otoole.grace
Social Media Support
On the Facebook event for the protest in support of Coward, around 4,000 people indicated they were attending the event. Hundreds of Facebook posts expressing support for Dr. Coward clogged up news feeds the night that Dr. Coward announced that he was being dismissed. However, it's easier to click attending than to actually attend; on the day of the event, only 75-100 people physically attended. While this is undeniably related to the fact that the protest was in the middle of class hours on a Tuesday (many passionate people we reached out to had midterms or class they didn't want to miss), there is some element of social media apathy at play.
Sometimes people replace physical activism with the newer form of social media activism. To some, this may seem to be less effective, but social media can still have big impacts.
Social Media Support
On the Facebook event for the protest in support of Coward, around 4,000 people indicated they were attending the event. Hundreds of Facebook posts expressing support for Dr. Coward clogged up news feeds the night that Dr. Coward announced that he was being dismissed. However, it's easier to click attending than to actually attend; on the day of the event, only 75-100 people physically attended. While this is undeniably related to the fact that the protest was in the middle of class hours on a Tuesday (many passionate people we reached out to had midterms or class they didn't want to miss), there is some element of social media apathy at play.
Sometimes people replace physical activism with the newer form of social media activism. To some, this may seem to be less effective, but social media can still have big impacts.