Pam Spaulding of Pamshouseblend.com led a great session on E-activism and using blogging to organize.
Spauldinng talked about the recent emergence of JoinTheImpact as an example of how online activism can succeed.
Spaulding pointed out that the movement seems to have faded because it was all online organizing and there wasn’t a connection with actual grassroots organizers who could have kept the momentum going.
Still, it was a success in the begining. “Larger advocacy organizations were scared,” Spaulding said. “Mostly because this was something that they couldn’t control.”
Spaulding pointed out that the national organizations used stories of people getting into fights and otherwise out of control as an example of how this online organizing was a bad thing. Still Spaulding seems to think that with the right connections to “people on the ground”, an online movement can be a very successful and sustainable one.

Spaulding talked a bit about Twitter and how it can be used to spread information very quickly. (If you didn’t notice, I’ve been tweeting things from the Day of Equality under the hashtag #dayofequality from my twitter name@zcbyrnes. You should follow me) She also pointed out that Twitter can also spread misinformation just as quickly, citing the recent teabagger rally and the tweet claiming ABC News had issued a 2 million attendees number. The tweet also had a picture of the alleged 2 million that was later proved to be from a “promise keepers” rally from 9 years ago.
Spaulding pointed out that Equality Alabama needs to embrace social networking and maybe even get a volunteer to blog for them daily. Aunt Kathy kept pointing at me, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Up next after lunch is Mandy Carter with “Being LGBT and Southern”