Social Networking = Social Change?

In addition to connecting people, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter can also serve as tools for social change. A friend sent me this article about an activist’s website and tweets that helped raise awareness about his video exposing the horror of homelessness in America.



This got me thinking about the potential of social networking sites to motivate people and raise awareness about social issues. For example, the “Groups” function on Facebook started out as a way for friends to connect and share information—I remember being a part of silly groups like “Med O Lark Summer Camp 05!” and “I love chocolate!” when I first got Facebook—but now there are a lot of groups that exist for social change. Almost every major environmental organization, for example, has a Facebook group, as do political and other social organizations: check out these groups for Greenpeace, MoveOn.org and Unicef to get an idea. In addition to groups, Facebook also fairly recently introduced the “Causes” application. You can choose to become a supporter of a certain cause and receive updates on progress, participate in discussions with other supporters and find out about events (in addition to letting all your friends see that you support that cause.) I think it’s heartening that social networking websites are starting to be used for more than just posting silly party pictures , and with the number of active users on Twitter and Facebook, there is certainly great potential for rallying activism if causes use these sites to their advantage.