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In the ongoing campaign against the reopening of the
Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) in Morong, the Network Opposed to
the BNPP Revival (NO to BNPP Revival) asked our group to create a
website for them to host news and materials related to the campaign.
We also suggested that they create an online petition (http://www.petitiononline.
com/no2bnppr/petition.html)
e-mail it to different mailing lists and to open a Facebook group
for the campaign. Welcome to Activism 2.0.
This moniker follows from Web
2.0, the so-called second generation of the World Wide Web, which
emphasizes dynamic and shareable content from the static webpages.
Social networking sites like Facebook and Friendster are examples of
Web 2.0 sites where users form communities, exchange stories and
photographs, and invite each other to their causes and advocacies.
A cursory look at my Facebook
account shows that 285 of my friends joined 313 groups with
different advocacies. There are tools such as Facebook Groups,
Causes and Fansites that you can use to invite people in the site.
The largest groups have a million Facebook members while local
initiatives have several hundred active users.
A guide about online advocacy
using Facebook written by Dan Shulz of Digiactive points out two
things that make Facebook a logical choice for activists. One reason
is Facebook’s massive user base and the free tools that is
available on the site. The other reason is the social nature of
activism itself. Taken together we have the possibility of reaching
out to many people using an effective platform for communication and
collaboration. If used correctly by a group of dedicated activists,
Facebook and other networking sites can be very effective for social
action.
Yet even Shulz warns that
Facebook was not originally designed for advocacy. The site’s
functionality does not always match what activists need. The number
of people in the group does not always translate into people with
genuine interest on your issue. Due to the low barrier of entry to
the group, it can be larger than those who are actually going to act
on the campaign.
Shulz outlines several steps to
make an effective Facebook campaign. First is to make your goals
clear at the outset. As Facebook is a community site, group users
can shape these goals towards their own rather than the original
design. Second, an active user base should be created by inviting
everyone you know to the group. The nature of social networking
sites where you get to invite your friends to invite their friends
will increase the user base of your group in a short while.
Maintenance of the group
throughout the campaign entails continuous promotion of the Facebook
group through regular updates. These updates should be regular
enough yet not too overwhelming that users would consider it spam.
Promoting the group through other media should be done so that its
cause gets highlighted beyond the Internet.
An example of a successful
Facebook campaign was the “Support the Monk’s Protest in
Burma” where membership in the group grew to 140,000 in just 10
days. The network was able to mobilize tens of thousands of
protesters in 100 cities around the world in two simultaneous global
days of action in October 2007.
One recurring theme that Shulz
mentions in his guide is that the virtual group one can create
through Facebook should be accompanied by real-world warm bodies.
The virtual community can be tapped and mobilized for real world
activities. These activities can range from mobilizations, to
sending out fliers, putting up posters or even simply donating to
the group’s goals. The effecti-vity of using Face-book for
advocacy depends ultimately on how correct the message is and
whether it can mobilze people for your advocacy.
The fact that access to
information technology is still uneven in the Philippines has to be
factored in such online campaigns. Although there are only around
four million regular Internet users in the country, the real-world
social networks (our real world friends, families, school mates,
etc.) can expand the reach of virtual communities outside of the
digital realm. This should be the real goal of virtual
communities—mobilizing those people in the real world.
It is true that information
technology, such as Web 2.0 sites like Facebook, can enhance efforts
to organize people but it cannot replace nor supplant real world
action. One cannot simply be a Facebook activist without going away
from your keyboard and screen to talk, convince and mobilize real
world communities. It is these people who matter most. Facebook and
other technologies are just tools to reach out to them.
(Mr. Rick Bahague is a member of
AGHAM and the coordinator of the Computer Professionals Union. He is
currently in India as part of the Advisory Group of the InfoActivism
Camp being held this week in Bangalore).
Prom.bound@gmail.com
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