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Clicktivism

Updated : Friday 16 December 2011

Clicktivism, a word suggested by Frances Meadows, is increasingly used to denote a new trend in activism: activism "light", the sort you can engage in just by clicking on your laptop as you lounge in your armchair, Coca-Cola in hand. Many of us now practise clicktivism rather in the way that Stephen Fry practises tweeting, almost unconsciously. If you find yourself clicking on a group on Facebook to express your opinion or commitent, you may have become infected by what some consider to be a new plague.

Where once environmental activists or party militants took to the streets to protest, today all they have to do is click on "send" or "sign" to add their name to a petition to save the Amazon basin, for example. The term also applies to those who sign up to groups such as the one on Facebook against the war in Iraq, as a way of expressing their disapproval for their government’s military strategy. A website like Avaaz.com has forged its entire reputation by surfing this wave of "armchair", or rather "fingertip" activism, where all it takes is one click.

Clicktvism is stirring up a real debate at the moment, with many people speaking out against the unfortunate results of this practice. According to them, clicktivism will spell the end of traditional forms of activism. True, it is much less tiring to lift a finger to click than raise one’s fist marching in the streets, or carrying a banner for hours on end. It’s certainly less physical, but no less dangerous, as the internet users in Arab countries can testify, having been arrested for setting up a group on Facebook calling on their government to go.

Clicktivism is not just for the cowardly or lazy. Defenders of the practice point out that by signing petitions, and forwarding the message each time to all one’s friends on the web, more and more people’s attention can be drawn to perfectly legitimate causes. Clicktivism is a part of the awakening of the collective conscience. But hasn’t this conscience already been sufficiently stirred into life by radio, television, the press and blogs, and does it make one iota of difference if you click on some group called "I love the Amazon and I want to save it"? It’s doubtful, to say the least. But at any rate, it makes us feel virtuous and avoids a few sessions on the psychiatrist’s couch.

We should not be in too much of a hurry to demonise clicktivism. Obviously, you can’t hope to change society if all you do is sign petitions online to show your commitment, but these bits of viral marketing can be useful when used as part of a global plan: clicktivism is a way of recruiting activists (mainly among young people) who do not start out with the idea of hurling stones at the police as a way of expressing their dissatisfaction, and some of them may, who knows, go on to join the ranks of the more militant on the ground. Clicktivism helps to build a bond between the members of the same group: you can’t ask them to demonstrate outside Parliament every day or conduct a wholesale boycott of the consumer society, so to keep the spirit of militancy alive, you can ask them to click on petitions and sign up to groups on Facebook…so they can converse online. They still need to be on their guard, though, as the conscripts of clicktivism can soon lapse into slacktivism, which is militancy at its very worst. The slacktivist uses a cause as a way of having a good time: he makes the most of meetings of activists to get drunk on beer, get the free tee-shirts with the slogan, and maybe even find another activist for the odd one-night stand. Think about that, next time you click on "join" for the Facebook" group to protect the coastal heritage of Ibiza. Ask yourself if you are not on the slippery slope to slacktivism.