Hybridizing high-risk vertical activism with wiki-activism can drive social change

Evidence

Malcolm Gladwell has famously accused wiki-activism of being hampered by low-risk “weak ties” and “horizontal associations,” in contrast to the civil rights movement, which transformed American society through high-risk, deeply committed, and vertically organized activism. Gladwell criticizes “the digerati” for “refusing to accept the fact there is a class of social problems for which there is no technological solution.” But, one might ask, do we always know in advance what class of social problems those are? While Gladwell’s dismissal of the unalloyed technophilia embodied by Clay Shirky and Andrew Sullivan is spot on, my own position is somewhat less skeptical than his. I believe that some fusion between old-style, high-risk, vertically organized strategies and wiki-activism can generate significant social change, even though such successful fusions, over the long term, can be challenging to sustain. — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 1416

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to ch61’s discussion of uniting digital and legacy activist constituencies for environmental justice — this Intro position on fusing wiki and vertical activism is an early statement of that payoff. — connects to: Web 2.0 ideology fuses Silicon Valley capitalism with countercultural activism while embracing capitalism — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 55; Social modeling through media can bypass trial-and-error limits and spread behavior change worldwide; Attention activism can be screened by whether activity builds shared, owned connection — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of the…, 326

Broader Connections

• Attention activism can be screened by whether activity builds shared, owned connection #qualifies (0.75) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 326
• Web 2.0 ideology fuses Silicon Valley capitalism with countercultural activism while embracing capitalism #responds-to (0.72) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 55
• Social modeling through media can bypass trial-and-error limits and spread behavior change worldwide #expands (0.72)