Slacktivism: A Form of Online Activism for Generation Y

With the ever-increasing use of social media as a marketing tool, new issues arise for marketers in the quest to get people off their computers and actively engage in spreading the message outside their online sphere. This is one of the core issues marketers face today in promoting not-for-profit organisations and cause campaigns. It is all well and good to have awareness in the market but the main challenge is getting generation y to physically participate in social campaigns. This is where the term “slacktivism” becomes apparent.  It is all too easy for the majority of generation y social media users to “like” or post a video, photo, link or status related to a social issue but as most research suggests most members of this groups do not go past this stage to engage in the campaign being promoted.

The term “slacktivism” is a neologism of “slacker” and “activism” (Lublin 2012, 52) which according to McCafferty (2011) describes those people who show their concern about social issues on social media websites with a click of a mouse and other online gestures but in reality are not so passionately inspired to actually cause a shift in public perception. Whether it’s on Youtube, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, there is a growing circulation of cause related marketing used to specifically engage young people. 

A prime example of this form of slacktivism was evident in the recent viral marketing campaign for Kony 2012. Although the video received widespread attention with millennials and many actively shared the video, the reality was that the majority didn’t actually engage in any other form of activism for this cause. It is true that this video did make people aware of the injustice facing children caused by the LRA, but clicking on the video was the extent that the majority were and still are willing to go.

The success of the video in terms of exposure, gained such publicity in a short amount of time because 1) the issue was one that many were not previously aware of and 2) hence a degree of simplification was used to create awareness, which many individuals from developed nations could relate to (Cavanagh 2012). Although this meant there was some misrepresentation involved in the simplification of the issue but observers were so captivated by the video that many did not actually take the time to research the subject. Marketing Weekly news (March 24 2012) published that in the 48-hour period in which the video was released, it was viewed approximately 12.5 million times, received 16,800 “likes” on facebook and had 944 blogs discussing the issue.

But why is there a sudden decline in the interest of the issue?

There is still hype about the issue in general but on social media websites, especially on Facebook, evidence of the interest in Kony 2012 is slowly decreasing.

What is your opinion?


Reference:

Cavanagh, Connor. 2012. “Kony 2012 and the Political Economy of Conflict Representation.” Department of International Environment and Development Studies: 3. http://scholar.google.com.au

Mc Cafferty, Dennis. 2011. “Slacktivism vs Activism.” Communications of the ACM. 54 (12): 17-19. doi: 10.1145/2043174.2043182

Lublin, Nancy. 2012. “Helping Humanity with a Click of a Mouse.” Fast Company. (145): 52. http://web.ebscohost.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au