If 10,000 People Read This Post Nothing Much Will Happen
I protested about Moseley Golf Club's planning application to use some of the allotment space next-door, it was easy, I did it online. Well it wasn't easy, I had to do it on Birmingham City Council's website, but you get my point. Now it's gone to appeal, and you have to send letters in triplicate, I may not bother - so did I really care in the first place?
I'm invited to complain, protest and join pressure groups every day via email and Facebook invitations. Clicking yes or no or whatever is very easy, too easy in most cases. When Facebook was the media's darling last year it was easy to get coverage for anything (and I did with Talk Like A Brummie Day) by setting up a Facebook group and mentioning the number of members. That most of them had no interest whatsoever didn't matter - are we going to hold that guy to naming his first child Spiderpig?
When it becomes too easy to complain it becomes too easy to dismiss - my other half got a stinging email in reply from Lynne Jones' office after using one of those "click to send a message to your MP" sites, she was asking about some environmental cause our MP was already supporting. Political campaigns now have to ask you to write something in your own words when emailing, online petitions become nothing but sheer weight of numbers.
Lore Sjöberg at Wired on people being angered by the addition of video to Flickr has a point "There are petitions going around over this. That's not a surprise -- online petitions are the favorite tool of passive activists, in spite of the fact that the only thing they ever accomplish is taking up a few kilobytes on a hard drive somewhere.". It's a little worrying that protesting for action on climate change and over adding video to a photo-sharing website are as easy. Or is it?
The Number 10 Petition site offers little but the promise "Enter your email and we can tell you all, individually, why we're not listening." It may even be a fantastic tool for inertia, when each petition is answered in a lawyerly way dismissed on points of grammar what are the chances of anyone in power noticing a real groundswell of opinion for a great idea?
Social media, the ease of communication and organising, is changing the face of politics and campaigning, but it will take much more than a click from hundreds of individuals. Those people provide a constituency for action, on or offline, an organised campaign - for a coalition of driven individuals, who are focused and able to respond in the media. Clicking to campaign has a place, you're showing support for those that will do - and at least you can easily be kept up-to-date.
In the meantime I've signed to get George Lamb off BBC 6Music, and I'm prepared to take to the streets - we may yet need that Welsh farmer to say "If I can shoot rabbits, I can shoot BBC controllers with no brain."
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You have to take to the streets to make things happen says the accepted campaign wisdom. Look at the way so many marched to stop the war in Iraq. And look how effective that was. Compare the outcomes of the Farepak and Northern Rock campaigns.
Passive protesting has its benefits - some of the Downing St petitions for lesser-known causes have been taken up by the media to give them some long overdue exposure.
But it won't work in isolation.
These days we're more inclined to take the easy way out and so everything gets diluted.
For example, we're offered the chance to watch Live 8 where the main message was: "Remember me? Please start buying my records again," instead of being encouraged to travel to the Make Poverty History protest in Edinburgh at the G8 summit. The result is that Saint Bob and his troop of ageing entertainers get lots of coverage and the G8 leaders are off the hook once again. Probably.
I think a lot of campaigning these days is about how to get the media interested - for a time huge Facebook groups were working. Now what?
Jon: Blimey, now there's a good question. Typically, I'll answer it with another question.
Is there any evidence that politicians, the corporate world and whoever else is making decisions on our behalf these days actually take any notice of what the media - or us - are actually saying?
The Tories continue to deny it, but the poll tax died in no small part to the massive public protests that took place at the time.
These days we still see significant public protests - anti-Iraq war; pro-hunting; MPH - but nothing changes, policies stay the same. Plenty of people voiced their opinion, nothing happened.
Has Web 2.0, e-petitions, social networking and everything else that apparently empowers us simply conspired to play into "their" hands?
By giving us all a voice, we've spread ourselves too thinly and so no-one is actually listening anymore. Too much chatter, not enough action.
I hope it will settle down and come full circle - politicians listening when we speak would be a refreshing change.
But it might be that we need a bit of anarchy in the UK to get things heading in the right direction.
There was a brief surge wasn't there:
The first 'Road Pricing' petition on the Number 10 site garnered a few million signatures, and a lot of coverage, and although they dismissed it at the time an unpopular Labour administration have quietly dropped the idea (for better or worse).
Clay Shirky in his book Here Comes Everybody recounts the story of the HSBC student rip-off that eventually caved, due in no small part to a Facebook group (but only in the end under threat of direct action).
I can't think of another example, but there must be more (anyone?). I guess the point is that greater organisational tools can only help in organising protest - but, no, the 'organisation' online isn't anywhere near enough.
I am taking a new approach by releasing a campaigning single. We will see what happens with this.