Hashtivism

Brittney Mitchell

CAS 283, Section 004

October 3^rd, 2014

 

Hashtivism

                When it comes down to hashtivism, I feel that this term plays a huge role in our society. Especially, since the time we live in, we are so dependent on technology. If you look around, people constantly have some type of technological device in their hands. Hashtivism has also allowed us to spread the word on political issues, major news headlines, etc. It is basically a way to get news to people without having to sit in front of a television and listen to Fox or CNN news.

One of the biggest hashtags this summer was #ALS #IceBucketChallenge. This brought awareness to a serious disorder that many of us would have probably never known unless it affected us directly and raised a ton of money for research. However, like we discussed in the chat room, I believe that there are advantages and consequences especially in this particular case.  The advantages were that (1) brought awareness to a disorder (2) raised money for research (3) people actually learned something and (4) brought people together for one cause. Consequences (1) I felt that it definitely became a trend that faded out (2) there were people doing it because everyone else was doing it. One prime example of that last consequence was Martha Stewart’s #ALS #IceBucketChallenge. Throughout her entire video she never mentioned what she was doing the challenge for. The only thing she mentioned was she was about to pour cold ice water over her head and who she was nominating.

                Another big hashtag that was used two years ago was #JusticeforTrayvon. It brought about so much awareness to a big headline, but an important law that in effect down in Florida. I felt that this hash tag was definitely one that has still be put into use every once in a while, especially each year after Trayvon Martin passed away. It has become a constantly reminder that the fight is not over and there is still things we can do to make a difference. I found three large statistics from the Buffer Social on the use of hash tags on Twitter. (1) tweets with hash tags receive 2x more engagement than those without hash tags (2) tweets with 1 or 2 hash tags have 21% higher engagement than those with 3 or more (3) those with 2 or more hash tags actually show a 17% drop in engagement. For me these statistics definitely makes sense just looking at the previous hash tags I spoke about.

                At the end of the day, I feel that hashtivism does bring about social change. These hash tags server its purpose by bring awareness of important topics and/or issues to our society. They also bring on discussion on these topics that can propose new ideas and ways of improvement on these issues. It is not guaranteed that every hash tag is not going to work, but it is definitely worth a shot. You never know you message might be the one thing that someone needs to hear.