Week 10 Blog Post

This week’s reading, Nora Madison and Matias Klang’s The Case for Digital Activism: Refuting the Fallacies of Slacktivism presents and argument against dismissing online activities related to activist topics as being merely “slacktivism.” Madison and Klang first explore the way that political discourse and activity has changed following the advent of the internet, and the history of criticisms of forms of online political engagement that might be dubbed “slacktivism.” The article outlines five major critiques of digital activism: “Digital activism is futile,” “Feel good activism,” “Narcissistic activist,” “Barriers and transaction costs,” “No sacrifice,” and “Substitution.” The authors then deconstruct these arguments and rebut them, such as by arguing that there is utility in digital activism, that many of the potential issues with digital activism are not exclusive to the medium but are also present in traditional activism, that the internet makes engaging with topics of activism more accessible, and that the digital activism is positively correlated to traditional activism, rather than being negatively correlated. After these rebuttals, the authors then present arguments for online activism. These arguments include the increased political participation and the promotion of physical activism from online activism, the broader audience activists can reach through the internet, and the way that ideas presented online can influence behaviors and attitudes of their audiences in a positive way.

This tweet perhaps is one that might be labeled as falling within the trend of “slacktivism.” The requisite ability needed to tweet it is very little, but one might argue that it could still have potential impact. The tweet, for instance, reinforces a trend of discussion around climate change and specifically COP27. While the tweet alone may not affect government policy, if it, and other tweets like it, can influence many people to support policies meant to combat climate change there is the potential that political leverage may be created. Similarly, as it presents climate activism in Denmark, the trend that this tweet plays into of positively depicting physical activism might encourage someone over time to get involved in such activism related to this issue.