26 Sep 2014
A recent New York Times article looked at Twitter’s relationship to the protests over the death of a black teen, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri. While the happenings in Ferguson are heartbreaking, to say the least, the purpose of this post is to compare some of the points raised in the New York Times article with Hamilton’s Twitter activism community.
The New York Times article refers to a counterpublic commonly referred to amongst its users as “Black Twitter” and cites the PEW Internet Project’s study of African Americans and Technology Use. According to the PEW study, “22% of online blacks are Twitter users, compared with 16% of online whites.” and, further to that point, “Younger African Americans in particular have especially high rates of Twitter use. Fully 40% of 18-29 year old African Americans who use the internet say that they use Twitter. That is 12 percentage points higher than the comparable figure for young whites (28% of whom are Twitter users).”
It’s interesting to compare these statistics to the survey findings from the #HamOnt research project, which shows an overwhelming majority of the respondents were white (94.3%). When looking at Hamilton’s demographics, only 13.6% of the population (according to the city’s 2010 TECHNICAL REPORT #3 for The Playbook: A Framework for Human Services Planning in Hamilton identify as a visible minority. From that group, roughly 20% identify as Black, which counts for a mere 3% of the total population of Hamilton.
In a city where the population is predominantly white, it seems logical that Twitter’s #HamOnt population would be largely white as well, but what seems odd is that Twitter’s overall popularity among Black Internet users doesn’t result in larger representation among visible minorities in the survey findings. That said, the #HamOnt survey was conducted using a snowball sampling, which may not be entirely representative of the city’s population.
Another point, that struck me as interesting from the New York Times piece was:
Yemisi Miller-Tonnet, 19, a student at Spelman College in Atlanta, said social media movements should be taken seriously. “Hashtag activism is activism,” Ms. Miller-Tonnet said. “We might be tweeting from a couch, but we’re also getting up and doing the work that needs to be done.”
“Hashtag activism”, or as referenced in the #HamOnt research, slacktivism, is clearly an effective means of garnering support from those that may not be fully aware of the problem in the first place. Hashtags, such as #IfTheyGunnedMeDown and #HandsUpDontShoot were used to show support for the people of Ferguson, as well as build awareness for the cause and the greater injustices that stemmed from Brown’s death.
Both hashtags use imagery to help spread the messages associated with the protests. #IfTheyGunnedMeDown shows two juxtaposed portraits of black youth; one image depicts the individual as a fine upstanding citizen, the other plays on stereotypes to suggest they are less than civil. The #HandsUpDontShoot hashtag carries with it images of supporters with their hands in the air, surrendering, as Brown was doing when he was shot by police. The New York Times claims that the #IfTheyGunnedMeDown hashtag has been used over 168,000 times since the campaign began, making its reach exponentially larger.
Both these hashtag protests express emotion and help sway opinion for the cause. Both sets of images clearly define the undercurrents that fuel the protestors in Ferguson and bring needed attention from around the world to the injustices faced by these protestors as they continue to stand up for what they believe in.