Does social media play a role in today’s social issues? Activism or slacktivism? Don’t worry I also didn’t know what these words really meant up until a few hours ago. Activism when someone uses direct, often confrontational – whether it be violent of not, to demonstrate their opinion on a certain controversial topic or cause. Activism often includes protests or strikes. A big pro to activism is that it gives people a voice. This means that people have the freedom to fight against unjust issues, they can express their own personal feelings, opinions and beliefs. A serious con is that these activist activities (e.g. strikes and protests) often turn violent and many people get injured fighting for what they believe in. Slacktivism is used …show more content…
Social media. There are many contrasting views and debates on whether social media, as a whole, has a positive or negative impact on our community, but one thing that you cannot deny is the impact it has on us. One of the biggest benefits of using social media is the global awareness one can reach with no extra cost or effort. Using twitter for example: one tweet can reach 100 000 people in just a few seconds, there is no other way that you can reach this type of global awareness in such a short period of time. Social media is also really efficient and flexible. Meaning that people can be kept constantly up-to-date about what is happening when and if there are any changes in the plan (this can be really useful in terms of organizing a protest or fundraiser to bring awareness to a cause) A big drawback of social media is that it facilitates laziness. Instead of being active and present (again I will use the example of protests or fundraisers) you can stay at home and just follow a twitter feed that will be covering the event. This diminishes the impact that the event strives …show more content…
People, who don’t have any association with the issue can post untruthful updates and can incorrectly inform those following the feeds about happenings. These incorrect updates could have a detrimental effect on the issue or cause that one is trying to raise an awareness about. Fear for my future. If you haven’t heard about the riots going on at most of the universities here in South Africa, then you have probably been living under a rock. Let’s take TUKS for example, over the past few weeks protests have continued over the university’s proposed modification to an English-only language policy in which all other languages will be offered to students as additional support. All this violence across all the universities of South Africa is making my, and my parents for that matter, second guess my decision of going to university next year. This is a thing I shouldn’t be having any doubts about as applications can be sent in in just a few days. All this violence and threats is scaring of not just me, but many others from going to university and furthering our education – which is mandatory if we want to get a good job one day and make a success of our