Protesting in the Digital

Age
Apr 26, 2019 NGAIRE WOODS
Social media have made it easier to organize mass protests. Thanks to
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, people with a common cause can
instantly fuel each other’s outrage while sharing logistical details. But
these modern-day demonstrations often lack the leadership and
coalition-building skills that can translate collective grievance into real
change.

OXFORD – Elections and referenda are just two ways for people to have a say in
how they are governed. Protesting is another, which is why rights of assembly
and free speech are protected in most democracies.

And in many democracies nowadays, those rights are being used to the fullest.
Climate activists and Brexit-related demonstrations have partly shut down
London during the past month, and protesters are already making plans for US
President Donald Trump’s state visit to the United Kingdom in June. In France,
the Yellow Vests are out in force every Saturday.

Social media have made it easier to organize mass protests. Thanks to Twitter,
Facebook, and Instagram, people with a common cause can instantly fuel each
other’s outrage while sharing logistical details. But these modern-day
demonstrations often lack the leadership and coalition-building skills that can
translate collective grievance into real change.

True, large protests may help to push an issue up the agenda and increase public
debate. But even in democracies, big crowds are often not enough to sway
governments. Massive anti-war demonstrations in the UK and the United States
in February 2003 did not stop the two countries from invading Iraq the following
month. The 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement, which spread to some 900
cities worldwide, did not achieve any particular goal. Nor did the three
annual Women’s Marches that took place between 2017 and 2019 in cities
around the world.
A lack of clear leadership is partly to blame. Before the advent of social media,
organizing effective mass demonstrations took more time and effort. Activists
would have to plan, raise money to place newspaper advertisements, create
telephone rosters, and find rousing speakers to attract the masses.

All of this required leadership to assure people that investing their time, money,
and connections in a protest was worth it. By contrast, the new social-media-
driven “adhocracy,” for all its flexibility and efficiency, often lacks leaders who
can mobilize people toward a well-defined, achievable goa

Yet there have been successes. In Poland in 2016, well-organized

protests persuaded the country’s parliament to reject a proposed near-total ban on
abortion. Street demonstrations in several major Polish cities were accompanied
by an online campaign and a women’s strike, with women refusing to attend
school, go to work, or perform domestic chores. The organizers also mobilized
supporters elsewhere in Europe, and applied lessons learned from other
countries. Most important, the protesters articulated a straightforward goal – to
prevent the new law from being enacted – and their campaign to achieve it
benefited from effective leadership and careful planning.

Recent successful mass protests in Algeria and Sudan, meanwhile, highlight the
importance of building coalitions with parts of a ruling regime. Demonstrators in
these two countries also had clear goals, despite the greater dangers of taking part
in street protests against authoritarian governments. When Algerians first
protested against the ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika standing for a fifth
term in office, they were not protected by “democratic” rights of assembly or free
speech. And initial protests in December 2018 were rapidly suppressed.

By March 2019, however, some three million Algerians were reportedly in the
streets. The protesters’ goal was clear: to force Bouteflika to step down. They
succeeded not only because of their sheer numbers, but also because their
persistence eventually led Algeria’s military to side with them and force
Bouteflika from office. And in Sudan, three months of nationwide protests finally
persuaded the army to oust President Omar al-Bashir.

These unlikely alliances between protesters and the military were crucial in both
Sudan and Algeria. Many protest movements find it hard to forge coalitions with
those in power, instead preferring the heady excitement of a full-frontal assault
on a regime. But the most effective protests aim to co-opt some of the powerful
in order to weaken a regime. Mahatma Gandhi’s campaign against British rule in
India, for example, did not confront the colonial power head-on. Instead, and to
the initial incredulity of his fellow insurgents, Gandhi began with a protest march
against the British salt tax in 1930.

Social media generally make it hard to build such unlikely coalitions. Digital
platforms are good at crowdsourcing dissatisfaction and magnifying it online, but
they are more likely to polarize than to help a movement build bridges.

The adhocracy can quickly unite those who share a grievance, whether toward
global capitalism or the UK’s plans to leave the European Union. However, it
takes much more to unite people around a positive goal, and to mobilize them in
ways that can achieve it.

Successful protests require effective leadership, whether individual or collective.

And they need to go beyond speaking “truth to power” from the street. Change
happens when well-led citizens find ways to speak truth through power in
coalitions that are unlikely to be forged online. Digital tools can facilitate
effective political organizing. But they should never be viewed as a substitute for
it.