Two Paradigms of Digital Activism: Empowering With Information Versus Engaging With Inspiration

At the recent e-STAS Symposium on Technologies for Social Action, it became evident to me that there are two dramatically different paradigms of digital activism: empowering with information and engaging with inspiration.

In the first paradigm of digital activism, you work with a disadvantaged group that suffers from limited access to even the most basic information and tools for self-expression. So, you use simple-to-use digital devices like Nokia mobile phones and Flip video cameras and simple-to-use digital technologies like text messages and online video to enable them to access basic information and share their own stories. Frontline SMS, Ushahidi, Freedom Fone and Video Volunteers are good examples of the ‘empowering with information’ paradigm of digital activism.

In the second paradigm of digital activism, you work with a group that is anything but disadvantaged. This group is at ease with using always on internet and mobile devices, both for instantaneous access to information and for self-expression and social interaction. Here, the digital activist isn’t trying to solve a crisis of capability, but a crisis of caring. Here, the aim is not to empower with information, but to engage with inspiration. Move On and iJanaagraha are examples of the ‘engaging with inspiration’ paradigm of digital activism.

Usually people associate the ‘empowering with information’ paradigm of digital activism with emerging Asia and Africa and the ‘engaging with inspiration’ paradigm of digital activism with affluent North America and Europe.

At e-STAS, it became evident to me that these two worlds coexist in India. First, Osama Manzar talked about empowering 1.2 billion Indians by giving them access to information and a voice to tell their own stories firsthand. In the next session, I talked about inspiring 50 million young, urban, educated, connected Indians to use their already influential voices as engaged citizens, not only as consumers.

At e-STAS, it also became evident to me that activists who look at the world through the ‘empowering with information’ lens often limit themselves to using digital technologies to create and share content, while activists who look at the world through the ‘engaging with inspiration’ lens use content as the starting point to leverage the conversation, collaboration, community and collective intelligence layers of digital (social) technologies. So, the video of the 21 year old widow in rural Africa becomes the starting point of a campaign to end war, or a community that helps her collect enough money to buy a cow.

The point here is not that one paradigm is more important than the other; the point is that both paradigms co-exist, in more contexts than we think they do.

So, if you are an activist, think about whether you operate from the ‘empowering with information’ or ‘engaging with inspiration’ paradigm and ask yourself how your cause can benefit from both.

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