Decoding the #Hashtag

BE it the glorious Language Movement of 1952 or the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, no movement can come about without collective action. Social and/or political activism fuelled with the power of mass campaign helps birth a movement. In the modern world, the very nature of "mass campaign" has changed in a variety of ways. The advent of social media, in fact, has reined in an era of a new breed of activism: digital activism.  

Prior to the digital era, print media played a pivotal role in mobilising the masses, especially in terms of nation-building. In his seminal book Imagined Communities, eminent scholar Benedict Anderson suggests that print materials like newspapers fostered a sense of cultural belonging among people across a country. Publishers began to print newspapers in the vernacular, making it possible for readers who spoke local dialects to understand one another. 

During the Language Movement, for example, Bengali newspapers such as Ittehad and The Daily Azad played an instrumental role in their advocacy of reinstating Bengali as an official language and mobilising the Bengali people. The Language Movement laid one of the very first foundations of the Bengali national identity and became a forerunner to the Liberation War that birthed an independent Bangladesh. The Nation, the weekly Irish newspaper published in the 19th century, is credited for creating the first modern nationalist movement in Ireland. The newspaper was founded by three young men who belonged to Young Ireland -- a movement that sought to free Ireland from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The Nation mobilised Irishmen across the country and greatly influenced the development of Irish nationalism. 

In the digital era, however, the Internet is the crux of modern movements. The Egyptian Revolution of 2011, for example, began on Facebook. A spontaneous Facebook page dedicated to Khaled Saeed, the young Egyptian man who died in police custody, soon attracted such a large following that it eventually culminated into other demonstrations and the historic rally at Tahrir Square. The critical role played by social media in the Arab Spring -- the wave of protests in the Arab world that began with the Tunisian Revolution in late 2010 -- as a whole is undeniable. 

Whereas print media mobilised masses mainly (but not strictly) around a local and/or national issue, social media made possible for local phenomena to spread around the globe. Mass media communication revolutionised the very means of mass mobilisation. Networked media slashed costs and decentralised the modes of information production and distribution. Exchanging 
information became cheaper and faster. 

One no longer needs to belong to a political party or an advocacy group to be part of a movement. A single hashtag, representing a common cause, holds the unprecedented power to unite thousands, if not millions. E-petitions, event planning, crowdfunding and other means of mass campaigning on the digital platform are resourceful tools for mobilisation. One of the most important features of digital media is the ability to transmit unfiltered information. Unlike print media, where content undergoes a rigid editing process, the cyberspace allows for an organic environment for free content sharing and dialogue among global citizens. 

Demands of past and contemporary movements aren't that different. Whether it's the Language Movement of 1952 or the Arab Spring, the fundamental demands are generally social, economic or political in nature. But some differences can be pointed out when it comes to identifying the forces behind the formulation of demands of a certain movement. In the past, associated political parties and leaders of a movement would stipulate their demands. For instance, the Six Point Programme spearheaded by Bangabandhu outlined the six demands put forward by a coalition of political parties to end the exploitation of East Pakistan. Similarly, the Black Panther Party introduced the Ten Point Programme during the Civil Rights Movement, and so on. 

But such manifestos are largely missing (although not obsolete) from recent social movements. Why is that? Because in a digital era where it has become much easier to mobilise masses, movements have become increasingly leaderless and formal organisations are no longer the face of a movement. Manifestos aren't necessary to mobilise support. It's the people who raise different issues which then compete with one another to emerge as the determinants that shape a movement's cause. The Arab Spring is said to have been instigated by a number of things like human rights violations, unemployment, poverty, etc. These concerns were raised by the people themselves. Similarly, the Occupy Movement, 15-M protests in Spain and the Hong Kong protests were largely shaped by the people's demands. So does this mean movements nowadays are more populistic in nature? That is a matter of debate.      

ISIS' social media campaign is nothing like you've ever seen before. The Al-Qaeda inspired outfit is expanding its web presence with a slick social media strategy to recruit fighters, raise funds and spread (terrifying) propaganda. That's the topic of a study conducted by the Brookings Institution; the study estimates that as of December 2014, there were at least 46,000 Twitter accounts in support of ISIS. The app "Fajr al-Bashaer" sends users news and updates about the group fighting in Iraq and Syria. A ten-page online magazine called The Islamic State Report, which one could easily mistake for a professional magazine because of its sophisticated, creative graphics and content, talks about what life would look like in the envisioned Islamic State.  

With digital activism, spreading awareness and joining a cause has become easier than ever. But that also means a Facebook group or a Twitter hashtag can just as easily be replaced with another and counter-movements may spring up just as fast. Newsfeeds are constantly being bombarded with new information every minute and people's collective memory has become amnesic. Netizens move on from one cause to another feeling good about themselves about "participating" in a noble cause. Online causes generally gain steam when celebrities or other well-known figures are involved; other more "important" causes may not appear on the public radar at all. Then there is the issue of surveillance and the very real threat to privacy. 

There is an ongoing debate about the "success" rate of digital activism, given that success means different things to different people. "Do hashtags translate into actual change?" is the type of question being asked by cyber-pessimists and other critics. But in the meantime, one thing is for certain: digital activism continues to flourish.  

The writer is a journalist at The Daily Star.