Futuríveis

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On the surface, it appears that personal networking technologies offer new modes of interaction that could foster group affiliation without the attendant loss of individuality. Being part of a smart mob feels more temporary. You can show up for one event, and not show up for another. You're only a part of the mob for the amount of time that mob exists.

Likewise, signing up for an SMS action alert doesn't put you on record as a member of some party -- it simply gives you a chance to take action after receiving an alert, if you so choose.
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These temporary, provisional affiliations seem tailor-made for this generation of activists: they get to take action, but they don't have to commit themselves to a group or institution that might turn around and screw them, later.

Take U2's use of SMS at concerts this year. In the middle of playing the hit song "One," lead singer Bono launched into a speech about how his audience comes from the generation that can end poverty and AIDS. He asked them to pull out their cell phones and sign a petition via text message to a number projected on the screen behind him. In a mass spectacle that would impress Albert Speers, tens of thousands of kids "signed" the petition at every concert.

Or look at the use of SMS messages to organize Amnesty International supporters. Subscribers are informed via their cells every two weeks about whichever imprisoned dissident or journalist requires immediate support, and can then take action simply by checking "yes" and forwarding.

Does such a strategy have any advantage over an e-mail message? If for nothing other than convenience, immediacy and the fact that many people use mobile phones and not the Internet, sure. And they certainly give the non-joining generation a chance to act as if they were affiliated -- for brief moments, anyway.

But what these efforts miss is the real reason affiliations are so politically powerful in the first place: It's because they represent lasting coalitions of constituents who are willing to put mass weight and effort behind their cause. Sure, an entire population marching out into the streets, at the same moment thanks to SMS, to overthrow their dictator may be a powerful, if short-lived, demonstration of mass power. It can work on special occasions like government overthrow. Still, the increasing ubiquity and popularity of mass SMS-enabled but temporary political affiliation may actually end up bringing its demise.

These are not true bottom-up, spontaneous, grass-roots expressions of networked solidarity, nor even representations of groups willing to follow up on their stated convictions; they are simply instances of large numbers of people momentarily willing to take their orders from above. Subscribers may as well let their causes run bots on their handhelds that automatically check "yes" or dial the politician in question. Reductive and essentially passive, these methods will ultimately favor the kinds of constituencies who take their commands from above, anyway. Once church leaders begin telling their flocks to sign onto action lists, it'll make Bono look like a sideshow.

Of course, mass action directed from above is also the primary goal for most marketing efforts. So maybe all this progressive SMS activity will end up paving the way for some future innovation, after all: the emergence of opt-in SMS advertising.
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TheFeature :: SMS Activism: Don't Call Us, We'll Call You