The new
However, it would be my argument that newer social movements do not have the same risks or costs associated with participation. Indeed that much is generally a given in terms of social movement organising theory (see Earls etc). Certainly, the use of mobile technology and social media has meant that organising – and perhaps education – has become significantly easier. It takes little time – and even less in terms of resourcing – to set up a Facebook Event or something similar. There is no real cost in terms of time, money or other resources in order to do this. And once one advertisement for an event has been created, it can be shared widely; the affordances of digital technology mean that there is no cost in producing new versions of material and hence it is a very simple matter to share advertisements, flyers, films and such widely.
This is not to say that there aren’t costs associated with using social media in this way. There are social challenges that must be faced, such as the opprobrium from friends and family who might not agree with the posts made by an activist. And, in this networked world, it is increasingly difficult to separate different aspects of our lives – so we are as likely to have fellow campaigners in our social media profile as we are to have family members. This is often what is described as context collapse (Boyd, XXXX). This can also have repercussions for employment, too, where social media posts can prove to be increasingly risky if the poster’s position on any matter is at odds with their employers’ – which has led to the development of a great deal of work in terms of social media policies for employees in different organisations. There are arguments still to be had here, in Australia and overseas, about the right to free speech as it intersects with employment.
And, of course, this is not to say that these efficiencies provided by social media are entirely cost-free. Tufekci (2017) has written about this extensively, emphasising the key point that this ease of organising might limit the strengthening of relational capital between activists – and hence contribute to the ephemeral nature of some of these social movements. This ideas has been called ‘flash activism’, in a nod to the idea of flash mobs – which are actually a form of organising enabled by the affordances of social media!
It is our contention that the differences discussed above have meant that social movements organise in different ways now than in the past. Naturally, much has been written about this, but we do not think that the aspects of social media learning, in particular have been captured in these discussions. It is into this nexus that we are seeking to insert some ideas regarding how ‘new’ social movement
Before we discuss these points, we want to make a point regarding our use of the term ‘new’. This is an idea that is covered quite well already by Earl and Kimport (2011), but it’s worth reiterating here. By using the term ‘new’ we are specifically referring to those social movements and actors within those movement who specifically make use of the affordances of social media to leverage support. Not all current social movements are ‘new’, then, in this sense. There are social movements today who run quite traditional organising practices and campaigns. They make limited or only desultory efforts to engage with the affordances of new technology and hence we would not classify them as ‘new’.
I think there are three major differences between ‘old’ and ‘new’ social movements.
- The mix of the physical real and the virtual real, and the ability to make use of affordances in different spaces.
Early studies of the internet (in the first instance) and social media (in the decades following) often focused on who was using these tools, and the possible social side effects of the tools, rather than how the tools were being used. In addition, there was, at least in the initial explorations of the field, a distinction between online spaces and offline spaces – a kind of arbitrary divide between the two with the idea that what happens in one sphere (i.e. the online space or the physical space) didn’t necessarily translate into action in the other. This is still a contested space, and there is much discussion about whether online participation leads to offline participation in social movements. However, we think that ignores the central point: that there is very little in the way of a meaningful divide, and it is not productive to study one or the other; rather, it is necessary to study both – as one thing, holistically. This has been recognised by a number of social organising training groups, especially those working with organisations like unions. For example, Reveille, specifically runs sessions that focus on Online to Offline Organising, and the Australian Council of Trade Unions does something similar with its Digital to Field Organising Program.
This is especially the case when examining young people, as we will be doing below. We say this because, especially for young people, the divide between the physical real and the digital real is a meaningless one. Many of the young people involved in Fridays for the Future and March 4 Our Lives would not recall a time before the ubiquity of mobile technology and social media; hence, their decision to use the affordances present in those paradigms is a natural one, not necessarily a conscious decision to make use of new technology. Bennett (2012) suggests that young people use social media when organising for causes they care about for the same reason they use social media in every other aspect of their lives: because it’s there.
- Back to front organising, in that often mass events are the starting point. It is much easier to spread a call for action – and to reach a much larger number of people – so that this is often the starting point for further action, rather than the culmination.
- Youth-led, independent, but global in scope
What does this mean for learning?
Of course, my real interest in this is how these social movements influence, promote and perhaps even encourage learning. There are three key points here:
- The methodological considerations
- Relationships as a proxy of learning
- The challenge of multi-modal analysis