Question

Do you believe that Online Activism results in real change, or do you think it is something that people do to make themselves look good/feel better about themselves? Look for some examples of both in recent history to back your point.

Reflect your findings in a 350 word discussion post. Be sure to link to multiple online sources and add in visual and other multimedia resources to help you make your point. Be sure you credit your sources via a linkback. You are considering other’s ideas, so they need to be credited as such.

Answer 1

Online Activism results in relatively minimal change. The reason behind this matter is because people generally only take action virtually and not in real life. Although there are fewer opportunities to take action in person, there is a relatively strong difference of seeing someone dying of cancer online and seeing someone in person dying of cancer. This can be summed down to sympathetic disconnect, being how virtualization creates a disconnect between people emotionally and causes the static statement of, "There's nothing I can do" when there's donations and organizations to contribute to always there. It's much easier to feel included in person than online, and accordingly, much more often a reason for people to interact and take actual action.