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Activism
Diana Daly
Key points
The Zapatista movement creatively used online activism to counter the negative impact of NAFTA on indigenous communities in Mexico.
The internet played a dual role for both activists and governments, with a focus on how the Zapatistas employed information warfare to gain global support.
Drawing parallels between Zapatistas and contemporary movements like Black Lives Matter underscores the role of online activism in tackling issues of race, income inequality, and political decisions.
Utilizing strategies such as speed, visuals, performances, inclusiveness, and “masked” leadership, both Zapatista and Black Lives Matter movements showcased effective online activism.
Addressing critiques, concerns include the swift mobilization of movements, potential shallowness, and the notion of “slacktivism.”
Acknowledging the intricate interplay between key figures and networked groups highlights the dynamic and evolving nature of successful online activism.
Before the internet was an effective product marketing tool, it was a tool of activism – and social media has extended and complicated the ways activists can use it (in other words, its activist affordances). This chapter takes a few key movements as examples – from 1994 when Mexico’s Zapatista movement forced the Mexican government into a ceasefire, to 2017 when Black Lives Matter hashtags now quickly activate publics in the US and beyond. I refer to these movements under the umbrella of creative online activism. What ties these movements together is their creativity in using the affordances of the internet to promote activist agendas and avoid the pitfalls of oversimplification and appropriation.
Note: This chapter focuses on movements that have coalesced (formed) around racial and ethnic identity groups, as well as income inequality and political decisions.
Section 1: The Zapatistas
In early 1994, only a tiny percentage of the world was online, and the term “social media” did not exist. The internet was very young and very Web 1.0, with static pages that did not allow visitors to contribute. (You can review Web 1.0 vs Web 2.0 in Chapter 2). Yet our first example of creative online activism begins here, with Mexico’s Zapatistas. Creative deployment of the affordances of a young, sparse internet both saved indigenous protesters in Chiapas, Mexico from slaughter and allowed them to influence the new global economy.
The beginning of the story was the end of life as many in rural Mexico knew it. Governments of the US, Canada, and Mexico began negotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the early 1990s, forging interdependence between their economies. Among other deals, this trade agreement would subsidize corporations taking over Mexican land to grow cheap crops. Many Mexicans – particularly the native, or indigenous, people – foresaw that this would lea