Hashtag for humanity

A whole host of verbs have accompanied the advent of the information age, with to google, to blog, to unfriend, and to tweet now part of everyday lingo. Our actions have taken on an increasingly virtual flavour as the ways in which we find and share information, interact with friends, and express our opinions become embedded in an online, digital culture.

And it's no different when it comes to social activism. The power of social media to engage groups, which may otherwise have passed under the radar, was clearly demonstrated during events like the 2008 US elections. The Obama team's use of blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace was a slick, yet personal, way to involve people in a campaign that could have been dull or detached from their reality.

But where social networks hold even greater promise is driving interest in issues not tied to a geographic sphere, time frame, or political event, although it may incorporate all of these. A challenge with the global scope to provide a unifying appeal, but enough local relevance to imply a significant and specific impact on people's lives - over the long-term. Something like climate change.

At this month's UN climate talks in Tianjin, China, for example, people looked to the stream of tweets by various on-site insiders to get the latest updates on what was happening behind closed doors. In a country notoriously repressive when it comes to media coverage, savvy social networkers were able to bypass the usual barriers and get their 140-character summaries out, giving virtually up-to-the-second details of the talks as they were unfolding.

One such Tianjin tweeter, PhD student Angel Hsu, says in a New York Times report she first realised the value of Twitter at the Copenhagen conference last year, when it was often “the only way to figure out what was going on”. Hsu says the microblogging service remains an important tool for activists.

With political bickering at these events seeing the slant of discussions change faster than a Facebook update, tweets provide an immediate picture of the dominant mood. This long before news crews can get the story out online or across radio waves, by which time the debate may have shifted in another direction altogether.

Of course, Twitter has its limits, serving an immediate alert role with little space to plunge into deeper discussion, and there are questions of accuracy and credibility. But this is where dynamic virtual platforms encouraging conversation and action become pivotal. The beauty of technology is that a universal problem can be tackled across language, social, culture, geographical, and time barriers far more easily.

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey pointed out at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, last month, that social networking sites allow an individual's view or idea to become global, with technology so simple and inexpensive "that anyone can access it".

One of the most powerful illustrations of social media's effectiveness in driving awareness and collaboration was 350.org's 'global work party' initiative on 10 October. The day of climate action encouraged people from around the world to do their bit to save the environment, and thanks largely to social networks, word soon spread from bustling urban centres to remote country hamlets.

With social media, every person serves as a potential news alert.

Lezette Engelbrecht, ITWeb online features editor

Everywhere, from Zagreb to Zimbabwe, Joburg to Jordan, people planted trees, cleared up litter, went electricity-free and spoke out about air and water pollution. Some even engaged in symbolic acts like pulling a giant plug from a fake power station, and connecting it to a solar panel and wind turbine.

The 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben described it not only as the most extensive day of environmental action, but “the most widespread day of civic engagement on any issue ever in the planet's history”. Even if this is a somewhat inflated claim by the event's organiser, it highlights the magnitude and reach of the forces at play in our digital society.

Most of the message was spread, documented and shared via social media, as people blogged, tweeted, and added links to their Facebook pages, helping to organise more than 7 000 events in 188 countries. Imagine trying to co-ordinate something on this scale through traditional channels - picture the sheer number of international news reports, public service broadcasts, posters, flyers and admin required to reach even a fraction of the global community who participated on 10 October.

With social media, every person serves as a potential news alert, a link in the global information chain, through their own “broadcast” platform. Free, mega-scale PR, for a good cause - that's a pretty powerful offering. And there was no obligation to join a club or attend regular meetings or march in a rally. On 10/10/10, individuals worldwide performed small yet meaningful acts and shared it with millions of others.

It's not only about engagement either. Video animations illustrated the concept behind 350.org more vividly than the typically staid presentations of climate science. The number 350 (measured in parts per million) refers to what is considered the safe limit of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. But as the site notes, with over 4 000 languages spoken worldwide, words are perhaps not the ideal way to explain the gravity of the situation (we're sitting at around 390ppm). So the clever use of visuals conveys the message in 90 seconds - with no words, but plenty of high-impact information.

Climate change not only has immense implications for individual nations, where it will manifest in a frightening range of environmental and health challenges, but for the world functioning as a whole. So it's key to secure a global commitment and focus, as well as greater understanding of what it means for regional communities where they are right now - and in future.

Increasingly, serious organisations are using social media as a tool to give policy-makers an idea of what's happening at ground level - and the voices are getting harder to ignore. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change's virtual participation page, for example, reveals public involvement is now an expectation rather than a courtesy shown by 'progressive' groups.

With hopes dimming that the next major climate conference in Cancun, Mexico, will bring any sort of concrete agreement, the world may look to SA as the spot where the next binding deal will be signed. The 17th conference of the parties (COP 17) is set to take place in SA in 2011, to set up a strategy to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2012.

Some have called it the country's environmental world cup, with a huge opportunity to demonstrate SA's commitment to reduction targets set in Copenhagen and efforts to tackle our own climate-related challenges, such as water and energy supply. There's a chance to create local awareness before, during and after the event by leveraging our vibrant online and mobile communities, and seeing South African insiders tweet news and insights from the proceedings.

If there was ever an issue that demonstrated the inefficiency, inflexibility and pig-headedness of politicians, the negotiations surrounding climate change policy is it. And so, as global leaders are clearly unwilling or unable to agree on how to tackle a massive problem affecting the entire planet, the rest of its citizens are stepping up to the plate.

By using new tools we understand and control to spark discussion, collaboration - and critically - action, people are setting in motion the changes so absent in meeting rooms and official gatherings. To quote McKibben: "We are going to have to show our leaders what leadership looks like."