The Significant Role Social Media Plays in Modern Activism

Article by Lindsay Wong

Since its inception, social media has provided us with many benefits, such as allowing us to connect with loved ones and providing us with information about our interests. In the recent decade, social media has also been a key avenue for modern activism and protests. Considering that the social media component of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement started off as a hashtag, it’s clear that social media plays a significant role in modern activism.

Social media has become a fundamental part of everyday life. When we wake up, we check the notifications on our phone. When we have a question, we send a text message to a friend. When there’s a new social cause to care about, we share it on various social media platforms. With Generation Z becoming the new voice and leaders of tomorrow, social media is becoming more important than ever in connecting people around the world, but for social causes. Gen Z grew up with social media, and they are using their tech-savvy knowledge to their advantage and for bigger causes. Social media has become a vital source of raw, live information. If something is posted at the right time, and with the right hashtags, it can reach screens around the world and incite action. Social media has the ability to quickly disseminate information to large audiences and raise awareness. The majority of Americans rely on social media for news and the latest information, making the role of social media even more essential in social movements.

BLM started as a hashtag before it became a rallying cry. In 2013, the unfair result of Trayvon Martin’s murder trial triggered the hashtag to go viral on Twitter. Since then, this hashtag has turned into a full-blown social movement that has gained traction again in 2020 in particular due to the murder of George Floyd at the end of May. In addition, the pandemic has restricted movement and caused more people to turn to social media for a source of comfort and to cure their boredom, especially during lockdown and quarantine around the world. With the protests and pandemic both happening at the same time, Gen Z has been relying on social media as another avenue for protest and activism. Nevertheless, this has not stopped people from going to the streets to fight against racial injustice. But social media is playing a much larger role in organizing such protests.

In the context of the BLM movement, social media has effectively been used to unite protestors on the ground. Encrypted messaging apps have been used to organize protests safely without fears of surveillance. Platforms that have the ability to easily reshare posts to large audiences with hashtags, like Instagram and Twitter, are circulating the most essential information relating to the movement, including live videos of acts of police brutality, donation links to help victims, and statistics. There are also live updates available on social media, such as the whereabouts of police officers and what is directly happening on the ground. In an age when cancelling someone has become the new social media norm, Gen Z have also been using social media to call out companies and politicians that post insincere content. Social media is a convenient platform, giving everyone, especially marginalized groups, a voice. The functions of social media have gone beyond connectivity to include a range of other benefits that are essential during protests and its preparations.