Journal of Business Strategy

Clicks or commitment: activism in the age of social media

Peter Buell Hirsch,
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Peter Buell Hirsch, (2014) "Clicks or commitment: activism in the age of social media", Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 35
Issue: 5, pp.55-58, https://doi.org/10.1108/JBS-07-2014-0086
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 Voices and values
Clicks or commitment: activism in the
age of social media
Peter Buell Hirsch
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Peter Buell Hirsch is an
Adjunct Professor based
in the Department of
Communication Studies,
Baruch College, City
University of New York,
New York, New York,
USA.
DOI 10.1108/JBS-07-2014-0086
collaboration among Participant Media, the Gates Foundation and the University of
A Southern California to investigate the kinds of social media activism that create real
commitment and behavior change promises new insights for corporations dealing
with activist-driven issues. Initial reports in The New York Times (Cieply, 2014) suggest that
there are potential markers for activist campaigns that produce real consumer boycotts,
shareholder dissidence and disinvestment campaigns, as opposed to merely views, likes
and downloads. If this is true, non-profit organizations dedicated to change will have
valuable insights into what kinds of campaigns are actually effective and which are
dramatic and appealing but not ultimately successful. By definition, the converse must also
be true. Corporations facing activist campaigns will have new tools to determine the
likelihood of any given campaign being successful or at least impactful by analyzing the
communications channels and media content deployed by the activists within the same
framework. Furthermore, to the extent that companies are creating their own social
programs, it should be possible for them to learn from the same features of activist, dare we
call it propaganda, that are most effective in motivating consumers to engage with them on
initiatives of mutual interest.
There is a natural tendency to perceive social activism as something peculiar to our time,
and indeed, the clipboard-carrying students and teenagers on the streets of cities asking
us to sign petitions to protect whales and forests, support gay rights and promote solidarity
with people suffering around the world are a persistent feature of modern society. However,
even if we assign the 1950s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament marches in Europe or the
Civil Rights Movement in the USA to a different category, there is ample evidence that each
generation reinvents social activism to meet the needs and the communications channels
of its time. The Temperance movement of the late nineteenth century led by the
redoubtable Carrie Nation, Margaret Sanger’s struggle to make contraception and
information about birth control accessible to women, to take two examples, offer intriguing
parallels to today’s social activism. In each case, these activists developed unique and
compelling strategies. They both experimented with different kinds of confrontations and
public events to stir up support. Civil disobedience played a significant role in both Carrie
Nation’s and Margaret Sanger’s strategy. Nation was jailed on numerous occasions, and
Sanger was indicted after the publication of Family Limitation, jumped bail and fled to
Canada. Carrie Nation made her creative breakthrough when she first started carrying a
small hatchet to damage saloons (McQueen, 2001). This was an idea first suggested by her
husband as a joke but quickly became her signature and helped spread her fame across
the USA as she smashed up barrooms across the country accompanied by a group of
VOL. 35 NO. 5 2014, pp. 55-58, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 0275-6668 JOURNAL OF BUSINESS STRATEGY PAGE 55
 ‘‘There is ample evidence that each generation reinvents
social activism to meet the needs and the communications
channels of its time.’’

hymn singing female supporters. She was eventually able to help pay her legal fees and
fines. Through the sale of souvenir hatchets and hatchet pins in pewter, even in gold plate
and inlaid with mother of pearl became fashionable items for supporters of the temperance
cause. The narrative of the courageous woman willing to face jail time, the opportunity for
other women to join her with relatively little personal risk and the ability to visibly identify with
the cause by wearing a hatchet pin for an even larger group are all features of a successful
social movement that we would recognize today.
In Margaret Sanger’s case, her breakthrough was to identify a critical insight that
enabled her to create a much broader base of support than she might otherwise have
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been able to do. Even amongst those audiences sympathetic to a woman’s right to
control her own fertility, Sanger’s embrace of female sexuality as an empowering force
was problematic. By making the issue about censorship, however, in an era when the
discussion of sexuality was legally proscribed, she was able to garner vastly more
support than if she had confronted the issue of sexuality head on (Douglas, 1970). Thus,
in the cases of both Nation and Sanger, social activists of very different political
perspectives were able to turn emotional and ideological support into political action by
finding the triggers that gave supporters across a broad spectrum of beliefs permission
to embrace the cause.
In our own time, it has also been the case that language and terminology have played a
determining role in the evolution of public opinion on many issues. The terms “pro-life” and
“pro-choice” have been defining aspects of the political struggle over abortion rights. In the
matter of gay rights, there has probably been no more important term (other than gay
rights) than “marriage equality” which at a stroke transformed the conversation about
whether the term “marriage” means the union of one man and one woman into something
else – a matter of social justice. It is not surprising given the basis of the American
constitution in the question of civil rights that this term should have been so successful in
changing Americans views on gay marriage.
In the light of these historical examples of effective “framing” of a social debate, what
should we expect from the research effort to determine what kinds of content in
grant-supported media projects will make the difference between feel good apathy and
genuine behavior change in the form of consumer boycotts and other kinds of community
activism? We suspect that this research will bear out the idea that there are three principles
involved in what determines whether people targeted by social propaganda will be
motivated to change their behavior in support of the cause about which they are hearing.
These are:
 How closely does the issue touch the individual consumer himself or herself?
 How much of a personal sacrifice/inconvenience is involved in supporting the goals of
the social activists?
 How much individual effort, time and expense is required to have an impact on the
matter at hand, regardless of the strength of belief in the cause, due to the complexity
of the issue?
The answers to these three questions can go a long way in helping us determine what kinds
of protests pose a genuine threat to an individual company or the industry in which they

PAGE 56 JOURNAL OF BUSINESS STRATEGY VOL. 35 NO. 5 2014

 operate. This assumption is vindicated by an inaugural general survey by Participant Media
in March and April of 2014. In this survey of 1,055 viewers, respondents ranked crime near
the top of their list of primary concerns, behind human rights, health care and education.
This finding is consistent with dozens of surveys showing that concerns about crime are
among the hottest hot button issues for most consumers. Another of the topics that
prompted the highest rankings was concern about food safety. Both of these issues fall
squarely into those categories that most closely touch the lives of individual citizens.
The second principle involves the question of personal sacrifice or inconvenience: what do
we need to give up or do differently to support this cause? The poster child for activism of
this kind is any campaign directed at saving animals, especially those unrelated to the food
supply of the activists themselves. Japanese dolphins, killer whales in captivity in American
aquaria and any campaign directed at problems in the treatment of animals in the food
supply, funded by vegetarians for whom an increase in the price of animal protein is
obviously of little concern. By contrast, issues such as reducing global warming (aka
climate change) by imposing restrictions on the consumption of fossil fuels represents a
huge potential burden, of finances and convenience to vast swathes of the population of
the developed economies.
Finally, we need to address the issue of complexity and the time and effort required to
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make substantive change in long-established social and political norms and policies.
Here, we find ourselves in the quagmire of individual indifference and apathy. When
social change requires us to grapple with the established political system, we rarely
have the stamina and perseverance to stay the course. We may abhor sex trafficking in
Asia and Latin America but for most people the sheer complexity of the issue and the
political capital that needs to be expended to put an end to it makes them eager “likers”
but reluctant actors. We may experience the effects of global warming (climate change)
as individuals but the effort to change global energy use to mitigate its effects leaves
most people powerless in the face of the organizing power required to create a
meaningful impact on a global scale.
So where does this leave the effort on the part of Participant Media, the Gates
Foundation and the University of Southern California to identify the critical factors
distinguishing a feel good piece of activist content from one that truly seizes the
imagination of stakeholders causing them to act to mitigate the harm threatened or
propel a political effort to change the relevant laws? We think history shows that the
social movements that succeed rely on a consistent mix of factors regardless of the
media content involved. They develop a strategy and a lexicon that defines the issue on
terms that sideline opponents and create discomfort for those who remain on the fence.
By discomfort, we mean a compelling dissonance between a person’s point of view on
an issue and the extent to which that position violates their sense of their own values
and who they are. Marriage equality has been hugely successful on this very specific
point because it created a wedge between religious conservatives with a biblical
argument and those who were opposed on the grounds of traditional social
arrangements, but who see injustice in attempts to restrict gay marriage [. . .] Margaret
Sanger’s focus on censorship was a critical component that sidelined opponents
wanting to keep the debate around contraception pinned on sexual morality. She put

‘‘There are three principles involved in what determines

whether people targeted by social propaganda will be
motivated to change their behavior in support of the cause
about which they are hearing.’’

VOL. 35 NO. 5 2014 JOURNAL OF BUSINESS STRATEGY PAGE 57

 opponents on the defensive by forcing them to choose between censorship and free
speech, as if that was the key issue affecting contraceptive rights.
Keywords: We are truly hopeful that the research program proposed by Participant Media and its
Social media, partners will offer up intriguing insights into the kind of content that moves viewers/readers
Metrics, to open their check books, boycott products and pick up the phone to lobby their
Behavior change, representative. We suspect, however, that the findings will simply confirm what we have
Shares and likes, always known about successful social movements: they are based on simple ideas that
Social activism, make us feel better about ourselves without demanding too much of our time or infringing
Social campaigns on the lifestyles to which we have grown accustomed.

References
Cieply, M. (2014), “Participant index seeks to determine why one film spurs activism, while others
falter”, The New York Times, 6 July, available at: www.nytimes.com/2014/07/07/business/media/
participant-index-seeks-to-determine-why-one-film-spurs-activism-while-others-falter.html (accessed
23 July 2014).

Douglas, E. (1970), Margaret Sanger: Pioneer of the Future.

McQueen, K. (2001), Carrie Nation Militant Prohibitionist: Offbeat Kentuckians: Legends to Lunatics III,
McClanahan Publishing House, Kuttawa, KY.
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Corresponding author
Peter Buell Hirsch can be contacted at: pbhirsch05@gmail.com

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