Twitter as a Fresh Space for Activism by Hoppimike

Many people are now aware of the website Twitter, and it's developing popularity as a means of sharing your thoughts and keeping in touch with the world around you. Really anything can be discussed or shared, simply through the exchange of small status messages posted to your online journal.

Twitter allows us to keep in touch in the kind of simplified, open way that has never been truly possible previously, and best of all it allows us to do all of this on the move.

As an example of a well-known, personal Twitter blog, here is Stephen Fry's: http://www.twitter.com/stephenfry


Not only is he using the website to voice his own life experiences, thoughts and activities, but he can keep in touch with others, meet new people, share responses... you can even follow somebody's Twitter blog without them having to follow your own, really giving it elements of a news "feed". As well as this, people can be blocked from your blog, and Twitter blogs can be switched to private, but it seems that the structure is so loose and flexible that really anything can be made out of it.

I personally am following around 89 blogs and am being followed by around 75, and these are not necessarily the same ones.

Companies such as http://www.twitter.com/SEGA , organizations such as http://www.twitter.com/greenpeace , charities such as http://www.twitter.com/oxfam ... ANYONE can use the site for nearly anything :)


Which now brings me to the personal focus of this article. To me, one of the most vital things in the world and in organized society is the ability of the individual to stand up, and express their opinion. Whatever that opinion might be. The strength of the individual and the collective is absolutely incredible, and no government regardless of how controlling can stand up to the sheer number, and the will, of it's populace. To my mind, it is this free speech and cohesion of people to form groups, protest, set up peace camps, sign petitions, engage in benevolent activities or workshops and many other things that forms one of the most important parts of democracy and a good political and social system.

So, how can Twitter as a system of exchanging and broadcasting messages be utilized to help this cause? CAN it be utilized?

In truth, it already has. A considerable number of charities, activist groups and non-profit organizations have taken to using Twitter as a free way to voice their cause and keep people informed, and I found when searching that there were a very large number available for me to follow from my own personal blog. I did however feel that there was one quite large thing that I couldn't find, something which I decided I would just make myself!

Even though there are some blogs which feature the occasional upcoming protest or event intermittently, it did occur to me that there was no single place I could "follow" on Twitter or subscribe to as an RSS (news) feed that would keep me up to date with all the upcoming events in my area, so I could check it it on my computer or ideally for me on the go and decide which ones I want to go to!

So I thought I would make it with some other people, and the result is this community-updated website, which functions fully but we are still working on: http://www.twitteractivism.com


Basically, the principal idea with the site is to be as closely linked with Twitter and the blogs as possible, allowing people to follow them and submit to them either from on Twitter itself or within the site. ANYONE can submit events and entries to the blogs, and there are ones for all different countries. So far they cover the US, the UK and Canada, with one extra one for global causes and things that affect all of us. I will be creating many more in the future however, depending of course on what people request (feedback can be submitted to my email address from the site) and how popular the current blogs are!

I really hope that this can sort of, link the activist scene a bit and give people the ability to announce details of upcoming events and anything related they want to with greater ease than possibly ever before!

Here are some links to the unique blogs themselves: http://www.twitter.com/ukactivism http://www.twitter.com/usactivism http://www.twitter.com/londonactivism http://www.twitter.com/dcactivism http://www.twitter.com/GlobalActivism


At the point of writing Canada Activism also exists but is not yet finished as it does not link fully to the submissions page or to the main site, although we will be doing this very soon!


So yeah, that's basically all I wanted to say about Twitter, the activism presence on there and my little project.. I am very much hoping that it increases in size to be something really good, as I do have faith in it as an idea :) Please check out some of the links here and check it out - let me know what you think!


Thanks for reading this, and hope you have a good time with Twitter if you decide to check it out or use it more!


Mike, TwitterActivism.com!



Article Source: ArticleSnatch Free Article Directory