In this research proposal, I will explore the ways that performance is enacted through slacktivism, a term that refers to individual displays of support for a social or political issue on the Internet, particularly on social media platforms. Slacktivism is a portmanteau of the two words “slacker” and “activism,” and is claimed to be coined by Fred Clark and Dwight Ozard in 1995 (Christensen). I choose to focus on slacktivism, because digital activism encompasses an extensive range of activist tactics online, including creating YouTube videos, running online classes, hacking, taking down websites with denial of service (DDoS) attacks, and much more. I am interested in how culture is shifted and new meanings are created as a result of slacktivism. I am also interested in the lack of embodiment, or bodilessness, of online presence making, and how this avenue is utilized by populations who have limited access to public spaces, which are thought to be the traditional sites of activism. These populations could include people living with disabilities, people with caretaking responsibilities, people who work long hours, or people who do not have access to reliable transportation. Architect and scholar Thérèse F. Tierney refers to social media as a “mediated publics,” a space that users know is controlled by corporations yet offers a virtual alternative to the public square (Tierney 88).
Prominent examples of slacktivism in modern day include hashtag activism, clicktivism, and Facebook profile filters. Hashtag activism is the practice of creating a hashtag (a unique metadata tag) on social media platforms to represent a social or political issue, with the goal of having the hashtag reused by other users when posting content. Popular hashtags are considered to be “trending.” In the past several years, these have included hashtags such as #Occupy, #NoDAPL, #BlackLivesMatter, #OscarsSoWhite, #ShoutYourAbortion, #BringBackOurGirls, #SayHerName, and #NotYourAsianSidekick. This concept of hashtagging was first introduced by social networking site Twitter (“Using Hashtags”), and has been adopted by many other social media platforms. Clicktivism is the use of online actions on social media to support social or political causes (White). It can include retweeting/reposting media, “liking” or favoriting a post, signing an online petition, or forwarding emails. Clicktivism often relies on a backbone of marketing metrics to determine the success or failure of a cause. A recent example of clicktivism on Facebook occurred in Fall 2016 during the exploded awareness of the mass indigenous protest in Standing Rock, North Dakota. A widely circulated anonymous post asked supporters to check-in to Standing Rock to confuse local Morton County Sheriff Department who they claimed were using social media to locate protesters. By November 1st, more than 1 million Facebook users had checked in (Kennedy). Facebook offers profile filters that are tailored to monumental news events. To show support for a cause or display a belief, Facebook users update their profiles on a mass level. In June 2016 when the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriages, 26 million Facebook users updated their profiles with the rainbow flag filter (Kelly). Following the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2016, masses of Facebook users changed their profiles to the French flag filter.
Slacktivism has come under a barrage of skepticism, critique, and even denouncement during this decade. Common arguments suggest that it is a useless activity, severely limited, an ineffective substitute for direct action, a form of “virtue signalling,” and a way to evade personal responsibility (Dunning; Bartholomew). However, there have also been studies linking slacktivism to an increased propensity to donate money and volunteer (Andresen). As an occasional Facebook user, I have observed the slacktivism in my social network and participated in it regularly in the past. I am interested in developing a more complex understanding of the role slacktivism plays in not only affecting social movements, but also in constructing my online image and personal identity as an activist. I am also curious at the almost gleeful rejection of slacktivism and slacktivists as ineffectual and misguided (Robertson). I would like to uncover the assumptions and beliefs undergirding this highly moralistic stance. What does calling out other people’s “fake” activism say about our own anxieties? This knowledge will add to the field of performance studies a much needed analysis of slacktivism beyond reactionary Internet think pieces. As social media is a highly employed tool of activists around the world, this study will offer a reflective and nuanced discussion in a discourse of social justice replete with judgments, rules, and condemnations. As lifelong activists understand, social issues cannot be approached in a limiting binary of right or wrong, and the ability to hold multiple contradictions at once is key.
Slacktivism is a unique activity that inhabits the in between stage of “is” and “as” performance, as delineated by performance studies founder, Richard Schechner (Schechner 38). Social media engagement isn’t considered a traditional performance, like a play or a lecture, but it is understood to be a type of restored behavior with a certain protocol. Meaning, social media users overall understood themselves to be performing their online identities, as they control the visibility and presentation of their thoughts and behaviors to other users in their networks. If performance is a doing and a perpetual becoming, who are we becoming the longer we perform slacktivism? And where are we going as activists? Jumping off the feminist poststructuralist work of Phelan, who cites the inability for performance to be captured because it disappears, what does it mean for users to have a transcript of their slacktivism over the years (Phelan 146)? For Phelan, another hallmark of performance (art) is its inability to be reproduced. However, slacktivism relies on reproduction of messages for movements to arise and to take on new forms. Taylor asserts that performance functions as an act of transfer of social knowledge (Taylor 17). It is a doing that exists alongside the archive of the canonized written word. Slacktivism is often the vehicle for launching stories or causes not yet broken or simply ignored by the mass media. Can slacktivism be viewed as a kind of shadow repertoire, subjugated knowledge that is forced into mainstream consciousness by mass individual reproduction?
To be clear, I do not aim to paint slacktivism as a prized strategy that has been unfairly maligned. Queer and performance studies theorist Muñoz’s concept of the utopian performative is not a focal point of slacktivism. More often than not, slacktivism is made up of displays of support for acts of resistance, along with its complement, the disapproval of unjust occurrences or immoral people. Besides the originators of the message, slacktivists are generally reposting content verbatim or adding commentary to build upon the original statement. Rather than invite an expansion of discourse or conflicting ideas, slacktivism seeks to build the widest base of supporters as possible. There is very little originality in participating in slacktivism. To Muñoz, performance should offer a “kernel of potentiality,” and the nature of slacktivism instead encourages a fervent groupthink and parroting of others’ ideas (Muñoz 98). What is the effectiveness of a collective uncreativity?
To collect data, the research methods I will employ are analysis of visual material and interviews. I will analyze the #SayHerName hashtag on Twitter. I will begin with a standard social media analysis, which includes what account originated the hashtag, a timeline of number of mentions in 2015, similar hashtags mentioned alongside #SayHerName, and popular accounts who have reproduced the hashtag. I plan to use an analytics tool to collect this information, such as keyhole.co or hashtracking.com. I will then conduct a qualitative analysis of twenty unique tweets that mention the #SayHerName hashtag. Only public tweets will be included in this analysis.
My second method is via interviewing a set of active social media users who identify on varying positions on the political spectrum and as having engaged in the #NoDAPL campaign on Facebook. The interviewees will include long-term activists, users with a newer political consciousness, and people who identify social media activism as their main form of activism. Questions will be about their introduction to social media activism, the role it plays in their activism and everyday lives, how #NoDAPL shaped their political views, how it felt to be a part of a massive wave of Facebook check-ins to Standing Rock on, and what conversations they have had with other people about the Standing Rock protests. Additionally, I will ask them what other forms of activism they engage in, and how social media activism fits in. I plan to recruit volunteer participants from the UW Seattle and Bothell campuses and the progressive activist communities in Seattle.
My final method is to frame this entire project in an autoethnography. As I participate in slacktivism and carry mixed emotions on the topic, I can share my own responses to conducting this research, talking to others, and examining my own social media activist identity. In doing so, I hope to work through and cope with the ambiguities, uncertainties, and fluidities of performing online activism as a city millennial living in a Trump presidency.
Andresen, Katya. "Why Slacktivism Is Underrated." Mashable. Mashable, 24 Oct. 2011. Web. 11 Mar. 2017.
Bartholomew, James. "I invented 'virtue signalling'. Now it's taking over the world." The Spectator. The Spectator, 08 Oct. 2015. Web. 11 Mar. 2017.
Christensen, Henrik Serup. "Political activities on the Internet: Slacktivism or political participation by other means?" First Monday 16.2 (2011): n. pag. Web. 11 Mar. 2017.
Dunning, Brian. "Slacktivism: Raising Awareness." Skeptoid Podcast. N.p., 17 June 2014. Web. 11 Mar. 2017.
Howard, Dorothy. "The Performance of Activism: Facebook Check-Ins to Standing Rock." Medium. N.p., 02 Nov. 2016. Web. 11 Mar. 2017.
Kelly, Heather. "Facebook rainbow profiles used by 26 million." CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 30 June 2015. Web. 11 Mar. 2017.
Kennedy, Merrit. "More Than 1 Million 'Check In' On Facebook To Support The Standing Rock Sioux." NPR. NPR, 01 Nov. 2016. Web. 11 Mar. 2017.
Muñoz, José Esteban. Cruising utopia: the then and there of queer futurity. New York: New York U Press, 2009. Print.
Phelan, Peggy. Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. London: Routledge, 2006. Print.
Robertson, Charlotte. "Slacktivism: The Downfall of Millennials." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 14 Oct. 2014. Web. 11 Mar. 2017.
Schechner, Richard, and Sara Brady. Performance Studies: An Introduction. London: Routledge, 2013. Print.
Taylor, Diana. The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas. Durham: Duke U Press, 2007. Print.
Tierney, Thérèse. "Disentangling Public Space: Social Media and Internet Activism." Thresholds 41 (2013): 82-89. JSTOR. Web. 22 Feb. 2017.
"Using hashtags on Twitter | Twitter Help Center." Twitter. Twitter, n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2017.
White, Micah. "Clicktivism is ruining leftist activism | Micah White." Opinion. Guardian News and Media, 12 Aug. 2010. Web. 11 Mar. 2017.