What’s Trending #SocialChangeBY ANDREW ROSE, MSC. CANDIDATE CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT AND EXTENSION, UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH

UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, CONTENT IN THIS SLIDE SHARE IS LICENCED UNDER A CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION-NONCOMMERCIAL-NODERIVATIVES 4.0 INTERNATIONAL (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Overview of the Slide Share:

Factors that impact an issue’s ability to trend

Indicators that determine if trending social media will translate into social change

Case studies of social media trends

Considerations for future understanding of social media

Is Social Media an Appropriate Platform to Influence Social Change

Social media is saturated with incoming data, yet much of this data can be categorized as “noise”.

Social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) has grown its own unique communications variable in the form of “hashtags” (#), and other forms of abbreviated communication.

Due to the high rate of evolution of social media platforms, an insider’s perspective into these communities is beneficial.

Is it possible for social change to emerge from web 2.0 platforms, which were not purposed to act as facilitation tools for social change.

Can Social Media Cause Social Change?

Currently there is no consensus among the academic community as to how or if it is possible that social media can facilitate social change.

There are numerous examples of major issues gaining widespread support on social media, often followed by a lack of change when individuals lose interest.

Other instances have occurred where an issue begins to trend and is followed by tangible change based on the notoriety received on social media.

Why do some issues falter and some succeed in attaining change?

Emotional Horizons

What kind of a connection exists between those encouraging a trend to continue and the issue that is being targeted?

Social media networks have been identified by many as groupings of people only connected by weak ties. Weak ties typically are not successful in breaking through apathetic interest.

Factors such as geographic proximity and cultural relatability have a tangible effect on the propensity of individuals to be emotionally engaged in social media trends.

If issues are trending without individual relatability, then there is decreased probability of individuals becoming engaged in the process of change.

Level of Commitment to Participate

The level of commitment has a negative relationship with a trend achieving social change. The more that is required of an individual to act on their values the less likely they are to become engaged.

Petitions have a high success rate due to the fact that the extent of an individuals commitment towards an issue is simply “Yes” or “No”.

An example of this trend in human behaviour is when people are asked if they think voting is important. The ratio of people who respond yes is always higher than the percentage of the population who actually vote.

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

This social media trend was an enormous success in terms of funds raised for ALS.

Even though many people do not know what ALS is, it can still be argued that we all have the desire to help those who are sick.

The commitment that had to be produced in order to support ALS research was creatively packaged to the point that participating in the Ice Bucket Challenge became a cool thing to do and was tied to social status.

http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/making-a-difference/striking-out-als-ice-bucket-challenge-brings-flood-donations-n177896

On April 15th 2014, 276 Nigerian Schoolgirls were kidnappedThe #1 trending issue on social media was #bringbackourgirls.

It is hard to imagine a crime that is more upsetting than the preying on innocent schoolgirls. This issue entered the emotional horizons of many of those in social media.

Yet, what kind of action is required of those using social media that #bringbackourgirls might actually transition into a process of change?

http://mashable.com/2014/05/07/michelle-obama-nigeria-bring-back-our-girls/

In January the Charlie Hebdo attack took place at the same time as the Boko Haram massacre in Nigeria

There was a distinct lack of moral outrage at the slaughter of 2000 Nigerians on social media, yet the Charlie Hebdo attack breached the emotional horizons of many individuals gained in social media.

Je Suis Charlie became synonymous with our right to free speech and the response of support for social change was drastic with demonstrations taking place across the western world.

The action required to change policy in Europe is much different than what is required to change Boko Haram’s hold on Nigeria.

http://www.boredpanda.com/charlie-hebdo-shooting-tribute-illustrators-cartoonists/

Concluding Remarks

Social media continues to gain momentum, therefore the need to understand how social media trends impact social change is becoming increasingly important.

As social media is an incredibly innovative mode of communication, the methods of analysis used to study it in the future will need to be highly adaptive.

What other examples of social media trends can you think of that either did or did not act as a catalyst for social change?

Can you think of other factors (beyond emotional horizons and levels of participation) that could be used to analyze examples of social media to determine why they did or did not facilitate change?

References:

Ahlquist, J. (2014). Trending Now: Digital Leadership Education Using Social Media and the Social Change Modle. Journal of Leadership Studies, 8(2), 57-60.

Cellan-Jones, R. (n.d.). Social Media Medallists. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19192395

Gladwell, M. (2010, October 4). Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not be Tweeted. The New Yorker.

He, W. (2013). Social media competitive analysis and text mining: A case study in the pizza industry. International Journal of Information Management, 33(3), 464.

LaRiviere, K., Snyder, J., Stromberg, A., & O'Meara, K. (2012). Protest: Critical Lessons of Using Digital Media for Social Change.

Small, T.A. (2011). “What the Hashtag? A Content Analysis of Canadian Politics on Twitter.” Information, Communication and Society 14(6): 872-895.

Snee, H. (2008). Web 2.0 as a Social Science Research Tool. ESRC and British Library.

Taylor, H. (2012). Social Media for Social Change Using the Internet to Tackle Intolerance. Institute for Strategic Dialogue.