Our textbook referred to social justice as the fair and equitable distribution of resources and opportunities within society, and advocating for the right of the least privileged members of society (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). Now the internet and technology play bigger roles in promoting social justice for groups that could be discriminated against, and it can inform people about different issues happening around them. Not only it allows individuals to access a forum to obtain educational information, but they can also find peers to talk to about their issues.
We can learn about social justice issues thanks to a hashtags and videos. If something happens on one part of the country and we think it’s unfair, then we take it upon ourselves to share links, videos, and as much information as we can with our followers. We create an online community in a way, in which we all discuss and issue and try to solve it.
Sometimes I feel like if it wasn’t for social media sites such as Twitter or Facebook, I wouldn’t even find out about the things that are happening not only in the United States but around the world. For example, there the case of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. If it wasn’t for social media, I would have never found about about what really was happening in that country because the media in the United States was not properly covering the issue. Social media also contributed greatly to this uprising. Activist bloggers with different political views were brought together online to discuss the issues that were affecting the country. With the use of social media, the people who started the revolution were able to inform others and to encourage them to take action. Like one of the activists said, their aim “is not to build a political party or bring about a revolutionary overthrow of the government,” their goal in blogging, rather, was “to bring about political consciousness, to create a culture of informed engagement, a willingness to challenge and critique the state” (Hirschkind, 2011, p. 73).
References:
Hirschkind, C. (2011). from the blogosphere to the street: Social media and egyptian revolution. Oriente Moderno, 91(1), 61-74.
Schneider, F.W., Gruman, J.A., & Coutts, L.M. (2012). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Washington, DC: Sage Publications Inc.
[…] for their causes, fundraising, and educating and spreading information to a broad audience. Awareness is spread on issues that people may not know about through major media outlets like the news. If something […]
You are right. Social media is able to provide unfiltered information to the masses in an instant. This provides the impetus for social activism and change. I believe the key is that everyone has a voice. As long as you have access to the internet, your voice can be heard. You do not need money for a marketing campaign or television ads. All you need is a hashtag and a position that you are willing to share with the world. The theory of resource mobilization is at the heart of social media’s effectiveness as a tool for social justice. Resource mobility emphasizes a group’s ability to organize, acquire resources and mobilize people to meets its agenda (Jenkins, 1983). Just look at the Egyptian Revolution, it met all of those conditions. In the end, the president of the country was removed from office. During the uprising, the government actually blocked social media sites like twitter. Fortunately, people discovered workarounds and disseminated the information on social media. Activist were able to use proxies to bypass the Egyptian blocked sites and get the word out about where to protest and meet. A new Pew Research study shows that more people are turning to social media to get their news (Barthel et al, 2015). This should increase the number of social movements that use social media as an effective tool.
Reference:
Barthel, M Shearer, E Gottfried J and Mitchell A (2015) The Evolving Role of News on Twitter and Facebook retrieved from
http://www.journalism.org/2015/07/14/the-evolving-role-of-news-on-twitter-and-facebook/
Jenkins, J. C. (1983). Resource Mobilization Theory and the Study of Social Movements. Annual Review of Sociology, 9, 527–553. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2946077