What All These Concepts Add Up To

“Do you need to march or can you YouTube?” Marnie Webb, co-CEO at CompuMentor, asked this question, striking at the heart of the issue of youth and activism in the Connected Age. What, if anything, does all of the click-ing, blogging, and “friending” add up to in the end?

Joshua Levy, the Associate Editor of the Personal Democracy Forum, says, “The language of change is changing. There are literally hundreds of thousands of voices online, on blogs, for and against issues as large as the war in Iraq that would have never been heard before.”

Ivan Boothe describes the new model of change this way: “…If you just need bodies at a rally, names on a petition, or donations in your coffers, mobilizing through traditional means will work great. But if you need an active, educated, and effective movement, organizing through social webs has the potential to create much more lasting change.”

But is it more or less effective than the old models of advocacy and activism? In part the question is unfair, because social media tools and mechanisms are so new it is difficult to assess their impact. However, there are clear indications that the way young people define the process and goals of activism is profoundly different from earlier generations.

For example, in the 1960s, the nonprofit advocacy community began to emerge as institutional alternatives and pressure points for policies and policymaking by government institutions. The model was linear: raise awareness of an issue, engage people in activities to support the cause, and influence or change public policy.

Within this framework, civil rights proponents in the early 1960s marched to move the federal government to pass legislation to protect the rights of all Americans. Environmental advocates pressed local governments to create recycling programs in the 1970s. The 1980s ushered in a new era of medical advocacy, with causes from eradicating AIDS to a push for federal research dollars.

An interest in policy change still exists within some Millennial activist efforts. GI-Net worked hard to help pass the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act. Similarly, Power Shift 2007 wants to influence the agenda of candidates for the presidency in 2008, and try to ensure that they will commit to policy goals to alleviate the climate crisis.

Nevertheless, specific policy outcomes are not a significant component for most Millennial activist efforts. Social capital is the new commerce and the end result of many cause-related efforts spearheaded by young people. Social connections are the vehicle through which funds are raised, awareness of issues is built, and mobilization, such as letter writing and marches, occurs.

Ivan Boothe describes the new model of change this way: “What it all comes down to is that we’re focusing on organizing people … and much of that happens in a decentralized, self-organized sort of way, rather than simply mobilizing people for a particular event or campaign and then sending them home. If you just need bodies at a rally, names on a petition, or donations in your coffers, mobilizing through traditional means will work great. But if you need an active, educated, and effective movement, organizing through social webs has the potential to create much more lasting change.”

Or, as Joshua Levy says, “success is building a snowball of participation.”

Some argue this model is lacking, and that focusing so heavily on online activism and excluding policy change from the activist equation is insufficient for societal challenges that might not be popular or affect marginalized communities of people. In answer to her own question, Marnie Webb says, “It’s hard to make lasting change without getting Congress involved in some way. At some point you need to push on those structures.”

And Thaddeus Ferber offers this caution: “There is a drawback to online activism alone; it is missing a personal connection and social bond, essential elements to organizing that can be lost for mass mobilizing.”

Nonetheless, there is a new model of activism taking hold among millions of young people that cannot be ignored or dismissed. With sites and causes organized and energized by young people, the end goal is to raise money, increase awareness by sharing information with a friend, or demonstrate public alignment with a cause.

By and large, Millennials are not interested in or focused on the creation of new government policies as solutions for the issues they care about. They are focused primarily on taking action and seeing results.