The Alteration of Social Cause Communications through Technology
The topic of digital communications and its effects on the world seems to expand each day. This notion of grandiose reach and exponential growth has engulfed the world faster than quicksand. To think back to a time when digital communications did not exist seems preposterous. Each person has the ability to obtain information in the blink of an eye, and from now on our lives will be tracked in spacious clouds that do not exist to the naked eye. The objective is to then properly analyze just how this overflow of interactions, and reach, to unsuspecting audiences has altered how the world’s most elaborate problems may be solved.
Prior to the integration of digital communications, social causes were left to be fixed by those who already had an innate desire or passion for the cause at hand. Now, specific groups of people may be selected, and news of upsets across the globe are echoed within minutes. According to the World Economic Forum,
“During the Arab Spring of 2011–2012, digital media served as a vehicle to mobilize resources, organize protests and draw global attention to the events. Through digital media, users around the world collected $2 million in just two days for victims of the Nepal earthquake of 2015. Refugees fleeing the war in Syria have cited Google Maps and Facebook groups as sources of information that helped them to not only plan travel routes but to also avoid human traffickers.”
These couple of instances alone show the strength in digital communications. Does the question then lie in the idea of how many problems the world is capable of dealing with at once?
In an article from the New York Times by Ben Ehrenreich, he speaks with Joseph Tainter on this idea of complexity within our world concerning inevitable collapses throughout history.
“It is our very creativity, our extraordinary ability as a species to organize ourselves to solve problems collectively, that leads us into a trap from which there is no escaping. Complexity is “insidious,” in Tainter’s words. “It grows by small steps, each of which seems reasonable at the time.” And then the world starts to fall apart, and you wonder how you got there.”
This is not saying that we may be incapable to solve the world’s problems without collapsing, but it does throw caution. A world spent attempting to fix each problem all at once may never be able to fully repair.
A particular international non-governmental organization (INGO) that has stood out over the years has been the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF). As digital communications have grown, they have continued to stay up to date and informative with their global audiences. According to WWF, they have a strategy that continues to focus upon “six key areas: forests, marine, freshwater, wildlife, food, and climate.” With the addition of stating to put people at the center of it all.
The tactics and strategies implemented by the WWF lead to a more organized approach to activism. They have accurately assessed their varying platforms and audiences held within each. Whether it be a hashtag campaign on Twitter or an Instagram educational poll, this organization has continued to prove its edge on the digital communications front.
On a larger scale, digital communication appears to be the right path to take in forming cohesive and educational movements that may be able to extend to opposite sides of the world. The challenge will soon become a prioritization game, because just as Rome was not built in a day, the world may not be able to solve each problem arising all at once.
