302
C. Ledderucci
The Role of the Internet
The Internet plays a fundamental role in these campaigns; in fact, every initiative
is routinely eternalized through pictures and videos posted online by the Warriors.
The majority of the excerpts cited in this paper were found on the Internet, albeit on
different platforms (mostly the 350 Pacific Official website and their Facebook page).
The use of social media as a means to tell their stories is called digital storytelling
(Cunsolo Willox et al. 2012) and can be considered a new way of revealing oneself,
a new form of personal expression that is overriding the older ones. Initially, the web
was considered a virtual world, parallel to the real one, where anonymity was feared
as a dilution of the self and the identity. It is clear today that online social networks,
instead of being a parallel world, are now an extension of the real one (Miller 2016): a
useful instrument used to expand interpersonal connections. The exponential increase
in the use of online platforms led to a transformation in their status; social media
were understood in the past as ‘places’ where connections with friends and strangers
were made possible. Nowadays, they are instead places of unremitting interaction
(Miller 2016) used ‘to be there’ especially across long distances as in Pacific Islander
diasporas.
In non-hegemonic anthropology, a working concept is that of ‘globalization of
the communication’ (Lévy 2012). In the context of the present discussion, this refers
to the possibility for indigenous and peripheral actors to be present through the
web, using new methods of writing and transforming the old ones, building new
powerful international networks. From an anthropological perspective, it is therefore
relevant to notice the growing use of such platforms in specific communities, where
they function as megaphones for local stories to be heard. In fact, “the wide-scale
democratization of the basic technologies that allow connection to the network, its
permanent availability, and the simplification of the procedures for loading materials
and information, make each site a place of expression, exchange, and influence, as
well as the formation of international networks” (Lévy 2012, pp. 89–90, author’s
translation from Italian).
In the case of the Pacific Climate Warriors, social networks such as Facebook and
Instagram are not only used to document and make visible climate change and to
sensitize the public but also as a way to aggregate people (Titifanue et al. 2017). The
important media coverage reached by these initiatives is strongly tied with the use of
new technologies which play a fundamental role in making visible what is usually
invisible to the eye of Western people, particularly regarding climate change (Doyle
2007; Rudiak-Gould 2013).
This technique is widely used by another environmental organization, Greenpeace,
which in the early ’70s established a new way to conceive social protest. Through
unexpected actions made famous by videos posted on the Internet, and through
pictures documenting the environmental changes exacerbated by human-induced
climate change, the movement has raised public awareness of these issues. Such a
method is very effective and therefore useful for these movements (Doyle 2007) but it
is unilinear in spreading a universal message, mostly the Western and eco-conscious
C. Ledderucci
The Role of the Internet
The Internet plays a fundamental role in these campaigns; in fact, every initiative
is routinely eternalized through pictures and videos posted online by the Warriors.
The majority of the excerpts cited in this paper were found on the Internet, albeit on
different platforms (mostly the 350 Pacific Official website and their Facebook page).
The use of social media as a means to tell their stories is called digital storytelling
(Cunsolo Willox et al. 2012) and can be considered a new way of revealing oneself,
a new form of personal expression that is overriding the older ones. Initially, the web
was considered a virtual world, parallel to the real one, where anonymity was feared
as a dilution of the self and the identity. It is clear today that online social networks,
instead of being a parallel world, are now an extension of the real one (Miller 2016): a
useful instrument used to expand interpersonal connections. The exponential increase
in the use of online platforms led to a transformation in their status; social media
were understood in the past as ‘places’ where connections with friends and strangers
were made possible. Nowadays, they are instead places of unremitting interaction
(Miller 2016) used ‘to be there’ especially across long distances as in Pacific Islander
diasporas.
In non-hegemonic anthropology, a working concept is that of ‘globalization of
the communication’ (Lévy 2012). In the context of the present discussion, this refers
to the possibility for indigenous and peripheral actors to be present through the
web, using new methods of writing and transforming the old ones, building new
powerful international networks. From an anthropological perspective, it is therefore
relevant to notice the growing use of such platforms in specific communities, where
they function as megaphones for local stories to be heard. In fact, “the wide-scale
democratization of the basic technologies that allow connection to the network, its
permanent availability, and the simplification of the procedures for loading materials
and information, make each site a place of expression, exchange, and influence, as
well as the formation of international networks” (Lévy 2012, pp. 89–90, author’s
translation from Italian).
In the case of the Pacific Climate Warriors, social networks such as Facebook and
Instagram are not only used to document and make visible climate change and to
sensitize the public but also as a way to aggregate people (Titifanue et al. 2017). The
important media coverage reached by these initiatives is strongly tied with the use of
new technologies which play a fundamental role in making visible what is usually
invisible to the eye of Western people, particularly regarding climate change (Doyle
2007; Rudiak-Gould 2013).
This technique is widely used by another environmental organization, Greenpeace,
which in the early ’70s established a new way to conceive social protest. Through
unexpected actions made famous by videos posted on the Internet, and through
pictures documenting the environmental changes exacerbated by human-induced
climate change, the movement has raised public awareness of these issues. Such a
method is very effective and therefore useful for these movements (Doyle 2007) but it
is unilinear in spreading a universal message, mostly the Western and eco-conscious