Alyssa Lopez

Jennifer Rodrick
English 115
10/20/2017
Social Change In A World of Social Media
Imagine reaching into your pocket and not trying to grab your phone. Checking our

Instagrams, using social media, and overall using technology has become so much apart of our

everyday lifestyles. Many believe that the necessity of social media demonstrates one of its many,

obvious, downsides. Its not hard to see that social media and technology shape the world around us

and in turn shape the way we think and interact. Yet with an ever-evolving media outlet that includes

all the good, the bad, and the ugly of this world I cant help but see social media as a platform to

illuminate issues and inequalities that occur in our breaking news. Social media positively affects our

modern society by not letting these injustices fly under the radar. Social media allows people to be

proactive and become aware of their environment by providing a constitution for social change that

allows people to easily share their opinions, call attention to injustices through sharing videos and

images, and by creating a communal space of support for people to relate and share similar

experiences the way that social media was intended for.

This idea of the medias ability to promote an atmosphere of sharing and exchanging opinions

is seen through one of its most popular outlets: Twitter. In the article Hashtag Activism and Why

#BlackLivesMatter In (and To) the Classroom authors Prudence Cumberbatch and Nicole

Trujillo-Pagan suggest that, it was difficult to get personal on Twitter; therefore it was easier to

express to their opinions and engage in this new form of online activism ( 83). It seems almost

contradictory to be, as they found, not as personal when discussing heavily sensitive material yet, it

is not the material that becomes impersonal, a person becomes a vessel to express their feelings
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towards a specific topic without feeling like they are making a huge scene, as they would were it in

the public. Others then become more courageous in voicing their own opinions and thus a community

of open discussion is formed. Furthermore, as Cumberbatch suggests in ,the learning community,

students can influence their lives in very immediate ways when they not only bear witness to their

experience vis-a-vis twitter, but also when their peers recognize their shared roles in creating

collective knowledge (83). Others becoming more courageous in voicing their own opinions forms

an open community of thought and discussion. People not only voice opinions and tools on these

social media tools they propose people act on these views. For instance, the now infamous hashtag

#BLACKLIVESMATTER was formed solely through Twitter as a response to police brutality

towards African American men. Cumberbatch and Trujillo-Pagan express, #blacklivesmatter, and

other hashtags, and the social movement that followed fostered a new global space for conversations

about race and the meaning of social justice in the 21st century (79). Though the article focuses

mainly on racial injustices it encompasses a larger meaning: That social media and the discussions

that take place through it have the ability to form movements. The gravity of what #BlackLivesMatter

means and the effect it has could not have been possible were it not through the way social media

creates conversations through communities.

Moreover, its not hard to see how social media can create conversations through posts

and hashtags but sometimes it can even more effectively call out inequalities through visual arts.

The author-activist , Nicole Trujillo-Pagan, suggests that by juxtaposing images, and placing

them in personal, familial, and domestic contexts, social media becomes more than just a site for

conversation (81). It is implicit here that social media because an outlet for thoughts and ideas.

The saying A picture is worth a thousand words is nowhere more prominent than on social
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media. Instagrams main purpose, different from that of Facebook and Twitters, is the sharing of

images, circulate clips and images that could hopefully expose injustices that people may not be

aware of. I know that when I first heard about of the repeal of DACA, the immigrant dreamers

act, I posted an image on Instagram of a mother and her young son that read Defend DACA

that I copied from another person. Thus an image becomes projected throughout the whole

device showing support and awareness for those affected by the repeal.

Furthermore, Ive found that most of the videos that I share or post are through Facebook.

Facebook allows many media outlets to be presented and it is only by someones share of a video

or image that you can see what they are interested in. Thus providing an infinite rippling effect

for the change that, that video is trying to bring about. I often find myself more attracted to the

videos and images of change rather than a simple post because its visually pleasing and

concretely shows what is happening rather than someone telling you. People online arent just

ranting without purpose, they have hard evidence they could show their follows and present them

ways to make a change.

Lastly, one of the most obvious, and I believe most important, uses of social media, is to

connect. Not only are people connecting and communicating with their friends and family,
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people are now able to connect with the world around them. Anastasia Kavada, lecturer and

professor, comments on this exact idea in Social Movements and Political Agency in the Digital

Age: A Communication, in which she suggests that, the coordinating mechanisms of digital

media platforms bring disparate individuals together without the need for a coherent collective

identity or formal organization (8). Without even needing a reason to people are now able to

connect more effectively and easily. Through these arbitrary followers, friendships can develop

through the exchanging of ideas and thoughts. Moreover, through the #blacklivesmatter

movement, Cumberbatch expresses, More than building awareness around specific social issues

or even fostering public discussions on race and social justice, #blacklivesmatter has been used

to facilitate the organization and planning of protests against racial profiling (79). The author

suggests that through social media ,where these people came to support and triumph through

these scary times, a movement formed! A simple hashtag ignited a fire of proactivity that

exemplifies just how positively social media can be used. Instead posting images of themselves,

or of them going out, these activists used social media as a way to come together and fight back

against injustices that they or their communities are facing. A lot of times we get caught in just

the movements in the U.S. but social media is used globally as a means of change. For instance,

in Energising the Political Movements in Developing Countries, The Role of Social Media, the

authors Karim M., Sorour and Bidit Lai Dey describe how the use social media in Egypt is

directly related to the political changes taking place in the nation, they conclude, the

sustainability of using social media in Egypt post-2011 indicates that 'a more organic growth is taking

place, impacting Arabs' connections with their society and community' (2). Further expressing social

medias key role in the promotion and future production of social change. Social media plays such a big

part in social change in Egypt that, in the first week of the 2011 revolution, the authorities chose to ban
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internet and mobile phone networks in order to stop the mobilisation of people--a measure that decidedly

did not work, but only made people even more insistent that Mubarak must step down. indicating the

effectiveness of a simple post (2).

In conclusion, it may seem trivial to suggest that something as small as our iphones can cause

social movements, yet it truly can. Social media was made with the intention of connecting with people

and sharing your life with them, why not take that foundation and instead of posting about yourself post

and connect people with something you feeling strongly passionate about. Social media allows you to

to easily express your ideas, call out the unfair and unjust things you see in your life, and it

creates a supportive environment for you to share your ideas and to support other peoples

struggles. It positively affects the world and allows people to become active their lives and

communities. Sometimes its hard to stand up for whats right, but social media creates a casual

atmosphere where even the smallest actions of change, like a simple picture, can have a huge

impact.
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Works Cited Page

Cumberbatch, Prudence and Nicole Trujillo-Pagan. Hashtag Activism and Why

cc#BlackLivesMatter In (and To) the Classroom. Radical Teacher: A Socialist, Feminist, and

ccAnti-Racist Journal on the Theory and Practice of Teaching. 106, 2016. 78-86.

cchttps://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/radicalteacher/article/view/302

ccAccessed 17 September, 2017.

Dey Lai, Bidit, and Karim M., Sorour. Energising the political movements in developing

cccountries: the role of social media. Capital & Class. 2014. 1-8. Sage Journals. Accessed 20

ccSeptember, 2017.

Kavada, Anastasia. Social Movements and Political Agency in the Digital Age: A

ccCommunication Approach. Political Agency in the Digital Media, Participation and

ccDemocracy. 4, 2016. 8-12.

cchttps://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/691 Accessed 17

ccSeptember, 2017.

Lambert, Nicholas. Defend DACA. Justseeds, September 2017,

cchttps://justseeds.org/graphic/defend-daca-3/ Accessed 17 September, 2017

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