How the next generation is reshaping political discourse
The rise of social media and being always online is changing the nature of civic engagement.
How the next generation is reshaping political discourse Read MoreSlacktivism is “a term coined during the rise of the internet for the practice of publicly supporting a cause in ways that take little effort, often to make yourself look good. ‘That can diminish or even demean the seriousness of political discourse in a way that can kind of hinder our ability to solve big problems,’ says Carr.”
“Participating in online movements may not translate into offline engagement—some experts warn it could have the opposite effect. ‘On social media, you can get a burst of interest, sometimes a burst of activity, because it’s so easy to feel like you’ve participated just by clicking a link or retweeting something or using a hashtag,’ says Nicholas Carr, a sociology professor at Williams College. ‘What’s unclear is whether social media will help or hurt the ability of activists to sustain interests in a long-term campaign of change.'”
“People who engage in this performative activism are still spreading political messages, though, says William Golub, a junior at Stanford University who volunteered with the texting team on Joe Biden’s presidential campaign last year. ‘I think that there certainly are people who will just post about something on social media and that’s the end of the chain, but lots of those people are people who wouldn’t have done anything at all’ [if it weren’t for that engagement], he says.”
—MIT Technology Review, “How the next generation is reshaping political discourse“
The rise of social media and being always online is changing the nature of civic engagement.
How the next generation is reshaping political discourse Read More