3.1 Public Writing for Social Change

Can a Tweet—a Form of Public Writing—Cause Social Change?

There’s an article by Malcolm Gladwell that Ashley Holmes likes to teach that explores this question. In “Small Change: Why the Revolution Won’t Be Tweeted,” Gladwell recounts the story of four freshmen from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University who sat down at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in 1960, sparking a series of sit-ins and protests. Being skeptical of the impact of social media, Gladwell reminds us that all the events of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s “happened without e-mail, texting, Facebook, or Twitter.” On one hand, Gladwell’s critiques may be warranted when we think about isolated instances of what some people call “clicktivism” or “slacktivism”—things like clicking a “like” button, changing a profile picture to indicate support for a cause, or signing an online petition. On the other hand, Gladwell wrote this article in 2010, and we have since witnessed the power of groups to utilize social media and online tools to organize broader movements, such as the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements.^[1]

Unfortunately, a single tweet or letter to the editor is unlikely to cause significant change. However, using public writing to respond to the exigencies of our times can help us tap into networks that may advance a cause one step at a time. As Julius Bailey and David Leonard note in their study of the Black Lives Matter movement, “The expressions of black love, the creation of spaces of protest, the demands for justice that follow, each can gather momentum and spread to become large-scale social movements that can no longer be ignored” (77). Sometimes public writing can be a small snowflake contributing to the momentum of a growing snowball, but it can just as easily melt without having much effect. If we want our writing to have a public impact, we have to successfully engage with a public rhetorical situation and find ways to connect with the efforts of broader publics and counterpublics.

Writing for a public rhetorical situation means planning ahead by choosing a timely and relevant public issue, as well as anticipating the ways we will publish and circulate our writing to reach the public audiences who can help effect change. In this essay, we will explore important components of planning, composition, and publishing to consider when writing for social change. The first step is to understand the possibilities and privileges of your role as an academic citizen.

Academic Citizens

Take a few minutes to brainstorm a brief list of words and adjectives that come to mind when you think of the words “academic” and “citizen” separately.

Reflect on the notes you’ve made. Do you see any common trends or ideas emerging? Positive or negative, all of these concepts are important parts of a larger discussion.

Now that our creative juices are flowing, let’s put these two words together and consider what it means to be an “academic citizen”. In what ways is it possible to bring together what we do as writers and researchers in college with what is expected of us as citizens? For me, being an academic citizen means taking the scholarly work we do in college and putting it to use in our communities to advance positive social change. All the work you do as a student to research issues and write about them in persuasive ways has the potential to shape the world around you—but only if you circulate your writing to reach public audiences beyond your school.

The concept of an “academic citizen” is not entirely new; many scholars believe in a broad role for education that is tied to democratic ideals, as well as a more public conception of intellectuals. For example, in his Prison Notebooks from the 1920s and ‘30s, Italian political theorist Antonio Gramsci argued that all people are intellectuals, whether they become an intellectual through advanced schooling, social status, or life experience. Gramsci views school as central in developing a working-class group of intellectuals—what he calls “organic intellectuals”—that will critically question the traditional structure of how knowledge is produced (Hoare and Smith 131). Building on some of the foundational ideas of Gramsci, Henry A. Giroux wrote about the importance of public universities and colleges making a commitment to address society’s problems. Similarly, Ellen Cushman argued that “public intellectuals” should use their research “to address social issues” and improve “under-served neighborhoods” (329). The concept of being an organic or public intellectual has a lot in common with what it means to be an academic citizen.

In the coming sections, we hope to convince you that adjusting how you view your role in higher education can help you move toward these public and civic goals. By making this change, you are starting your journey toward becoming an academic citizen. Instead of only thinking about yourself as a student doing work for your teachers, consider the potential for your academic work to contribute to efforts that address social injustices in your community, state, or country. While a single letter or 280-character tweet is unlikely to cause sweeping change, writing that is publicly circulated has the power to tap into broader networks, movements, and efforts that can collectively enact social change. Holmes would like to invite you to think about how the academic research and writing you do for school can become something more than just a grade—whether that’s through contributions to your church bulletin, a letter to your state representative, or any other work you do to advance a cause you view as important.