In my opinion, online activism is the activism that happens on the Internet; it could be an advocacy which attracts many other internet users to participate and reflect on real life. It relates to digital leadership since this activity not only happens on individuals, but also a group of people, which people try to use the power of the internet to improve their lives.
As more people use the internet, online activism becomes a tool to increase awareness of something and let more people know and take action on it. It is hard to give an accurate percentage of the effectiveness of cyberactivism, and it is also possible that some people will just take action DIGITALLY instead of changing in reality. Even though we are all unsure about it, people are still willing to try and resonate with more people so that our world could be better.
I know there are billions of hashtags around the world in order to change the world, but besides the topic or hashtag itself, more factors play important roles in this activism.
👉First, I would like to ask all of you,
“How do you know those famous hashtags, such as #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo?”
For me, I know them because my friends were involved in them, and I saw them in the newspaper, but things will only occur in the news when the cases are influential enough.
👉Then, which party, or who, has the power of bringing huge influences to the public?
Celebrity.
I am sure that many celebrities are involved in the two activities which I mentioned above. Whether sharing what they think, or even sharing their own experiences (just like many of them did in #MeToo movement), those influential people want to let more people be aware of the social issues, and gather them into a team. Although not everyone will give useful suggestions on dealing with the problems, there must be some people who stand out from the digital world to the real world and bring effect to their surroundings. In my opinion, online activism is not just helping a specific group of people to solve a problem, it actually exposes the issues that society has to the public, and pushes people to fight for themselves.
However, we also need to admit that there are more activism online which are not “significant” enough or even have been hidden intentionally. Taking all social issues into consideration is hard, but what everyone can do is to treat ourselves as digital leadership, which we are leading the world and we have the cohesion to change the situation.