False Equivalencies: Online Activism from Left to Right Media Social Capital,” Predicted the Propensity to Engage in Similar Activities Offline
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DEMOCRACY IN THE BALANCE REVIEW found that the use of social media to address community problems, which they call “social False equivalencies: Online activism from left to right media social capital,” predicted the propensity to engage in similar activities offline. And a meta- Deen Freelon1,2*, Alice Marwick2,3, Daniel Kreiss1,2 analysis of 106 survey studies of young people's civic and political use of digital media in >35 Digital media are critical for contemporary activism—even low-effort “clicktivism” is politically consequential countries found that the use of digital media for and contributes to offline participation. We argue that in the United States and throughout the industrialized political purposes was positively correlated with West, left- and right-wing activists use digital and legacy media differently to achieve political goals. Although offline political and civic engagement (6). left-wing actors operate primarily through “hashtag activism” and offline protest, right-wing activists The unanimity of the literature on this point manipulate legacy media, migrate to alternative platforms, and work strategically with partisan media to spread has led some to declare that the clicktivism their messages. Although scholarship suggests that the right has embraced strategic disinformation and debate is conclusively settled (7). However, conspiracy theories more than the left, more research is needed to reveal the magnitude and character of this conclusion is premature given several im- left-wing disinformation. Such ideological asymmetries between left- and right-wing activism hold critical portant questions that lack solid empirical implications for democratic practice, social media governance, and the interdisciplinary study of digital politics. answers. One of the most pressing begins with the observation that political engage- ment is issue specific: An individual can be ctivism is a fixture of contemporary Low cost, high benefit: Clicktivism and engaged with one or more issues and disen- politics, both democratic and otherwise. political participation gaged from others. The clicktivism question At its core is the drive to enact or pre- Since the start of social media’s diffusion then evolves from whether low-cost digital ac- Downloaded from A vent political, cultural, and/or social throughout Western societies, concerns have tivities exhaust one’s engagement with politics changesbyarangeofmeans.Although been raised about its efficacy for political par- in general to whether such activities may do so nonelite citizens have advanced activist claims ticipation. One prominent early objection was for specific issues that lie beyond the person’s against the powers that be for millennia (1), that “slacktivism” or “clicktivism,” low-cost sym- usual interests. For example, whereas liking, in the 21st century, digital media offer un- bolic actions such as sharing, “liking,” changing sharing, and posting memes about environ- precedented tools for activists around the one’s profile image, and generally posting ac- mentaltopicsmaybejustoneofmanywaysan http://science.sciencemag.org/ world to help realize their sociopolitical tivist content on social media, projects an environmentalist engages with her pet issue, visions. In this review, which focuses on the impression of efficacy without actually being it may be the only way she does so for, say, United States but also incorporates evidence effective (3). The two assumptions underlying Black Lives Matter when that movement is from other countries, we argue that both the this objection are, first, that such digitally trending nationally on Twitter. The pat- ideological left and right use the ad- tern of punctuated equilibrium that typ- ditional channels and low-cost parti- ifies social movement activity on social cipation afforded by digital media to media implies that some variant of this reach potentially sympathetic publics. “Digital political activities–including will be true at least some of the time. To However, despite some similarities, re- low-cost ones–are a continue with the Black Lives Matter cent research indicates that left and example, a study that tracked related right differ sharply in how they use di- complement to, not a substitute for, tweets over a 1-year period overlapping on December 14, 2020 gital media. Whereas the left generally the movement’s birth showed a few sharp combines on- and offline protest ac- their offline counterparts.” peaks of interest (most prominently in tions with transmedia branding, an ap- August, November, and December of 2014 proach known as “hashtag activism” and in April and May of 2015) separated (2), the right tends to eschew offline protest mediated symbolic behaviors are generally not by lengthy periods of much lower activity (notwithstanding a few prominent excep- consequential in and of themselves and, sec- (Fig. 1) (8). This is typical of such movements’ tions), preferring instead a combination of ond, that they substitute for more impactful social media activity and indeed of social me- “trolling” or manipulating mainstream me- actions such as voting or offline protest. Later, dia in general (9). dia, protest against and even strategic exit we will turn to recent research on how digital Logically, the bursts of attention that create from platforms owned by “Big Tech,” and activism can be highly impactful on its own, such peaks must be provided by people (or bots, cooperation with ideologically friendly me- contributing to phenomena such as disinfor- a non-negligible possibility) who engage for a dia outlets. Moreover, available evidence mation. Meanwhile, empirical research has short time and then depart, leaving a com- suggests that the right has invested far consistently failed to support the proposition mitted core of activists to sustain the baseline more than the left in disinformation and that digital action substitutes for offline action conversation. Whether such participation is conspiracy theories as core components of (4–6). That is, people who are strongly inte- considered clicktivism is more a question of its activist repertoire, although a lack of sim- rested in politics tend to express that interest philosophy than empiricism. On the one hand, ilar research on the left makes comparisons through both online and offline behaviors. Dig- the degree of individual commitment is un- difficult. These asymmetric trends hold im- ital political activities–including low-cost ones– doubtedly low, but on the other, the aggregate portant implications both for scholarship are a complement to, not a substitute for, their crests of attention generated by thousands or and for democratic practice. offline counterparts. Inversely, those who are millions of such actions can catapult a protest uninterested in politics tend to avoid it both movement from obscurity to international pro- online and offline. Specifically, Lane et al. minence (10). As Freelon et al.document(8), 1Hussman School of Journalism and Media, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. 2Center found that sharing information about politics grassroots attention on social media played for Information, Technology, and Public Life, University of on social media predicted offline political ac- a substantial role in spreading the initial pub- North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. tivities such as attending political meetings, lic awareness of Black Lives Matter’sexistence 3Department of Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. contacting public officials, and donating money and goals, which was an essential precursor *Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] to political campaigns (4). de Zúñiga et al. (5) to its widespread acceptance by the American Freelon et al., Science 369, 1197–1201 (2020) 4 September 2020 1of5 public in mid-2020 (11). Our hypothetical en- we might expect that right-wing actors would and disruptive events, such as Michael Brown’s vironmentalist may not have engaged with use online and offline means to pursue their death at the hands of police officer Darren Black Lives Matter at all if low-cost online interests similarly to the way that those on Wilson in Ferguson, MO (#BlackLivesMatter), actions were unavailable; thus, rather than the left do. One survey-based study found that thedisclosureofHarveyWeinstein’s decades- substituting for higher-cost street-level activ- for American respondents with low political long history of sexual predation (#MeToo), and ism, online actions broaden symbolic support interest, “easy political behaviors [such as a series of American fast-food worker strikes for movements (12). liking and commenting on social media] can in 2012–2013 (#Fightfor15). Second, such hash- Our main arguments on clicktivism can be be gateway behaviors to more significant po- tags are buoyed by the widespread engage- summarized thusly: There is a continuum of litical activities,” butthatideologywasnota ment of nonelites, ordinary citizens who relate online activist participation ranging from post- significant predictor of this tendency (19). to the hashtag’s core message or simply want to ing and liking content to high-level decision- declare their support. This is what causes them making as a full-time activist. Even more, as Left- and right-wing digital strategies to “trend” on social media and thereby trigger the remainder of this review clearly reveals and ecosystems the third element: attention and support from through the lens of recent