Does Online Petitioning Prevail?
After discussing in class the new
age of petitioning. I began to research and see there aren't many Susan B.
Anthony’s, Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s, or Ida B. Wells anymore. These were the
women on the frontier for Women’s Suffrage. They were on the front line
parading, being arrested and leading masses of people fighting for their
rights. The new method of petitioning and fighting for what you want has turned
into a technology brawl. People now sit behind computers fighting for what they
believe in. So my question is: do these online petitions actually get results?
“I’d rather make history
then write it”- Susan B. Anthony
There are many free websites that
are used as petitioning platforms. Change.org is a free website where someone with
passion can start their petition and use tools from the site to progress it. The
website provides easy step by step instructions to get your goal to be a “Victory.”
To my surprise many petitions have resulted in victories. One petition named Gatorade: Don’t put flame
retardant chemicals in sports drinks! The initial petition was written by a
high school sophomore and gained over 200,000 signatures online and even had an
article placed in The New York Times supporting her claim. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/business/another-look-at-a-drink-ingredient-brominated-vegetable-oil.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0).
A 15 year old high school student has the opportunity to make a difference in
this world of online petitioning. Showing the facts, clearly explaining your
position on a webpage creates a whole new force to be reckoned with. A 15 year
old may not being taken serious in any position even in the 1920s where they
went out in public to make a difference. The Center for Science in the Public
Interest put the chemical “BVO” that is in Gatorade on the “Avoid” rating on
the food additive database. Sarah Kavanagh made a difference.
An article on Yahoo came out
yesterday regarding this same subject we have been discussing. A 45-year-old
woman is suffering from stage 3 ovarian cancer, and launched a social media campaign
in the hopes of convincing a pharmaceutical company to give her a drug in the
early stages of development. In certain situations the FDA allows companies to
give experimental drugs to people in life-or death situations under policy
called “compassionate use.” The FDA gave the pharmaceutical company BioMarin
the OK but they will not allow her to use the drug. The woman has a Facebook
Page for her cause with almost 3000 likes in a few days and change.org petition
with over 110,000 signatures in the last few weeks. With the information provided
online and the petitions, a former U.S representative posted an article
regarding the issues and even made a phone call to the company to reconsider. This is a prime example of how social media
and online petitioning can help change someone’s life. This woman now has a
better chance, hopefully, to receive the experimental drug from BioMarin. (http://www.change.org/petitions/biomarin-pharmaceutical-give-andrea-sloan-andi-sloan-access-to-the-cancer-drug-that-could-save-her-life)-
Here is the link to sign the petition to give Andrea Sloan access to the cancer
drug that could save her life!
In another blog, “Slacktivisim or
This Generation’s Activism: Do online Petitions Work?” has the same question to
what I was wondering. Do they actually work? The author uses the term “slacktivism”
that I find interesting; it gives a new name of this type of petitioning. I do
not like the negative connotation, because this “slacktivisim” can make a difference.
The author states that slacktivism leads to complacency and does little to get
out and give offline support. That people do very little after they sign their
name to the petition. I agree this does make sense, many people sign online
petitions and have stopped there. But I believe that the majority of the people
will take the next step, will take action outside of the virtual world. The
online petition is a huge source that people can channel others from around the
world to join in on their cause!
The problem with trying to measure the success rate of online petitions comes mainly from how broad online petitions can be. People can create petitions for just about anything, such as a current petition on petitions.whitehouse.gov to have President Obama publicly state "If my grandfather were still alive, he would look like Delbert Belton." This petition is most likely not going to succeed. On the other hand there are legitimate petitions like those mentioned above. These petitions affect a large range of people or showcase a situation where people want to assist. Also, even on the same site you can usually find two, three, four, sometimes five or more active petitions for the same cause. This leads to people signing one as they think they are helping out but missing the others. As the support base is then fractured all or most of the petitions usually fail when they should have succeeded if they were consolidated as one. These duplicate petitions then count negatively against online petitions success rate. As for the lack of Susan B. Anthonys, people like that exist, constantly fighting for what they believe in through these petitions and by other means. The only thing is that many of these "fights" take place in digital world. This makes it more difficult for the media to pick up on and publicize the issue. Most people would not know these petitions existed unless they were affected by the cause of the petition.
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