An Interview With The Globe's Top Digital Activist
There is something so special about this girl. Mary Joyce helped elect the first black US president. She swears she did not do it alone but her tireless efforts and perserverance in using social media tools as the New Media Operations Manager of the then Barack Obama Presidential Campaign really helped the Obama team in fund-raising and more importantly, in reaching out to the voters. She has also visited the Philippines recently as a speaker on digital activism.
How has social media changed the political landscape in the US? Around the globe?
It's allowing people to connect to each other at low cost and at massive scale, to share information and to create relationships. This significantly challenges traditional hierarchical power structures where only the rich and powerful could afford to coordinate and disseminate information on a large scale.
Tell us more what a digital activist does.
A digital activist uses digital technology as part of a campaign for social or political change.
Take us back to when YOU were starting DigiActive. What was YOUR original motivation in starting it?
I was really interested in digital activism but there was only limited information on the topic and few resources for activists. I wanted to change that.
We heard YOU turned down an offer to work for President Obama after helping him win last year, why did YOU turn it down?
At the end of the campaign when staffers were invited to submit their names to a hiring database I simply chose not to participate. I've always been interested in the grassroots and in having an international focus.
Who's the most active politician in the digital world today?
Probably still Barack Obama, though his online supporters have been much quieter since he was elected. It will be interesting to see what his campaign does in 2012.
How can social media tools empower today's citizens? Please give us an example if YOU can.
Build an outpost on the Internet - a blog, a Facebook group, a Twitter feed - then create content interesting to your target audience and help getting other media creators on the Internet to turn their audiences toward you. Then get your audience to invite their friends. That is the ideal path to growth. In this way anyone who can get online has the potential to start a movement.
Who's government today is maximizing social media tools to help their people?
Two examples that come to mind quickly are the US, which recently opened up a lot of its information through the site data.gov and the UK, which facilitates the creation of citizen petitions to the Prime Minister through Number10.gov.uk. I don't know if this directly helps people, but it does increase accountability.
If YOU were stuck with Chinese President Hu Jintao for one hour in an elevator, what would YOU say to him?
"You will forever be playing digital catch-up with your own citizens. Closing off information will only become harder as more circumvention are created and Internet users become more sophisticated. Create and implement a plan to gradually open to Internet on your own terms. Better to control the opening of your society than try to fight a losing battle to keep it closed."
If YOU could build YOUR own social networking site, what will make it different? What's unique about it?
I don't think the answer is to make something new. I think the answer is to use existing technology in a new way.
Who are YOUR personal heroes? Why?
I admire the blogger Ethan Zuckerman, because of the excellent work he has done promoting and explaining digital activism and the scholar Yochai Benkler, because he "runs up the down escalator" and does so brilliantly and with humanism. I also admire Amelia Earhart, who was a very savvy, strong, and talented woman.
What are YOU hungry for?
For people to understand that the future doesn't just happen, it is created, and that now more than ever that creation is participatory.
About Mary Joyce
Mary Joyce is DigiActive’s co-founder. She ran her first digital activism web site, Demologue.com, from 2005 to 2007 while living in Morocco and Chile. She later became a digital activism consultant, working for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.
Her previous political experience includes the United States Congress, United Nations Association, and National Democratic Institute. She just finished her first year of a master’s program at the the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Mary recently took a leave of absence from DigiActive to act as New Media Operations Manager at Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
E-mail: Mary AT DigiActive DOT org
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