Internet, platforms and digital technologies offer new ways of spreading the message and organising action for different cause-driven movements and citizen activism. This digital activism is not limited to using platforms to support existing forms of activism, but also takes advantage of the new opportunities platforms give for distributing value and providing access for information.
Why is this important?
The clear benefit of platforms for activism is new tools for communicating, deliberating, organising and connecting. Platforms such as Enspiral support a collaborative culture, constructive deliberation and collective decision making. They pool together resources such as money, time and skills to promote a jointly agreed upon set of projects. There are also platforms aimed at explaining obscure policies or laws or doing the increasingly important fact-checking.
In addition to tools, there is a quieter form of digital activism, one aimed at changing societal structures of access of information and distribution of value. Projects building ad hoc digital networks or internet access points aim to circumvent restrictions on the access to information. Platform cooperatives aim to reshape the way value is distributed within the system. In general, the aim is to improve the possibilities of those that are respressed or silenced via digital cencorship, or left out in the winner-takes-all forms of digital economy.
Things to keep an eye on
Digital activism suffers from so called “clicktivism”, where people are eager to support a cause if it just means clicking a button. Then when nothing changes, people lose their faith also in other forms of activism. Therefore digital activism needs also “off-line” activism. At best, digital activism can support other forms of activism, at worst it can undermine them.
There are also interesting examples of what can emerge out of the interface between the physical and digital in the age of smart phones and ubiquitous connectivity. One such example is the “I’m being arrested” app, which is a panic button for demonstrators to let a preselected group of people know that they are in trouble. Using location aware and camera equipped smartphones provides new tools for ensuring transparency and fair treatment.
On the flipside, digital activism raises also questions about ethics and responsibilities. Whistleblowing and the leaking of classified information may be a necessary alarm call in some cases, and in others it may just do more harm through unintended side effects. It is worth noting where the activism rises and what are its underlying intentions. There is also the question of drawing a line between civil disobedience, mischief “for the lolz” and outright criminal activity.
A potential transformation may happen through the adoption of the tools for collective decision making and deliberation, as they find their way increasingly to more conventional arenas of decision making. It is interesting to see if they change the forms of governance.
Selected articles and websites
How a new wave of digital activists is changing society
Digital and Online Activism
Flex your political activist muscles with these resources
Mobile Justice (Team Human podcast with Jason van Anden)
Enspiral – more people working on stuff that matters
Loomio – making decisions together
See also our signal on persuasive computing
e-Government
New technologies such as cloud computing, virtual collaboration tools, and ubiquotous smart mobile devices are enabling new forms of public debate and policy making. At the same time, more data is collected, and it is becoming more open and accessible. Active citizens, NGOs and grassroot movements catalysed by social media are challenging the existing societal structures. These developments create both opportunities and challenges for government.
Why is this important?
Governments can use platforms to foster the growth of specific industries by e.g. ensuring open access to all publicly funded data and providing crowdfunding and other platforms for companies. At the same time, platforms challenge the way governments to work by enabling new types of decision making, suited for a truly distributed and self-organising communities. Also, governments have to cope with the impacts of current big platform players, who disrupt existing industries and challenge existing regulation.
Things to keep an eye on
Estonia is the example to keep an eye on when it comes to the digitalization of different government activities; it provides e-residency and has solved the problem of Uber and taxation. Blockchain could offer interesting solutions for “hacking the society”, starting from secure healthcare records and going on to making basic income a platform. Data privacy, access and ownership are key issues to keep in mind.
Selected articles and websites
Government as Platform
These Online Platforms Make Direct Democracy Possible
Open Government Platform – OGPL To Promote Transparency And Citizen Engagement
A federated architecture – choose and combine the tools you need for your democratic process