Digital Activism & Culture Jamming

This week when the debate of Digital Activism was raised I was immediately reminded of one specific event - ‘Kony 2012’. Kony 2012 was a digital activist video promoting the Invisible Children charity and also the capture of African warlord, Joseph Kony.  The video went viral in March 2012 and it was supposed to be the climax of digital activism and social media movements however it ended up being a failure (Marcus, 2012). Like thousands of other Australians,  I helped facilitate the failure of the campaign by promising my support but then becoming completely apathetic. 

Huynh 2012

 Learning about the virtues, limitations and different viewpoints of digital activism (pessimistic, optimistic and persistent) allowed me to see Kony 2012 more objectively. Looking back on the events of Kony 2012, I now understand the arguments against the campaign were a result of a pessimistic perspective - they wanted to popularise their fear of the anti-democratic control that such activism and technology was facilitating (Sivitanides & Shah 2011). Knowledge of the persistent perspective which views digital activism as a partial improvement to activism, taught me that all campaigns eventually need to surface in reality (Sivitanides & Shah 2011). I believe this partially explains the failure of Kony 2012 - the jump between digital and reality was too late and too demanding.

Unfortunately, I was a sucker for the video like millions of others -so naive! I do think it is an interesting event worth studying when it comes to digital activism because it demonstrates both the benefits and limitations.

The second topic we learned about this week was eCulture jamming. This concept took me a little longer to wrap my head around because of the irony however it became clear to me when I remembered that I actually presented an element of eCulture jamming in my first post!  I love the presentations of anti-capitalism and counter-culture in culture jamming, below are a few examples of my favourites.

'Bill Poster' Wain, A. 2012

'Bill Poster' Wain, A. 2012

I believe culture jammers play an important and necessary role in critiquing and providing insight into social and political hegemony.. Their representation of society inspires individuals to question the powerful and elite.

TELL ME: What eCulture jamming experiences have you been involved in?

References

Huynh, T. 2012. OPINION: For #KONY2012 – what happens in 2013?. [online] Available at: http://techgeek.com.au/2012/04/06/opinion-for-kony2012-what-happens-in-2013/ [Accessed: 9 Dec 2013].

Marcus, C. 2012. Kony 2012 campaign a giant flop in Sydney. The Sunday Telegraph, [online] 22 April. Available at: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/kony-2012-campaign-a-giant-flop-in-sydney/story-e6freuy9-1226335256973 [Accessed: 5 Dec 2013].

Sivitanides and Shah. 2011. The Era of Digital Activism. [e-book] Wilmington: Education Special Interest Group of the AITP. http://proc.conisar.org/2011/pdf/1842.pdf [Accessed: 9 Dec 2013].

Wain, A. 2012. 22 Brilliant Examples Of Culture Jamming. [online] Available at: http://sobadsogood.com/2012/07/23/22-brilliant-examples-of-culture-jamming/ [Accessed: 5 Dec 2013].