In what ways do the comments on Doubt’s Facebook campaign demonstrate the role of the interactive audience in social media activism?
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“Interactivity comes from the design of technologies while participation emerges from social and cultural practices” (Carpentier and Jenkins, 2013:8). The interactivity of Facebook is determined by the reactions to a post or the comments or videos posted. Social media has altered the author-text-audience relationship through “blurring the line between author and audience and eroding older technological, policy and conventional models for the ‘control’ of the text, its narrative sequencing and its distribution” (Cover, 2006). In social media activism, the audiences’ interactivity plays an integral role. A campaign’s influence is determined by the actions of the users or participants (Green, 2002). Admittedly, the online participants managed to be part of the campaign, but that by no means meant they would share a dominant reading with Chimonyo’s preferred message.
Participatory culture, a theory within which this study falls, is reflected on the Facebook campaign through online audience participation. Interaction covers socio-communicative relationships, while participation covers the field of decision-making processes and power relations (Carpentier and Jenkins, 2013:10). Conversations and information that dominate social media reflect its users' interests, choices, and preferences (Lim, 2013:646). Some of the aspects of participatory culture that were fulfilled include, i) "strong support for creating and sharing one's creations" (Jenkins et al., 2006:3), as evidenced by the ability of anyone to contribute to the live campaign by calling in, commenting and reacting as the live video went on.
ii) “What is known by the most experienced is passed to novices”. Information on how to raise funds was shared, or how to navigate customs should anyone from outside Zimbabwe want to donate to the cause, for example,
Masibanda is right, I can assist on what it takes to register a PVO and Customs Zimra regulations to avoid inconveniences like what we have witnessed with others (Sinyoro Unclek, online participant, 2 November 2018).
iii) One in which members believe their contributions matter (Jenkins et al.,2006:3). Through commenting, it proved the platform was open for anyone to contribute. Considering that Facebook has a function to block comments, the fact that the comment boxes were open and available means that everyone present was at liberty to make a contribution.
134 iv) Participants feel some degree of social connection with one another (at least they care about what other people think about what they have created) (Jenkins et al., 2006:3). This point speaks to the notion of identity; even though the online participants were set in different countries and places, they seem to have shared a background of coming from Zimbabwe which drove them to participate and want to contribute to the campaign.
However, the same cannot be said about the campaign’s influence and resonance on the offline Epworth community. Despite social media activism creating a wave, there was no evidence that it facilitated any practical change on the ground. The first aspect that Jenkins et al., (2006;3) provide to what constitutes participatory culture was not met, this is the aspect of “a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement”. The main barrier for the Epworth community was access, which subsequently prevented all the other aspects of participatory culture. Consequently, this calls for a hybridised form of communication, a combination of social media and communicative forums such as the Dare.
In this manner, there is both cultural representation through the Dare and contemporary representation through social media. Given the resources and fair access to participation, the local and often marginalised communities are willing and can engage with and via social media.
Facebook means different things to different people. It can be entertainment, a platform for activism, a source of business, or an opportunity to troll. The analysis concludes that it satisfies many functions, including the above mentioned, but how the intended audience perceives and reacts determines a campaign's overall function. Social position may set parameters to the
“range of potential readings through the structure of access to different codes”
(Morley,1991:80). Judging by the responses from the Epworth citizens, this campaign seemingly intensified the mistrust of NGOs, which is the complete opposite of the intended outcome by the campaign creator. The encoders from the Epworth community shared a mostly oppositional view and a partly negotiated reading on the use of social media as a platform for activism to address child sex work in their community. In contrast, the online audience shared both a dominant and negotiated reading as they shared some of the encoded themes. The Epworth audience direct experience contributed to their stance on the reading of the campaign.
Similarly, the online audience’s access to alternative account presented by the media may have led to a dominant and negotiated decoding of the message (Morley,1991: 92). The results show a disjuncture between the campaign online and the offline response or lack thereof.
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“Simple or simplified narratives that are associated with low-risk activism and are congruent with ideological meta-narratives have a much higher chance of going viral and generate significant activism” (Lim, 2013: 650). As simple as the campaign against child sex work was, it did not garner enough traction to cause a buzz on social media or jumpstart active offline action. Similar to Lim’s (2013) conclusion after studying the Indonesian case, I have learnt that the participatory nature of social media certainly is most suitable to disseminate popular culture-related content, while this “participatory culture can be borrowed for civic engagement and political mobilisation, it is limited in its capacity to mobilise complex issues” (Lim, 2013:653).
Studies of social media activism have tended to “prioritise seminal case studies, such as the Arab Spring, while ignoring relatively small scale but no less important case studies that show contextualised social media practices at the local level, bounded by local contexts and history”
(Matsilele, 2019:37). This study addressed this gap by examining Chimonyo’s campaign in the context of its local social, political and economic discourses by speaking to local Epworth residents. One of the study’s main findings in relation to the question on Facebook’s role as a participatory platform to mediate activism, is that in this case, Facebook favours middle-class related issues that get more support and traction. The Epworth community who do not belong to the middle class, mostly refute the interactivity of Facebook because of their challenge to access the platform due to the daily needs they need to meet before they can think of buying data to go online. Participants from the offline community highlighted this hierarchy of needs in terms of the limited value placed on internet connection within a poverty-stricken community.
If I am to get US$10 right now, l will head straight to buy mealie meal, not to think of buying social media bundles. We are already struggling as it is. I will think of the important things that are missing from my house because internet bundles are a luxury (Participant 5, Epworth Female FGD, 11 January 2020).
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