For those of you active on Facebook, how many times have you seen a birthday request from a friend asking for donation to a charity? How often have you responded? Maybe you don’t identify with or even understand the cause, but it’s your friend who’s asking. So, you say to yourself, “What the heck,” and, in a few quick clicks, twenty, fifty, or a hundred bucks are on the way.
Image Source: Facebook
Git ‘Er Done
The important things reflected by your donation, regardless of size or cause are a.) your human spirit of generosity; b.) your connection to the person asking; and c.) you were given a call to action, and you acted. In the context of social media marketing, you felt part of a community because the requester was a friend. You might even have felt connected to the cause; rescue puppies can be hard to resist. Whatever the impetus behind your action, doing something was the nexus of your response. Social media was fulfilling its purpose by serving and mobilizing a community and inducing directed action. You probably felt good for participating, but have you really supported the cause? Let’s explore further…
Cyberactivism
Image source: iStock
An emerging term in the lexicon of social media is cyberactivism, namely what a social media campaign seeks to accomplish by mobilizing like-minded participants to take concerted and meaningful action. Getting out a clear message drives the requirement for social media practitioners to be thoughtful and definitive about what they actually intend by the call to action. What, then, makes an effective social media campaign, and what can go wrong if the messaging goes off the rails?
Breast Cancer Awareness, What Does it Meme?
Image source: Freepik.com
An interesting example of cyberactivism arises from a very dynamic engagement campaign started several years ago in association with National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (October). Clearly, breast cancer is a cause that resonates across gender and social lines, and it is highly worthy of attention and activism. It touches a deep chord within the human desire to do the right thing. Breast cancer is, therefore, a perfect subject for cyberactivism.
Raising awareness for the cause became an impetus for numerous viral memes, particularly on Facebook. Facebook prompted women to self-identify with bra colors, or where they prefer to put their purse, or a number of “inches,” all of which had sexualized undertones that elicited an avid female participation. The memes rapidly proliferated because women recognized their sisterhood as a community, and the gag aspect of the memes were crafted to mischievously confuse males, a gender-centric snicker that resonated with female self-awareness and collective sense of humor.
The Susan G. Komen Foundation, one of the leading organizations for sponsoring breast cancer awareness and research, acknowledged that the memes were very successful in raising breast cancer awareness with a resulting increase in donations.
Image Source: Susan G. Komen Foundation
Despite the memes’ affirmative impact on awareness and fund raising, some questions arose about the campaign’s true meaning in the context of cyberactivism. Unquestionably, the campaign mobilized an ardent female constituency, but did it mobilize that constituency for a meaningful or desired mobilization action? For example, memes may be amusing, more money is helpful, but did the campaign induce more women to get screened? Concurrently, despite the rarity of breast cancer in males, the campaign did nothing to raise awareness that males can, in fact, become afflicted. As a personal reflection, I remember how stunned I was when I learned that a male friend, a big, tough, badass U.S. Marine, had breast cancer. Yikes, not something I would have expected, and I certainly was unaware.
Image source: Memes.com
Looking backwards, with a hindsight that is almost always 20/20, the campaign might have induced a more prosocial outcome if, in addition to fund raising and awareness per se, the call to action had included suggestions and guidance for ways people could become involved in the full panoply of breast cancer support. For example, more screening, heightened male awareness, and guidance for volunteering and other directly participatory activism. To Facebook’s credit, the messaging shifted based on feedback from the community. Again, social media did its job by being an open loop for communication, listening, and redirected action.
Image Source: Facebook
In conclusion, it’s one thing to laugh at a meme or click a dollar amount on a Donate page, but is there more we can do to fulfill our urge to be helpful to the causes we support? With the plethora of online solicitations and social media messaging, it is becoming all too easy to send twenty bucks and feel prosocially supportive of friends, family, and cause. However, is that enough, and has social media truly done its job to effectively mobilize cyberactivism and community involvement? I’ll leave it to you to answer the question for yourself.
Landon Thorne, June 2024 (C)
Sand Gnat Sound Bites 
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