The Journal of his Delights

Even when I worked at Amnesty International, I had an interest in the way people were using online tools for advocacy. It comes from having grown up a geek, I suppose.

And over course of the 12-13 years I was with the organization, I saw the dramatic effect the Internet was having on the way people communicated, strategized, and implemented their advocacy. Eventually, there came new opportunities for action that only existed online.

You only have to look at something like MoveOn.org or Project Chanology to see that the times, they are a-changin’. For example, Chanology’s campaign was born out of an online community, strategized and implemented across geographic and temporal boundaries, and used the tools and spaces of the Internet to meet its goals. They’ve even used these tools to organize “traditional” demonstrations, although they’re heavily flavored with Internet memes.

It’s this mix of strategies that interests me, because the skills used in “traditional” advocacy—communication, organization, mobilization—still apply, but they get adapted for the new medium.

And new opportunities for online advocacy are proliferating. There’s even a beta of a mashup that will let you search 19 different social action platforms for actions.

Sally Kohn wrote an article for the Christian Science Monitor saying that real change happens offline, and that online advocacy is a distraction. Naturally, I’m going to disagree. Advocacy happens when people come together in an attempt to create change. Just because the bodies aren’t in the same room doesn’t mean that that can’t happen.

People are people wherever they are, and as Second Life and the other virtual worlds show (I’m looking at you World of Warcarft and the other MMORPGs), people live their lives in multiple manifestations, real and virtual. Sure the medium will affect the way the interactions happen and favor certain types of communication over others, but the essential act of communication will remain the same. And where and when people communicate, change can happen.

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P.S. If you’re curious, my colleague LiAnna wrote a response to the article for the Care2 Campaigner Blog.