Slacktivism is engaging in visible displays of little to no cost to support a given cause, while at the same time lacking any will to participate in tangible efforts for change. (Kristofferson, White, & Peloza, 2013). Although social media empowers individuals to make grass roots efforts more easily, organize charitable campaigns, and quickly garner support for specific causes, it also enables nominal participation without any sort of meaningful engagement. Examples include donning bracelets and pins, signing electronic petitions, hashtag use, and the ubiquitous Facebook like (Kristofferson et al., 2013). 

Importance

Slacktivism, hashtag activism, or this author’s term “Pseudo participation” is an important topic of research because of the vast amounts of resources at stake with social activism of all types. Political campaigns, disaster relief, charitable donations, and other causes are all affected by the rise of social media. Because social media is easily accessible and (unlike traditional mass media) allows two-way communication, it can potentially mitigate the vast gulf of influence between larger entities vs. singular individuals. As an example, social media offers a means for nearly anyone to participate directly in the political processes through campaigns and political action groups, thereby increasing their personal power and investment in society (Kwak, N., Lane, D. S., Weeks, B. E., Kim, D. H., Lee, S. S., & Bachleda, S., 2018). Unfortunately, the same ease of access may confer a sense of participation regardless of risk, effort, or any real-world effect (Foster, M.D.,Hennessey, E., Blankenship, B. T.,& Stewart, A., 2019). Perhaps more disheartening, as social media communication exhibits the same trickle-down effect as traditional mass media (Chou, E. Y., Hsu, D. Y., & Hernon, E., 2020) and larger or more dedicated entities also utilize social media, self-delusion of activism from token efforts may further disenfranchise the individual compared to no participation at all.

Main Take-Aways Analyzing Pseudo Participation

Social media, while ubiquitous, is still a new element of society, but the debate of active vs. passive participation is not. Faced with TV culture in 1970, Gil Scott-Heron famously proclaimed “The Revolution will not be televised” expressing his belief only real-world action could effect changes (Glenn, C. L., 2015). Offering an opposing view almost a half-century later in 2009 Andrew Sullivan spoke of the Iran uprising “The Revolution will be Twittered,” (Glenn, C. L., 2015). The issues quickly become muddled when the use of social media as a rallying and organization point are accounted. Tweets and Facebook posts can be laughed off as white noise – a block of 50,000 protesters organized through said posts is a bit harder to ignore.

What about less political causes? In 2017 Hurricane Harvey made landfall near Houston Texas, causing over 125 billion in property damages, and leaving thousands homeless (New York Times, 2017). Data on the number of likes and hashtags, and other forms of Slacktivism response is not available (Twitter and Facebook do not release statistics on content participation). In terms of real word response, the Samaritan’s Purse organization alone sent over 10,000 volunteers (this author included) to assist in relief efforts, almost all organized through Facebook channels and the Samaritan’s Purse social web portal (Samaritan’s Purse, 2017). Although a ratio of active vs. passive participation is not available, the political and non-political results anecdotally support a hypothesis that regardless of slacktivism, social media is a net positive for activist efforts. Research indicates slacktivism vs. activism is nominally predictable based on visibility. Observable token efforts (likes, hashtags, etc.) provide a social status reward, satisfying the subject’s need of positive recognition and decreasing the likelihood of further participation. Conversely, invisible efforts act on the subject’s sense of personal value, increasing likelihood of further participation (Kristofferson et all, 2013).

Charitable giving through social media e-pledges encounters similar issues. Although considered a donation promise, e-pledges have no consequence if the pledge does not follow through with a real donation. Additionally, and along with the same social and personal reward difficulties encountered by other aspects of social activism, some donors may simply mistrust e-pledges (Chou, E. Y et al., 2020). However, even with a poor ratio of pledge to donation, the low cost of solicitation on social media makes it an attractive option for seeking donations.

Other research suggests passive participation is not passive at all. Rather, it is a small portion of collective collaboration of effort, an “information activism”. Passive participants may indeed dismiss offline or higher risk efforts as pointless (Kwak, N., Lane, D. S., Weeks, B. E., Kim, D. H., Lee, S. S., & Bachleda, S., 2018), but it may not matter. Because theorists define collective action as intent based, any action that benefits a collective effort is an active form of participation, no matter how small (Foster, M. D. et al. 2019). In theory, the spreading awareness of an idea, concept, or social change has an inevitable real-world effect, and therefore token efforts are real-world effective.

Strengths and Limitations of the Research

An immediate concern of any research concerning social media is the lack of data availability. For most well-known social platforms, data useful for qualitative research is considered a valuable trade secret. Great care must be taken to construct empirical models to simulate real world behaviors that may easily reach billions of interactions.

To asses downstream participation after a token effort (Chou, E. Y et al., 2020) gathered 93 students, disguised their program as a game to avoid prediction behavior of the students toward experimenter’s desires, and asked them to sign a petition using one of the following methods presented at random:

• Clicking a “like” button.
• Signing initials.
• Signing full name.

The participants were then asked to volunteer suggestions to improve the disguised study. All signed, but only 47% provided voluntary suggestions. This method effectively gauges effort vs. result in a sterile environment but fails to address the effects of visible reward vs. personal value reward encountered in real social media.

In an entirely different approach (Kristofferson, K. et al., 2013) conducted a field study at the University of British Columbia immediately preceding Remembrance Day. As students entered a hallway passing to the main cafeteria, researchers offered one of the following (selected to divide students into three even groups):

• Public token: Poppy pin representative of veteran support, placed visibly onto the student’s clothing.
• Private token: Same as public token but given to student in a sealed envelope.
• No token offer made to student.

As they proceeded through the far end of a hall, the subjects were subsequently asked to make an anonymous donation (excluding any students that were offered a token refused). The study found students who accepted a private token donated an average of .85USD compared to .35USD from students with a public token. This study firmly addresses the theory of visible reward vs personal value reward in a real-world scenario, although results should be reviewed cautiously due to the uncontrolled environment.

            One weakness of all studies conducted is the use of students, introducing a potentially severe convenience research bias. Although studies were careful to maintain racial and gender balance, the demographic invariable skewed toward ages between 20 and 30.

Directions for Future Research

Current research addresses specific aspects of slacktivism. Effort vs reward, and visible recognition vs. personal value. Future research should focus on combining results of varied facets into more comprehensive models. The difficulty of acquiring data from social media could be somewhat overcome by establishment of experimental activist communities or requesting data from willing communities already in place. It may then be possible to effectively compare social media vs. real-world participation. Additionally, greater demographic diversity is necessary – older (and much younger) groups are likely to exhibit widely differing behavior.

Conclusion

Casual observation may say slacktivism is rapidly destroying activism, but like most human behaviors the research indicates a far more complex relationship. Additionally, social media is merely the latest venue for active and passive participants alike – it did not create activism or slacktivism. More research is necessary to draw a definitive conclusion about what destructive effects social media may have on activism overall, if any.

References

Chou, E. Y., Hsu, D. Y., & Hernon, E. (2020). From slacktivism to activism: Improving the commitment power of e-pledges for prosocial causes. Plos One, 15(4). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0231314

Glenn, C. L. (2015). Activism or “Slacktivism?”: Digital Media and Organizing for Social Change. Communication Teacher, 29(2), 81–85. doi: 10.1080/17404622.2014.1003310

Kristofferson, K., White, K., & Peloza, J. (2013). The Nature of Slacktivism: How the Social Observability of an Initial Act of Token Support Affects Subsequent Prosocial Action. Journal of Consumer Research, 40(6), 1149–1166. doi: 10.1086/674137

Kwak, N., Lane, D. S., Weeks, B. E., Kim, D. H., Lee, S. S., & Bachleda, S. (2018). Perceptions of Social Media for Politics: Testing the Slacktivism Hypothesis. Human Communication Research, 44(2), 197–221. doi: 10.1093/hcr/hqx008

Foster, M. D., Hennessey, E., Blankenship, B. T., & Stewart, A. (2019). Can “slacktivism”

work? Perceived power differences moderate the relationship between social media

activism and collective action intentions through positive affect. Cyberpsychology:

Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 13(4), article 6.

https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2019-4-6

Samaritan’s Purse. (2017). Help Hurricane Harvey Victims in Texas. Retrieved May 24, 2020, from https://www.samaritanspurse.org/disaster/hurricane-harvey/

The New York Times. (2017, August 26). Harvey, Now a Tropical Storm, Carves a Path of Destruction Through Texas. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/26/us/hurricane-harvey-texas.html