#DoSomething

Nowadays, there are happening really impacting and important events in the world: the terrorist attacks in Paris, the continuous threats from the ISIS, planes that fall before getting to their destination, authoritarianism, etc. All of these events affect societies in particular and everyone else around the world. Today everyone has an opinion about what happens in their own societies and in the rest of the world. But, how do they express themselves?

Social media are playing an important role in a world like ours and help ordinary citizens that have no access to traditional media or to any power position to express their opinion, to solidarize with others who suffer from some disaster or just to comment about what they see. Everyone has an opinion and the interconnectivity offered by new media like Internet helps them not only to know what happens in the world but also to make part of the event, to feel closer and feel important by saying something on their social networks like Facebook or Twitter, the kings of freedom of expression.


Nevertheless, this so called freedom of expression can become a “double-edge weapon” when it comes to doing something. There are two important terms that have appeared with the development of these new technologies and means of communication: participation and slacktivism. It is really important to establish the difference between both and to set up some parameters that make it possible to understand if these new ways of expressing are being used in a healthy way or they affect society even more.

To understand everything else, it is important to define “participation”. According to Nico Carpentier, Peter Dahlgren and Francesca Pasquali there exists two types of participation: participation through the media and participation in the media. Participation through the media refers to the opportunities for intervention on public debate and self-representation in public spaces; meanwhile, participation in the media means being involved in producing content for the media and in decision-making. Most of social media users that just want to share their opinion with their friends and hope for it to be read by many others are considered to participate through the media, because they take part of public debate. There, the problem arises: slacktivism.

When I talk about slacktivism I make reference to the term that combines the words “slacker” and “activism” to mention the measures people adopt to support a social cause or an issue without having to put much effort or time on it. This can be by “liking” posts, sharing something on Facebook, “tweeting” about something, signing online petitions or joining groups created for a certain problem or matter. This is a common practice between us social media users but it can really become unhealthy for a society. Why? Because it seriously affects people’s capacity of engagement and commitment. When someone finds it so easy to express their opinion and wait for it to receive their friends’ “likes” or “retweets”, the ability of getting more engaged with reality and with their society’s problems is highly reduced. “It is easier to tweet, so why would I go out on the streets? That’s what social media are for”.



It is favorable that everyone can say what they think about what happens around them, but it is not good if that is the only thing they do, especially when they are against something and even more when that “something” is a real problem like harassment, discrimination, authority abuse, corruption, terrorism, etc. These kinds of problems can happen daily in any part of the world but, if citizens are just used to post it on Facebook or tweet about it, they won’t change because of lack of action. Sometimes it is not enough to receive a thousand likes and shares, sometimes more is needed, like to ask accountable on what politicians do or go to the streets and raise your voice or to send real donations to people who need it or to protect a woman that is attacked by a man on the street.



Changing your profile picture and putting a country’s flag or a “filter” to support a cause like gay marriage is okay if it is what you think is correct and if you can’t do anything else for it (like in terrorist attacks), but if you just tweet about social insecurity or about rights equality and you don’t take real action on it, then you are a “slacktivist” like any other. Worrying about something won’t make it right, action is needed and for action to take place there has to exist committed people and citizens that will not only conform with posting their opinion on Facebook but that will go further and put more effort to something they believe in.