I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. There seems to be some confusion over the concept of social awareness and social change.
Social awareness creates education in regards to an issue. There are many ways to raise social awareness. It can be a magazine or newspaper article. It could come from a group you joined on Facebook, that you support on Twitter, or by the act of blogging about the issue. It involves making people aware of organizations and non-profits as well as crisis situations such as Haiti.
Social Media has brought to the forefront more causes and non-profit agencies than people were exposed to before. I can click Bill Gates’ twitter feed and see he is in Vienna at an AIDS conference. I can speak to the head of many organizations and even to people on the ground in serious conflicts.
There is no question about whether or not raising awareness is worthwhile.
Raising awareness is a key first step.
The next step is social change. That doesn’t mean open your wallet and donate – but that’s well received as well. It means a fundamental change in individual and governmental ideologies. We have to change the way we think about the world and then act on that change.
Two examples:
1 BP Oil Spill – awareness created by social media shows us how fragile and precious the earth really is and leads us to the fact we all need to lead more sustainable lives. We can do this with how we choose to consume and the way we vote.
2. Chocolate profiteering buzzkill. I learned about it through a blog and retweeted and linked to it on Facebook. It’s about the artificial creation of a shortage of cocoa beans. I’m aware, and I’m going to act.
Two examples: one complicated, and the other simple.
Does this mean we click, tweet, blog or what have you and then forget about it ? Conspicuous compassion is just one step towards social change/action. Which is a lot more difficult than a donation. Changing ideologies and thought processes – that’s the tough step.
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