Week 10

The argument for digital activism and rejecting the accusation that "slacktivism" is what comes from online movements is especially pertinent in my movement, and even more so with the sources that I have chosen to pull from. As all of my posts are from social media sites, and two of them are individuals, these sources are open to all forms of critique. Slacktivism is an accusation that can easily be made against any form of social media post, particularly if said post is anecdotal or the author is not explicitly clear in every part of their message and leaves anything open to interpretation -- something that can easily happen with word constraints on platforms such as Twitter.

However, similarly to Madison and Klang, I also believe that activism can still be real, meaningful activism even if it is done in a digital space. For example, one of the Twitter users I chose to follow, Dr. Lea Merone, retweeted this informational image.

This image provides historical information and gets around the word constraint of Twitter, giving brief historical context on some of the lengths which women had to go to to receive adequate health care or participate in healthcare. Merone also retweeted something pertaining to a more current issue in the movement, a tweet in reference to proposed paracetamol regulations in Australia.

My second source, Women in Medicine Summit, posted this article providing tips on how to avoid burnout as a woman, and my third source, Jessica Pin, posted this tweet speaking about labiaplasty and advocating for board regulated training standards.

All of these materials could easily be considered slacktivism by some, but are reaching significant numbers of people and providing information. If the people who are following the information are interested in it, which is likely the case, they are more likely to themselves share the information or take action to further a cause.