I was asked recently in an exercise to write on a small piece of paper what I know about digital activism.  In an effort of conciseness, I developed the following equation for what factors go into a successful occurrence of digital activism.  Keep in mind, these are also organized based on the order in which they would – or should – happen, although the process can happen so quickly that it can be difficult to make the distinction between them.

Circumstance: There is a certain situation or problem whereby an individual, a group or an organization seeks to have their voice heard or their problem solved.  An example could be a repressive situation, a crisis, or a specific political cause.

Goals: From this circumstance and desire for a greater share-of-voice come the goals of the individual, group or organization identifies the goals or solutions to their situation/problem. What do they ultimately hope to achieve? It’s at this point that the circumstances  are such that someone or a group of people decide they’re going to take action.

Strategy: As expected, once you’ve established your goals, most of the successful campaigns have a big-picture strategy that was developed during the process.

Technology: Once the above landscape is made clearer, a digital technology or technologies are identified as being the most useful and capable to implement.  This decision can be made base don various factors: what’s used most, what infrastructure is in place, what level of “reach” the tool has, etc.

Tactics: This is when you get down to the detailed way in which you’re going to use the technologies/technologies to get to your end goal.

It’s important to note in this model where the technology decision is made.  The thing is, this isn’t always how instances of digital activism come about.  Sometimes it’s a mix of all of these at once, sometimes it seems like things “transpire” organically because there’s a certain technology available.

However, at some level (whether the process seems organic or not), this choice of tool comes after some assessment of the landscape and identification of the problem and development of goals, and after the decision is made to take action.