Researcher David Langley sees some challenges for slacktivism. According to Langley, the world of online activism can be compared to the Wild West of the past. There are few laws, everything seems to be possible and this sometimes brings problems with it. Slacktivists create a new form of discussion that has to be good and fair, without much information being available about it.
Organizations compete for the attention of slacktivists. Some information presented in black and white gets a lot of media attention, while the information is sometimes misleading or incorrect. Honest and nuanced campaigns by organizations have to compete with this.
This is difficult for organisations:
people are not interested in complex and nuanced articles, black-and-white messages attract much holistic marketing: definition, components and practical examples more attention. The advantage for commercial organisations is that they have a larger budget and more manpower. This usually leads to well-thought-out campaigns. After all, the reputation and support base that an organisation has are important.
Langley finds the ‘unfair battle’ between organisations and black-and-white messages a downside to this new form of discussion, but “the fact that we are in new territory also offers the possibility of innovation and opportunities.” According to him, there is still much to learn about this subject.
Twitter is not the place for a new revolution
Slacktivists are unlikely to organize a new revolution on Twitter, as Malcolm Gladwell suggests, lead to increasebut perhaps slacktivists can generate the media attention needed to transform societal problems. We are the same person online and offline, and as Christensen’s research has south africa numbers shown, our online actions influence our offline participation. Therefore, contributing to a better world online should also yield better results offline.