New Media Unrest

The questions that I have raised over the past quarter have been majority around how these newly emerging digital media projects are effective in creating social change.  My inquiry stems not from pessimism but rather my desire to understand the recipe for driving real change through project curation and communications, especially when metrics around social change can be so difficult.

I thought that this weeks web-based viewings; Games for Change, Media Storm and Still Water were some of the most sophisticated yet in terms of the depth in which they incorporated attributes that strengthen their “spreadibility” in order to drive change; meaningful participation, gifting, crowd sourcing, sharability, mixability, building networks and collaboration to name a few.  Incorporation of these elements plus innovative ways for building in contemplation, skill building and motivation all help further their missions by expanding their reach and transforming people from passive consumers into active change agents for good.

While each of the projects we’ve reviewed this quarter has arguably varying levels of effectiveness for igniting change on their own, the landscape for impact changes when looked at collectively.  Taken as a whole, I think about Paul Hawken’s book “Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History is Restoring Grace, Justice and Beauty to the World.”  These pioneering projects not only demonstrate many dynamic forms that can take shape in this new media activism realm, they present a significant faction of possibility in activating a very large communal response to our societies ‘unrest’.  As these various ideas become more mainstream, technology innovations continue to come online and communications in the digital sphere increases, it is curious at what magnitude will they give rise to the broader social movement conversations?