In the ongoing campaign against the reopening of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) in Morong, the Network Opposed to the BNPP Revival (NO to BNPP Revival) asked our group to create a website for them to host news and materials related to the campaign. We also suggested that they create an online petition, e-mail it to different mailing lists and to open a Facebook group for the campaign. Welcome to Activism 2.0.
This moniker follows from Web 2.0, the so-called second generation of the World Wide Web, which emphasizes dynamic and shareable content from the static webpages. Social networking sites like Facebook and Friendster are examples of Web 2.0 sites where users form communities, exchange stories and photographs, and invite each other to their causes and advocacies.
A cursory look at my Facebook account shows that 285 of my friends joined 313 groups with different advocacies. There are tools such as Facebook Groups, Causes and Fansites that you can use to invite people in the site. The largest groups have a million Facebook members while local initiatives have several hundred active users.
A guide about online advocacy using Facebook written by Dan Shulz of Digiactive points out two things that make Facebook a logical choice for activists. One reason is Facebook’s massive user base and the free tools that is available on the site. The other reason is the social nature of activism itself. Taken together we have the possibility of reaching out to many people using an effective platform for communication and collaboration. If used correctly by a group of dedicated activists, Facebook and other networking sites can be very effective for social action.
Yet even Shulz warns that Facebook was not originally designed for advocacy. The site’s functionality does not always match what activists need. The number of people in the group does not always translate into people with genuine interest on your issue. Due to the low barrier of entry to the group, it can be larger than those who are actually going to act on the campaign.
Shulz outlines several steps to make an effective Facebook campaign. First is to make your goals clear at the outset. As Facebook is a community site, group users can shape these goals towards their own rather than the original design. Second, an active user base should be created by inviting everyone you know to the group. The nature of social networking sites where you get to invite your friends to invite their friends will increase the user base of your group in a short while.
Maintenance of the group throughout the campaign entails continuous promotion of the Facebook group through regular updates. These updates should be regular enough yet not too overwhelming that users would consider it spam. Promoting the group through other media should be done so that its cause gets highlighted beyond the Internet.
An example of a successful Facebook campaign was the “Support the Monk’s Protest in Burma” where membership in the group grew to 140,000 in just 10 days. The network was able to mobilize tens of thousands of protesters in 100 cities around the world in two simultaneous global days of action in October 2007.
One recurring theme that Shulz mentions in his guide is that the virtual group, one can create through Facebook should be accompanied by real-world warm bodies. The virtual community can be tapped and mobilized for real world activities. These activities can range from mobilizations, to sending out fliers, putting up posters or even simply donating to the group’s goals. The effectivity of using Facebook for advocacy depends ultimately on how correct the message is and whether it can mobilize people for your advocacy.
The fact that access to information technology is still uneven in the Philippines has to be factored in such online campaigns. Although there are only around four million regular Internet users in the country, the real-world social networks (our real world friends, families, school mates, etc.) can expand the reach of virtual communities outside of the digital realm. This should be the real goal of virtual communities—mobilizing those people in the real world.
It is true that information technology, such as Web 2.0 sites like Facebook, can enhance efforts to organize people but it cannot replace real world action. One cannot simply be a Facebook activist without going away from your keyboard and screen to talk, convince and mobilize real world communities. It is these people who matter most. Facebook and other technologies are just tools to reach out to them.
Published in PROMETHEUS BOUND
