Social Media for Social Change: Australia on Fire

Wildfires are far from unheard of in Australia—the country has a bushfire season every year. And, just months ago, the current season appeared to be no different. But what started off as a typical fire season spiraled out of control—over 46 million acres of Australian land are still burning with no end in sight.

However, the crisis only entered the spotlight last month. So, why was something so important seemingly ignored for so long in mainstream media? Well, to put it quite simply, money. In today’s age of spontaneous politics, it is much easier for news networks to accumulate views—and money—by moving on quickly in a cycle of flashy, ever-changing headlines.

But isn’t a giant fire raging across Australia pretty interesting? Well, the idea of it is, but the actual news is not. In many cases, the only news after an initial fire report comes as updates—much less enticing than juicy new scandals, which never seem to cease these days.

So, what finally inspired networks to start reporting on the fires? Was it the sheer scale the fires had reached? The koala bears dying? No, and while those things may have contributed, the central push boils down to two words: social media. 

Around Christmastime, posts about the fire started trending on a number of social media apps. There were many different messages, some asking for donations to stop the fires, others bemoaning the lack of media coverage the fires were receiving. And just days after these messages first appeared did reports of the fires start to emerge on big media networks, with a majority of these reports coming on Jan. 1. 

This demonstrates the power of social media to not only spread a message and display society’s opinion on a topic but also get results for a cause. In this case, social media helped demonstrate people’s interest in the fires of Australia, pressuring the media to cover it. In turn, more exposure resulted in more proactive public relief efforts. 

Despite the positive messages of these social media posts, they have received criticism for encouraging complacency in our society. For instance, Modern Languages Instructor Diego Ardura said, “They cause people sitting across the globe to think they are being a huge help by reposting when they should be donating or taking action in a more productive way.” 

On the contrary, while these messages don’t directly contribute financially or support to the Australian fires, they still raise awareness for it. This can translate to actual money. And, aside from that, the continuous reposting can get people thinking. This is not to say that actual donations and contributions should not be encouraged—rather, social media should also be given credit for its effectiveness in raising awareness and pressuring mainstream media to take action.

Many of the criticisms of social media are valid. For example, social media may be used to spread misinformation, as in the case of some factually incorrect posts that said the Australian fires were started by arsonists. However, I believe that the positive impact far outweighs the negative effects, especially in the case of the Australian fires. Being cynical is always good to some degree, but the current amount of criticism that social media is receiving is unjustified. Instead of levying criticisms, we should see how we can utilize social media more effectively. 

Some apps, such as Instagram, have started to fact check messages to reduce the spread of misinformation. While their fact-checking abilities are relatively weak, they will only grow stronger as the administrators of these apps become more aware and proactive in stopping false claims from being spread. 

Social media brought attention to the Australian fires and indirectly contributed to relief efforts. We must promote new ways of spreading information, in spite of their imperfections. Without the publicity that social media brought to the Australian wildfires, the fires would have been lost in the news cycle and relief efforts would be slowed dramatically.