Environmental Activism and Social Media
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Petsch 1 Environmental Activism and Social Media Anjelica Petsch Environmental activism is not new but has received a heightened platform in the anthropomorphic era through the use of social media to create the term “Cyberactivism”. Environmental cyberactivism has established new policy reforms for a sustainable lifestyle, brought communities together through natural disasters, but in some cases have also gained support and momentum from social media followers supplying discourse but little physical effort, or “slacktivism” (popularized by Evgeny Morozov), towards the same cause. Social media has allowed quick sharing properties of photos and other posts showing over 150 million metric tons of human single use wastes, like straws, plastic bags, etc., floating in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch or harming and killing marine life (Viswanathan, 2018). These images and posts lead to environmental organizations declaring an end to single use plastic, such as the Surfrider Foundation, an organization determined to protect Earth’s oceans and beaches, has set out to declare 2018 as “the year we say goodbye to straws” (Houck, 2018) as around 175 million plastic straws are used and disposed of daily (Viswanathan, 2018). Other environmental activist groups began challenging legislature to ban or reduce plastic bags and containers in order to decrease human waste and pollution. One impactful image originally shared on Instagram, on September 12th, 2017, by a photographer, Justin Hofman, was of a small Petsch 2 seahorse holding a used, plastic q-tip in the ocean off the coast of Indonesia. Hofman shared the image with the caption: Figure 1 Photo credits to Justin Hofman “It’s a photo I wish didn’t exit but now that it does I want everyone to see it. What started as an opportunity to photograph a cute little sea horse turned into one of frustration and sadness as the incoming tide brought with it countless pieces of trash and sewage. This sea horse drifts long with the trash day in and day out as it rides the current that flow along the Indonesian archipelago. This photo serves as an allegory for the current and future state of our oceans. What sort of future are we creating? How can your actions shape our planet?” In the photo’s existence on Instagram, Hoffman has tagged the image with environmental groups’ accounts related with reducing plastic use such as: Plastic Ocean Festival, Plasticides, Petsch 3 Plastic Oceans, Plastics for Change, and Life Without Plastic. The image has been liked over 34 thousand times on Instagram and comments in various languages around the globe. With the hashtag #plastic, the photo is shared into a group of other images promoting the same agenda of cleaning oceans and reducing single-use plastic with images of whales, turtles, and other creatures alive, dead, or impacted by human waste. Like Surfrider Foundation, the Earth Day Network and National Geographic has taken up the fight to end single use plastic dependency however, both websites have placed pledges on their main pages regarding plastic waste. Designing pledges offers viewers to revalue their dependence on single use plastic and determine a goal amount of plastic to use weekly. After submitting the pledge, the website calculates the viewer’s goal number for the year, states how reducing the viewer’s plastic waste can decrease the world’s impact on the environment created by plastic, and presents pledgers with the option to share their devotion on social media for friends, family, and followers to see and take an oath as well. Plastic pledges where consumers promise to reduce their use of single use plastic offers awareness of the big issue but in some cases ends quickly as there is recurring reminder of their impact of the individual’s plastic waste. Using social media to create discourse around environmental topics, for instance climate change and single use waste, among a global audience can be easily written off by some researchers, like Evgeny Morozov, as “slacktivism” where activity on social media “distracts from meaningful action such as real-life protests, strikes, or community engagement” (Hodson et al., 2018) and in some cases replaces it completely. Plastic straw pledges and bans have been criticized by various organizations, like those advocating for people with disabilities and groups fighting for the reduction of all single use plastic wastes. Lily Padula, an illustrator and animator, took to Instagram like Justin Hofman and shared an image of a woman wading in the ocean Petsch 4 proud she removed all the plastic straws from the water, however more plastic bags, containers, and cutlery are still flooding around her. Figure 2 Image credits to Lily Padula Both Justin Hofman and Lily Padula have shared on social media about the plastic crisis. Viewers of each photo can share across social platforms spreading awareness among their friends whether they decide to reduce their own use of single use plastics. Environmental organizations can reach out to celebrity names to further their social media presence and fight; however, the opposite, a rapper named Lil Dicky released a song in support of 2019’s Earth Day. The rapper collaborated with around 30 artists and Leonardo DiCaprio to share with listeners the importance of understanding human’s impact on climate change. Although the rapper stated in a Rolling Stone interview that the origin of the song had no environmental activism focus, but he did have a slight understanding of the anthropogenic Petsch 5 change humans have caused on Earth, such as pollution. Along with the music video of different artists from various genres casted as animals, Lil Dicky launched a website giving fans more information on climate change as well as ways to help, for example buying merch with all proceeds going to help the planet, signing a petition that calls for government leaders to support a Global Deal for Nature, etc. (Green, 2019). Along with information regarding renewable energy and deforestation, on Lil Dicky’s website welovetheearth.org a direct link to the website for #FridaysForFuture, or sometimes also known as #ClimateStrike. #FridaysForFuture was started by a Swedish teenager, Greta Thunberg, the hashtag and movement calls for people and students to protest the government and societal requirement for children to attend school in order to become educated for a future they see will not be inhabitable by the time it comes around. Greta Thunberg is one of the main figureheads for the movement and consistently calls on politicians to support science and scientist when making new laws that impact the earth and climate, may that be laws in business, health regulation, or others. Around the globe, school children have access to the internet and each other that previous generations never had. The impact of hashtags and internet events allow word of a protest or movement to spread quickly and worldly. Environmental cyberactivism is fueled by hashtags and geo-tagging events and places; bringing people together during disasters as well as bringing people out into nature to ground them back to Earth in hopes they will too want to help protect and preserve. The internet and social media have given an influencer aspect to environmentalism grown from young entrepreneurs who have “fostered cross-cultural literacies, raised the value of digital estates, demonstrated the potential of networked social movements, and seen the spread of vernacular practices on a global scale” (Abidin, pg. 87). Environmental influencers can originate out of a Petsch 6 activist group, like Greta Thunberg, or from certified social media persons with a large following base, like Leonardo DiCaprio. Social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, allow “citizens to engage with each other and learn more about pressing societal issues” (Carew, 2014) as well as maintain communication between friends and family. Environmental organizations using social networking platforms give users quick access to the frontlines with originally 140 character per tweet but has been increased to 280 character. Organizations’ Twitter accounts and hashtags can create “Twitter storms” around environmental issues, for instance in 2013 the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) created a campaign hashtag, #Iam4rhinos to coincide with World Rhino Day and bring awareness to the increase of rhino poaching in South Africa. Hashtags, like #Iam4rhinos, make environmental topics more visible to users, however users’ “slacktivism” is typical to make campaigns and hashtags highly popular. #Iam4rhinos was one of the biggest Twitter campaigns originated around a predetermined hashtag with around 53,624 Twitter users shared over 150,000 tweets. Twitter users and their “slacktivism” involved with #Iam4rhinos used their tweets to call upon popular celebrities and even the Queen of England to join in the spreading of the hashtag and information regarding rhino poaching (Carew, 2014). The access to social media by environmental organization allows groups to disseminate their platform and messages within a short, dynamic method to a diverse consumer base; similar to how large-scale environmental organization use social media, people in communities devastated by environmental issues, such as hurricanes, access to clean water, etc., can humanize the issues for the world to see and show sympathy (Moss 2016). Humanizing natural disasters and other environmental issues help propel environmental activism groups’ platforms among governmental organizations. However, in some cases, such as hurricanes and large floods, Petsch 7 crowdsourcing and acts of “clicktivism” are ways people can give toward a cause. For instance, after Hurricane Sandy devastated New York, a group partially resurrected from Occupy Wall Street offered “mutual aid, solidarity, and direct participation” (Tufekci, pg. 215) for the families in the area which the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was not able to deliver. Five years after Sandy, Hurricane Harvey hit the Greater Houston Area in Texas groups and individuals took to raising funds and supply aid to residents effected by the immense flood waters, like that of the Occupy Sandy organizations in New York.