review of literature: what is activism; history of activism and technology

What is activism exactly?

According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, activism is defined as “a doctrine or practice that emphasizes direct vigorous action especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue” (activism). Activism is generally thought of in terms of an affiliation with a social movement, or “ a network of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups and/or organizations, engaged in a political or cultural conflict, on the basis of a shared collective identity” (Donk 78). Social movements fundamentally attempt to shift the perceived imbalance of power in their particular conflict of interests by formulating their own new meanings and effectively spreading them, allowing citizens to be selective about how they want to be involved with politics (Donk 77-81). Using these two definitions broadly, activism can be traced throughout the history of civilization considering the trend of rebellion, reform, and revolution that have transpired consistently.
However, activism can take many forms whether directly involved with an established social movement or not. Of course, there are the famous activist efforts involving high profile tactics such as rallies, strikes or street marches for a campaign, but other less obvious strategies are employed as well by groups and individuals. People take action for or against a conflict-ridden establishment by writing letters to politicians or newspapers, boycotting a product or business, sit-ins or other forms of civil disobedience, lobbying, culture jamming or voluntarily abstaining from any activity motivated by herd mentality, rioting, political campaigning, and many other direct and indirect approaches (Activism). Currently, with the development of internet technology, activists are finding new and creative ways to make their opinions known with extensive use of e-mail, blogging, online forums, and social networking services for example. Depending on an activist organization’s or an individual’s resources available, political structure to adhere by, ideology, targets, goals, and any other aspect of their historical context, a wide array of tactics may be found suitable, necessary or even forbidden. Some try to change the opinions of citizens and others try to change the system before any real differences can happen; some use physical conflict with a more immediate target for interactions with more depth and others attempt to reach the masses with more superficial techniques provided by mass media (Donk 31-32)
Perhaps the most important aspect of activism studies is the recognition that there are no solid boundaries when defining the scope or possibilities of activist engagement. Activism is an evolved and evolving entity in which varied challenges are confronted based on contextually-specific institutions and lessons learned from previous forms of dissent. Also, an integral part of this progression of activism has been the adoption of available technologies to carry out the aims of activists. In fact, some scholars believe that history and institutions in general have been shaped by a society’s technological development.
Termed “technological determinism”, the philosopher Karl Marx began the discussion of the governing force of technology on civilization. Others have also attested to the importance of the relationship between technological and societal development with varying assertions. Some retain the claim that technology alone creates the ways in which a society will function on all levels while others defend theories on the opposite side of the debate insisting on absolute social determinism of technological development. Still most theories rest in a sort of middle ground depicting the symbiosis that constantly exists between organized groups of people and their technologies. Obviously, scholarly research has demonstrated the importance of assessing technology and its impacts on any facet of society (Technological Determinism). Therefore, in ultimately assessing American forms of activism and current uses of the internet it will be vital to at least map the broad history of activist movements and technology.

Progression of activism and technology in the United States

I will begin this particular examination with the American Revolution since this was the wide-spread social movement aimed at establishing the New World as its entirely own nation, the United States of America. After the establishment of the colonies in British America throughout the 1600’s and into the early 1700’s, much of the 18th century was spent in protest to British control, taxing and disdain. Once the initial fervor of rebellion started to spread throughout the land, great efforts were needed to unify the colonists across the geographical and social boundaries. Inventive forms of mass and local media for British America as a united nation of colonies with significant differences would be essential. With lightning speed considering the state of current communication technologies, the colonies were able to organize with the extension of the mail system, newspapers, pamphlets, broadsides, letters, and books mostly delivered by riders and ships. Symbols, insignia and slogans were used expansively as propaganda in all of these forms of information dissemination to encourage colonists to join the cause against the motherland. John Adams declared that “the complete accomplishment of it in
so short a time and by such simple means was perhaps a singular example in the history of mankind. Thirteen clocks were made to strike together: a perfection of mechanism which no artist had ever before effected” (Would There Have Been an American Revolution Without Newspapers or mail?). Upon the victory of the colonies and the creation of the United States of America, introduced was the Bill of Rights, which has hence provided a crucial resource for a mass of national activist demands.
In the first decades as a nation, transportation and communication were made vastly more efficient with the extensive construction of canals, the introduction of the steamboat, the spread of the railroad, and the invention of the telegraph. Most effected was the flow of public information allowing for the education of more and more citizens, which only progressed with the further development and spread of these technologies throughout the 19th century (The History of Communication). These were the tools that accompanied a slew of more traditional media like books, newspapers, and pamphlets that attributed to a wide range of social movements including abolitionism, the uprising of the Southern Confederacy, white supremacy, feminism, and workers’ movements. Even if those working at grassroots level organizations or endeavors could not get their hands on the majority of these new technologies, they were getting more access to the information needed to participate as an activist and were able to communicate with others more and more quickly (Williams). As information permeated into the collections of people furthest away from policy decision making processes, groups with largely unheard interests were beginning to find the facts and tactics necessary to legitimizing their claims.
Many groups were able to acquire the means to create regularly distributed newsletters and newspapers dedicated to their cause. This was a crucial turning point for activists since most previous news literature was provided by powerful companies that largely reported news that suited their interest. Another major aspect of this development was that these technologies were being utilized by women and African-Americans who before had little public voice to the injustices faced in a white patriarchal society. In 1829, Benjamin Lundy, a white Quaker, founded one of the first anti-slavery newspapers called the Genius of Universal Emancipation. With many more to follow, the abolitionist movement spread significantly and gained the support of the women’s movement, especially with the influence of several extremely intelligent and dedicated African-American women such as Sojourner Truth. In 1841, Lydia Maria Child became the editor of one of the main anti-slavery newspapers, The National Anti-Slavery Standard. African-American Frederick Douglass, a highly prominent abolitionist leader, was able to educate himself and obtain recognition with other famous intellectuals, as well as publish two historical autobiographies before the end of slavery with the access to information and publishing that came during his lifetime (O’brien). Also, significant for the women’s movement, Paulina Wright Davis founded the first women’s rights newspaper even published in the United States called The Una (Origins of the Women’s Rights Movement). Thanks to the enormous advances in technology at this time, which eased both mobilization and information efforts, slavery was finally abolished in 1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation and the women’s movement proved strong throughout the division of the nation during the Civil War and only continued to gain strength into the 1900’s.
At the turn of the century, radio and telephone were taking hold as the newest forms of popular information and communication technology. The telephone instantly bridged the distances once needed to communicate with others who lived in locations too far for immediate exchanges, and in this case particularly those who shared the same concerns and goals for social change. Also, a plethora of monthly, weekly and daily newspapers were now available with information concerning national, regional, local and case-specific subject matters as the access to printing technologies became wide-spread. Other important developments that were beginning to take hold throughout American society were the automobile and electricity. This was certainly a society that was continuing to move forth with technological progression at a dizzying momentum following a massive industrial revolution (Williams).
The women’s movement in the first decades of the 20th century moved ahead at comparable rates as women began living longer, becoming more educated, and finding activist organizations to work with that gave them status outside of the home. The women who were most involved were typically middle-class or higher and had greater access to the resources necessary to mobilize and inform. Once World War I had begun in 1914, the women’s movement organized extensively to picket the White House demanding women’s suffrage and equality at home if we were to encourage it, and then eventually fight for it abroad. This march involved women from across the nation representing a variety of backgrounds, as well as many women from other countries. At the time, the suffrage movement was stagnant after almost a century of fighting for the right to vote, yet sixteen women began marching from New York City to Washington which gained numbers in supporters and publicity along the way. Pamphlets distributed by women’s rights groups, articles published by the Women’s Journal and other supportive news sources, and a short film shown throughout many large cities garnered the interest needed to make a significant stance and over 5,000 protest marchers arrived to march on Washington during the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson. When some of the female protestors were arrested they refused to eat as part of a hunger strike and news spread quickly concerning the cruel forced feeding they had to endure at the hands of their guards. Current technologies provided the public with enough information to severely tarnish the government’s image and President Wilson was eventually strained to urge congress to pass an amendment allowing women the right to vote, which became legal nationwide in 1920 (Randall).
Throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s, the United States became a battlefield for the worst period of ethnic tensions known as the culture wars. Leading the nation in promoting their views and propositions was the Ku Klux Klan, whose members were mainly white males promoting white supremacy. As representatives of the racial and ethnic majority who also held the upper hand in the national power structure, access to resources and exposure provided for the advantage in organizational efforts. Hiram Wesley Evans, the Imperial Wizard and Emperor of the KKK during this period, claimed to have the support of millions even outside of the official membership due to the success of the KKK’s endeavors to spread their message (The KKK in the 1920’s). Probably the most influential resource that became available to the KKK and non-existent for other groups was the advent of motion picture technology. In 1915, D.W. Griffith released his silent film, The Birth of a Nation, which was adapted from the novel and play by Thomas Dixon, The Clansmen. This film romantically depicted the efforts of the KKK during and just after the Civil War and was so popular it came to be known as the first Hollywood “blockbuster”. This film has been noted for significantly assisting the KKK’s rebound in the next decade and the group continued to use the film as a recruitment tool into the 1970’s (The Birth of a Nation).
Resource access and the technological divide has strongly determined the rate of success for activist movements throughout history. These few examples thus far have clearly demonstrated the magnitude of having power and technology in order to inform and mobilize around a cause. Following the turmoil of the 1930’s and the complacency of the 1940’s and 1950’s, the rise of activism for social justice ignited in the next decade and again groups’ use of and access to available technologies proved vital in determining the height of their success.
Coming out of the desperation of World War II between 1939-1945, Americans were finally beginning to feel secure economically and politically, yet anxieties still remained concerning national issues and foreign threats and government assistance was expected more and more. The U.S. government capitalized on these mixed sentiments and their newfound power in people’s lives in their quest to distinguish a democratic, capitalist America as the dominant global power as compared to their communist competitor, Russia. While serious anti-communist Red Scare tactics were pervaded throughout the nation for the next fifteen years, two changes occurred that dramatically affected the efficiency of these exaggerated smears and representations of the supposed excellence of life in the United States (Lewis). Particularly for those in the widening middle-class, television use became a standard, depicting national and foreign news reports that allowed viewers to witness problems faced by people of different backgrounds, and a huge wave of young people began entering colleges across the nation to become an educated and concerned constituency (Protests in the 1960’s).
By the 1960’s enough people had been convinced that social injustices were certainly still present and that the federal government had a responsibility to directly assist in the welfare of its citizens. Discrimination was clearly prevalent as African-Americans and other minorities were being left out of America’s pristine affluence, the education provided in all-white schools, and public privileges provided by segregation; sexism still existed with women being expected to now work the lowly jobs too modest for men and continue to keep up the home as well; and young men were being shipped to war at age 18, but denied the right to vote until they reached 21. With Americans feeling increasingly united via corporate marketing and products consumed by all regardless of their differences, interstate highways, national airways for flights, and radio and television broadcasts that could turn local concerns into national ones, change for equality became a necessity for growing numbers of socially concerned citizens. Furthermore, this unity via emerging technologies incited an expectation within these normally powerless individuals that by initiating sensationalist activist actions they would certainly draw the attention of the nation towards these and other social issues (Protests in the 1960’s).
The television alone may have been the driving force behind the effectiveness of the activism of the decade of social unrest. The Civil Rights Movement began slowly in the 1950’s fighting for racial equality, but expanded dramatically in the 1960’s leading other organized movements by example with their direct action strategies involving rallies, sit-ins, marches, and other non-violent acts of civil disobedience. These methods drew plenty of media attention and in 1963 people from all states watched as peaceful marchers including men, women and children were attacked by dogs on the command of the Birmingham police commissioner on national television. Following years of coverage such as this providing visual proof of the brutality shown towards non-violent protestors, the federal government felt extreme pressure to provide legislation entailing the demands of this social movement. Although civil rights activists would continue to press for equality in other domains, congress ultimately passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbidding segregation in public places and discrimination in educational and work settings, as well as the Voting Rights Act in 1965 ending the use of voter qualifying methods that were meant to prevent African-Americans and other minorities from voting (Protests in the 1960’s).
The student movement followed in the footsteps of the Civil Rights Movement and adopted a number of highly controversial social issues such as ending the Vietnam War, environmental degradation, increasing student rights, and fighting racism and poverty, which encouraged the development of full-fledged national movements (Lewis). The driving force behind each issue remained the theme of participatory democracy in which all people of a nation, not just a few powerful and rich elite, should be able to directly help decide how to address the challenging problems of their country (Protests in the 1960’s). Again, activists involved in the student movements understood that their schools and the government were willing to act unjustly and even brutally to resist their efforts at raising the consciousness of Americans, which would make for great sensationalist television and other news outlets stretching across the masses.
For example, many students participated in the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois mainly in order to demand the candidates to support a prompt ending to the Vietnam War. The protest began intended as a non-violent approach to demonstrate the people’s dissatisfaction with the war, yet as the crowd increasingly resisted police intervention riots broke out in the streets. For an entire week, Americans were able to watch as young students sustained injury and arrest at the hands of police enforcement (Lewis). Once the convention was over, demonstrators incurred charges including “conspiracy, crossing state lines with the intent to incite a riot, obstructing justice, and promoting the use of incendiary devices (stink bombs) during an act of civil disobedience that drew thousands of protestors to the city” (Miller). This event forced most Americans to question why the government would act so viciously to deny these young people their basic democratic rights.
Finally, a candidate was elected that same year who promised to bring the Vietnam War to a close without delay, Richard Nixon. Two years later Americans were shocked when they learned that Nixon instead had invaded Cambodia in 1970, further extending the scope of the war, and then opened the first draft lottery since World War II just a month later. Students took to their campus streets and quads across the country to demand Nixon to keep his promise of ending the war and to demand that their universities stop sending their college funds to the national government for military research (Lewis). On two campuses students were killed during the protests at this time. On May 4, 1970 the Ohio National Guard set fire on a crowd of students, some protesting and other merely watching, which ended in four student deaths and nine others injured (Kent State Shootings). Just ten days later, students were protesting at Jackson State College and local police units opened fire on the protestors killing two and injuring twelve others (Jackson State Killings). Americans could not help but ask why the government meant to kill their young citizens for protesting a despised war. The national response to the killings at these two colleges was overwhelming and colleges, universities and high schools shut down for the year due to the demands of furious parents and students who began an expansive strike of over eight million participants. Whenever schools reopened the next fall, students were weary of participation as activist for fear of their lives and hence began the downturn of the student movements (Lewis).
While legislation was not passed, nor the Vietnam War promptly ended at the demands of the student movements, their efforts were not in vain. Many Americans were averse to the raucous behavior of their country’s seemingly ungrateful students at first, but as more coverage unfolded displaying the nations lack of respect for democracy and its students’ safety citizens began to pay more attention to the difficult questions students posed that most would have preferred to ignore. With time, the demands of these student movements have gained popularity and acceptance throughout the United States. “Equal opportunity and equal rights became the law of the land for American citizens regardless of their race, ethnicity, or gender. The veil of secrecy that surrounded much of American foreign policy was, at least partially, removed. The health of the nation’s environment became a national priority. Democratic activism at the local and national levels and citizen oversight of government officials became accepted activities” (Protests in the 1960’s).
As the years passed throughout the next two decades, activism undoubtedly still existed throughout the United States, but after the turmoil and the extent of legislation that was passed in the 1960’s the fervor that once saturated huge social movements had subdued. Many, especially the youth, felt they would be in danger for demonstrating their opinions and others believed that the government had yielded enough or ultimately as much as it was willing to give. Also, as technology progressed during this period very little advancements were made concerning information and communication for the masses.
As the mid-1980’s rolled around, huge developments in information and communication technology were beginning to reach the public. Cellular phones and personal computers were hitting the market at furious rates making communication and information storage and dissemination easier than ever (The History of Communication).

Another updated abstract

As with every domain of society, activism has evolved interwoven with technological development. The history of technology is quite telling of the effectiveness of co-current activist efforts. It is important for current and future activists and scholars to discuss the progression and difficulties of past endeavors in order for social advancement to push forward most effectively. I begin by examining these dual histories, highlighting the major turn of events that were particularly relevant to the furtherance of activist goals and ending with contemporary activism, which is highly affected by modern technology, especially the internet. Developing internet technologies are drastically changing the mobilization capabilities and aims of social movements, which is now becoming known as cyberactivism. International activist groups are experiencing the largely complementary aspects of internet usage, and coping with the conflicting issues which continue to arise with the evolution of advanced networking tools. I discuss the research already provided concerning the affect that the internet is having on activism and report several case studies to demonstrate the main issues groups have faced with internet usage. Finally, particular relevance concerning the impact of internet technologies on university campuses in the United States, specifically regarding activist’ efforts, has been almost altogether neglected although these are settings which provide a highly conducive space for mobilization and action. I further analyze cyberactivism by bringing the actions of students into the discussion. I open the conversation of student cyberactivism by research analysis involving several specific clubs and general student involvement at my school, Appalachian State University, and their usage of the internet, as well as personal experience with the the United Students Against Sweatshop movement. This study provides a uniquely small-scale, student-led organizational perspective to the ongoing discourse of this dynamic relationship between the internet and activism with respect to its presence in the interaction of pertinent historical institutions.