Everywhere you look these days—from the streets of Chicago to the college campuses of South Africa to the profile pictures of Facebook—advocates and activists are leveraging social media to make their voices and causes heard. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter have empowered more people than ever to take action and demand change, all at the touch of a button.
(Case in point: the tens of thousands of global citizens whose combined 2 million actions in the run-up to the 2015 Global Citizen Festival are set to affect 92 million lives.)
The thing is, these tools are all relatively new. The jury is still out as to which strategies work best, and which fall flat, when it comes to pairing social media with social justice.
The folks at audioBoom wanted to know how some leading advocacy organizations are putting social media to use. So they assembled a panel of experts representing four unique organizations—Undisclosed, WITNESS, Justice League NYC, and Global Citizen—for an in-depth discussion on media, tech and social justice.
Global Citizen's own Managing Editor, Brandon Blackburn-Dwyer, was proud to contribute his perspective on what social media advocacy can accomplish. Catch the start of the hour-long discussion below, then follow along on Twitter, Facebook, or audioBoom to hear more—new clips will be released daily from now through December 10th.
In the following clip, Brandon starts thing off by using the aftermath of the November Paris attacks as an example of how social media can enable people to perform incredible acts of kindness—though social media can also cause a lot of harm.
Many thanks to audioBoom for inviting Global Citizen to participate, fellow panelists Susan Simpson (Undisclosed), Jackie Zammuto (WITNESS), Carmen Perez (Justice League NYC) for the insightful discussion, and Tara Conley from Race Forward for moderating. This discussion was part of Recording in Progress, a series of panel discussions about innovation and new developments in technology, entertainment, culture, business, art and design.
Programs like this highlight the power and effectiveness of digital activism, which is a cornerstone of the Global Citizen experience and the work to end extreme poverty by 2030.