaign has no pinpointed focus or issue to address effectually. Similarly, if the campaign goal is too focused, the campaigners risk merely gaining a small following, as many altering views exist even within the same political party. Additionally, awareness by itself is only mildly proactive in affecting policy. Therefore, for the sake of argument, a successful campaign will gingerly be defined as a campaign which effects awareness by either informing a number of individuals which have not
BACK TO THE ROOTS
6
previously heard of a specific issue or changing the political view of individuals who have originally taken a different stance on said issue; a favorable change in public policy regarding the issue of concern should likewise occur. Furthermore, the campaign should have a clear and focused mission, but with some flexibility as to ideology behind said mission.
#MeToo movement One of the most popular online layman social campaigns in recent years is the #MeToo movement, which aims to promote awareness about sexual assault and harassment, specifically regarding women and children. Most who are active on at least one social media account have probably heard the name, and the campaign has become an enabler and point of reference for many modern feminists such as Amanda Marie Marcotte, a popular blogger who focuses upon political and feminist issues (Marcotte, 2018). There are a handful of other campaigns which have originated recently, but for the sake of this discussion, the #MeToo movement will be the main campaign analyzed. There is little to no debate regarding the fact that the #MeToo movement has had an impact on society. Although the movement is thought to have originated in the U.S., the movement has globalized and become prominent in other countries such as South Korea, a society riddled by gender-roles and rarely discussed domestic abuse, which often remains hidden behind closed doors (Bicker, 2018). For many women, the movement has become a vehicle of agency against gender-biased treatment in the home and work place, and as the campaign is mostly online, participation is incredibly convenient. All one has to do is upload or share a status which includes the ‘me too’ hashtag, and she becomes a participant and advocate.
BACK TO THE ROOTS
7
However, this type of attitude regarding political activism has been dubbed in the past decade as Slacktivism, a term combining the words “slacker” and “activism”. The hypothesis determines that participating in politics online is not impactful nor efficient, as social media movements come and go quickly without a long-term effect or solution, and therefore, political activism and civil engagement declines. Although some argue against this hypothesis by asserting that if both political leaders and the layman are engaging on the same platform then there will be positive effect on political participation, no matter the length of popularity regarding an issue (Howard et al., 2016), the existence of software bots, or bots for short, and outside organization’s influence over online participation has been overlooked.
Social Bots Bots have several useful features which can be utilized by companies, private institutions, and even governments. In theory, bots are intended to be innocuous entities programmed to be immediate responders to emails or inquiries sent to offices or other online sources or virtual “copiers” which exchange and spread information instantly across the internet. However, the information which has been spread is not always verified which can cause several issues, some such examples occur through social media sites such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, where slander, spam, and manipulation of facts have been widespread by bots purposefully programmed in a malicious manner (Ferrar et al., 2016). Despite the existence of bot detection systems to prevent malicious software from manipulating posts dealing with political or social content, a government or organization must possess a certain amount of sources to combat the programmers intentionally creating such bots. And no matter the precautions taken against such tactics, hackers are capable of discovering ways around certain systems, making the task of
BACK TO THE ROOTS
8
erasing all malicious bots which are active in the online community virtually impossible; especially since bots are relatively new in the computer world and field. As shown in Figure 2, the number of bots active on Twitter alone consists of around 9% to 15% of all users which is about 50 million accounts in total (Varol et al., 2017). Although many organizations including Twitter and iCloud have attempted to crackdown on bot accounts, they still present themselves as a frustrating and concerning problem.
Figure 2. (2017, March 14). Adapted from "Millions of social bots invaded Twitter!" by Varol, O., Ferrara, E., Davus, C. A., Menczer, F., & Flammimi, A. (2017. March 14).
Furthermore, legal policy has been unable to contend with the rate at which technology has developed. One reason for policy “lag” regarding online concerns is that several controversial issues, which must be addressed through the legal process, are prevalent. This takes centuries in technology years. Such issues of concern are closely related to rights regarding the freedom of expression and assembly. If the government does begin to monitor the internet, which
BACK TO THE ROOTS is currently being used as a means of civil engagement, then the government is also potentially interfering with the democratic process. To solve this problem some argue that the government should partner with private sector organizations to protect the rights of the people (Tully, 2014). Although this is a solid argument, the implementation is difficult and as aforementioned is a process which takes a considerable amount of time to initiate. In the meanwhile, those engaged in social media activism are subject to manipulative content and are unable to completely trust news sources found online. This partnered with ineffective campaign strategies plague social media activism with two significant hurdles which are not easily solved, and are currently hindering effective politic advocacy process.
9
BACK TO THE ROOTS
10 References
Bicker, L. (2018, March 26). #MeToo movement takes hold in South Korea. Retrieved from BBC News: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-43534074 European Court of Human Rights. (2014). Right to Peaceful Assembly. The Law Library of Congress, Global Legal Research Center. Ferrara, E., Varol, O., Davis, C., Menczer, F., & Flammini, A. (2016). The Rise of Social Bots. Communications of the ACM, 96-104. Howard, P. N., Savage, S., Saviaga, C. F., Toxtli, C., & Monroy-Hemandez, A. (2016). Social Media, Civic Engagement, and the Slacktivism Hypothesis: Lessons from Mexico's “El Bronco". Journal of International Affairs, 56-73. Krzyżanowski, M., & Tucker, J. A. (2018). Re/constructing Politics through Social and Online Media: Discourses, Ideologies, and Mediated Politcal Practices. Journal of Language and Politics, 141-154. Marcotte, A. (2018). #We Too? : the secular community is having a #MeToo moment. Some say it's about time. Some say not so fast. Humanist, 13-15. Shearer, E., & Matsa, K. E. (2018). News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2018. Pew Research Center. Tully, S. (2014). People You Might Know: Social Media in the Conflict Between Law and Democracy. In G. Patmore, & K. Rubenstein, Law and Democracy (pp. 153-171). ANU Press. US Embassy . (2018). Report on Serious Human Rights Abuses and Censorship in North Korea. Varol, O., Ferrara, E., Davus, C. A., Menczer, F., & Flammimi, A. (2017). Online Human-Bot Interactions: Detection, Estimation, and Characterization. ICWSM, 10pp.
BACK TO THE ROOTS Weber, M., & Henderson, A. M. (2012). Max Weber: the Theory of Social And Economic Organization. Martino Publishing.
11
Back to the Roots: Social Media and Public Advocacy Shannon N. Cantrell
Abstract Social media advocacy has become a popular tool of campaign strategy since the 2008 US elections. However, the online world has also become a platform for social and local political protests. Although social media has the potential to aid campaigns in certain aspects, the online world severely lacks legislation to protect the rights of those involved in any range of political debates. Furthermore, the convenience of online campaigns insight a Slacktivist attitude in much of the population, disregarding the necessity of physical assembly and local petitions to affect policy change within a society.
Keywords: Political Activism, Social Media, Online Politics, Slacktivism, Social Issues, International Leadership, Political Communication, Group Identity Politics, Collective Action
BACK TO THE ROOTS
2 Introduction
First, reply to messages. Second, check email. Third, scroll through Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook feed. This is a morning checklist shared by millions across the world, connected by rectangular substitute-brains which store a user’s memory and control his/her peace of mind. An informant, confidant, and relational tool, there is no question as to why phone companies are dually christened network providers. And through these social networks, the majority of technology owners receive their social, political, and entertainment-related news. In fact, as Figure 1 shows, two-thirds (68%) of Americans receive at least a portion of their news from social media sites, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, consisting of 4,581 U.S. adults aged 18 and above (Shearer & Matsa, 2018). Speculatively, a similar study conducted of adults aged 18 to 60, would portray an even larger percentage of the population as retrieving or being exposed to news through social media resources. More research needs to be done in this regard.
BACK TO THE ROOTS
3
News and Social Media
32% 68%
Use SNS
Use Other
Figure 1: A Pew Research Center Study finds that 68% of U.S. adults use social media to receive news updates (Shearer & Matsa, 2018). However, where Americans or citizens from other countries around the world are receiving their news in the modern age is not an issue of frequent debate, except for perhaps within the journalism and media communities, but rather the impact that digital convergence has upon political organization and collective action. As the means of knowing change within a society, coincidingly the ways of doing also become altered. Despite possessing access to the same material online as if reading print, social media allows users to engage politically by simply pressing the “like” or “share” button. In this way, social media has negatively affected political organization by enabling users to appear politically active without physical participation in protests or advocacy campaigns. Furthermore, malicious software bots influence the process of spreading news online by manipulating campaigns through sharing false information and slandering individuals without factual evidence. Limited governmental policy exists regarding such actions. The combination of these factors indicate social media is a pretensive platform for
BACK TO THE ROOTS
4
political issues as information a consumer views is potentially heavily manipulated by biased sources. Overview of political advocacy Despite being recognized as an international human rights law, freedom of assembly and petition is one protected by only a few constitutions in the world, namely the United States, the UK, Hong Kong, and select others. But even countries who have such guarantees are still restricted in various ways according to country. For example, Article 11 of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) both offers and restricts the right to assembly in participating countries by bestowing governments with a “margin of appreciation” which allows governments the legal ability to restrict assembly under certain conditions dealing with security, safety, and protection of other’s rights (2014). However, the legislature regarding freedom of assembly has rarely affected the prominence of such petitions within world history. Some of the biggest protests have been held by those who were not guaranteed the right to do so, such as the uprisings in Colonial Africa, Tiananmen Square, and Tahrir Square, etc.. Although only a few of these protests were effective in overthrowing government or changing policy, the reigning leaders during these historical events were highly threatened by such actions, as their authoritative legitimacy and “monopoly of violence”, as prescribed by Weber’s well-known Bureaucratic Theory, were questioned (Weber & Henderson, 2012). Because of this, dictatorships and regimes of all shapes and sizes restrict the rights of their citizens regarding freedom of expression and assembly. For example, a recent US Embassy report on North Korea claims that North Korean officers are sent abroad to specifically watch citizens who are working in foreign countries to censor the worker’s movements and repatriate those attempting to gain
BACK TO THE ROOTS
5
asylum (2017). Not only are citizens within the country being monitored, but those exposed to new ideologies and technologies are even more so. Because of similar instances throughout the world, the right to assembly is an important issue within any society as the action of petitioning a government allows the people agency within a government’s operational process. However, the introduction of social media campaigns, most notably beginning in the United States with President Obama’s presidential campaign, has somewhat reconstructed the framework of how citizen’s utilize the freedom of assembly and expression, as the online world has become a new haven for ‘elite’ alongside ‘layman’ politics (Krzyżanowski & Tucker, 2018). While presidential and congressional candidates, or their campaign managers, are using Twitter to connect with potential voters, potential voters are perhaps unwittingly aiding in “spreading the news” to others, whether in a negative or positive light, aiding in awareness success, but not perhaps campaign success as intended. Social media advocacy Although success of a campaign is largely based upon a specific campaign’s goals, for the sake of this discussion, a working definition of success is needed. Most campaigns are focused upon one major social or policy-related issue. If a campaign becomes excessively broad. the campaign leaders risk having minimal impact on society, as the campaign has no pinpointed focus or issue to address effectually. Similarly, if the campaign goal is too focused, the campaigners risk merely gaining a small following, as many altering views exist even within the same political party. Additionally, awareness by itself is only mildly proactive in affecting policy. Therefore, for the sake of argument, a successful campaign will gingerly be defined as a campaign which effects awareness by either informing a number of individuals which have not
BACK TO THE ROOTS
6
previously heard of a specific issue or changing the political view of individuals who have originally taken a different stance on said issue; a favorable change in public policy regarding the issue of concern should likewise occur. Furthermore, the campaign should have a clear and focused mission, but with some flexibility as to ideology behind said mission.
#MeToo movement One of the most popular online layman social campaigns in recent years is the #MeToo movement, which aims to promote awareness about sexual assault and harassment, specifically regarding women and children. Most who are active on at least one social media account have probably heard the name, and the campaign has become an enabler and point of reference for many modern feminists such as Amanda Marie Marcotte, a popular blogger who focuses upon political and feminist issues (Marcotte, 2018). There are a handful of other campaigns which have originated recently, but for the sake of this discussion, the #MeToo movement will be the main campaign analyzed. There is little to no debate regarding the fact that the #MeToo movement has had an impact on society. Although the movement is thought to have originated in the U.S., the movement has globalized and become prominent in other countries such as South Korea, a society riddled by gender-roles and rarely discussed domestic abuse, which often remains hidden behind closed doors (Bicker, 2018). For many women, the movement has become a vehicle of agency against gender-biased treatment in the home and work place, and as the campaign is mostly online, participation is incredibly convenient. All one has to do is upload or share a status which includes the ‘me too’ hashtag, and she becomes a participant and advocate.
BACK TO THE ROOTS
7
However, this type of attitude regarding political activism has been dubbed in the past decade as Slacktivism, a term combining the words “slacker” and “activism”. The hypothesis determines that participating in politics online is not impactful nor efficient, as social media movements come and go quickly without a long-term effect or solution, and therefore, political activism and civil engagement declines. Although some argue against this hypothesis by asserting that if both political leaders and the layman are engaging on the same platform then there will be positive effect on political participation, no matter the length of popularity regarding an issue (Howard et al., 2016), the existence of software bots, or bots for short, and outside organization’s influence over online participation has been overlooked.
Social Bots Bots have several useful features which can be utilized by companies, private institutions, and even governments. In theory, bots are intended to be innocuous entities programmed to be immediate responders to emails or inquiries sent to offices or other online sources or virtual “copiers” which exchange and spread information instantly across the internet. However, the information which has been spread is not always verified which can cause several issues, some such examples occur through social media sites such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, where slander, spam, and manipulation of facts have been widespread by bots purposefully programmed in a malicious manner (Ferrar et al., 2016). Despite the existence of bot detection systems to prevent malicious software from manipulating posts dealing with political or social content, a government or organization must possess a certain amount of sources to combat the programmers intentionally creating such bots. And no matter the precautions taken against such tactics, hackers are capable of discovering ways around certain systems, making the task of
BACK TO THE ROOTS
8
erasing all malicious bots which are active in the online community virtually impossible; especially since bots are relatively new in the computer world and field. As shown in Figure 2, the number of bots active on Twitter alone consists of around 9% to 15% of all users which is about 50 million accounts in total (Varol et al., 2017). Although many organizations including Twitter and iCloud have attempted to crackdown on bot accounts, they still present themselves as a frustrating and concerning problem.
Figure 2. (2017, March 14). Adapted from "Millions of social bots invaded Twitter!" by Varol, O., Ferrara, E., Davus, C. A., Menczer, F., & Flammimi, A. (2017. March 14).
Furthermore, legal policy has been unable to contend with the rate at which technology has developed. One reason for policy “lag” regarding online concerns is that several controversial issues, which must be addressed through the legal process, are prevalent. This takes centuries in technology years. Such issues of concern are closely related to rights regarding the freedom of expression and assembly. If the government does begin to monitor the internet, which
BACK TO THE ROOTS is currently being used as a means of civil engagement, then the government is also potentially interfering with the democratic process. To solve this problem some argue that the government should partner with private sector organizations to protect the rights of the people (Tully, 2014). Although this is a solid argument, the implementation is difficult and as aforementioned is a process which takes a considerable amount of time to initiate. In the meanwhile, those engaged in social media activism are subject to manipulative content and are unable to completely trust news sources found online. This partnered with ineffective campaign strategies plague social media activism with two significant hurdles which are not easily solved, and are currently hindering effective politic advocacy process.
9
BACK TO THE ROOTS
10 References
Bicker, L. (2018, March 26). #MeToo movement takes hold in South Korea. Retrieved from BBC News: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-43534074 European Court of Human Rights. (2014). Right to Peaceful Assembly. The Law Library of Congress, Global Legal Research Center. Ferrara, E., Varol, O., Davis, C., Menczer, F., & Flammini, A. (2016). The Rise of Social Bots. Communications of the ACM, 96-104. Howard, P. N., Savage, S., Saviaga, C. F., Toxtli, C., & Monroy-Hemandez, A. (2016). Social Media, Civic Engagement, and the Slacktivism Hypothesis: Lessons from Mexico's “El Bronco". Journal of International Affairs, 56-73. Krzyżanowski, M., & Tucker, J. A. (2018). Re/constructing Politics through Social and Online Media: Discourses, Ideologies, and Mediated Politcal Practices. Journal of Language and Politics, 141-154. Marcotte, A. (2018). #We Too? : the secular community is having a #MeToo moment. Some say it's about time. Some say not so fast. Humanist, 13-15. Shearer, E., & Matsa, K. E. (2018). News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2018. Pew Research Center. Tully, S. (2014). People You Might Know: Social Media in the Conflict Between Law and Democracy. In G. Patmore, & K. Rubenstein, Law and Democracy (pp. 153-171). ANU Press. US Embassy . (2018). Report on Serious Human Rights Abuses and Censorship in North Korea. Varol, O., Ferrara, E., Davus, C. A., Menczer, F., & Flammimi, A. (2017). Online Human-Bot Interactions: Detection, Estimation, and Characterization. ICWSM, 10pp.
BACK TO THE ROOTS Weber, M., & Henderson, A. M. (2012). Max Weber: the Theory of Social And Economic Organization. Martino Publishing.
11
