Article by Shane Cucow, Assistant Content Producer @ Inspire (and part-time ratbag activist).
Being someone who started out as a ratbag activist, and slowly wormed my way into professional work with non-profits, one area of interest is the way in which we view people who work towards social change in society. Activism is generally portrayed as extremist and often violent in mainstream media, whereas advocacy is often portrayed as positive and accepted. So what is the difference when we get right down to it?
What do we call advocacy?
Many authors on advocacy (Tusinski, 2007; Masner, 2008) see it as the act of publicly representing an individual, organization, or idea - with the aim being to persuade people to look favorably on it. Cohen (2001) - an author on advocacy in social justice - also defines advocacy as the pursuit of influencing outcomes in society - including social policy, budgets and resource allocation within political, economic, and social institutions that directly affect people’s lives.
Onyx (2003) argues that not only is advocacy an important role for community organisations seeking to improve outcomes for the people they represent, it is also an essential part of the process by which we are motivated to solve social problems in society. In this sense advocacy can be viewed as one tool which people can use to exercise their power to influence government and policy makers to achieve social outcomes.
Broadly, advocacy can be described as an umbrella term for many tactics, including lobbying, representation, advertising, awareness raising etc which is focused on convincing people to look favourably on an individual, organisation or idea. This can include empowering people to have their voices heard, when they may not be able to do so alone.
So how does activism fit into the mix?
Zeitz (2008) suggests activism is “a policy of taking direct action to achieve a political or social goal.”. He sees this as different (but not separate to) to advocacy, which he describes as showing active support, pleading or arguing for something. This view of the difference between activism and advocacy is supported by DoSomething.org (2011) - a popular youth activism portal in the U.S.
For young people who consider themselves activists Sherrod (2006, p.22) similarly suggests that they emphasise the active part of the term activism, narrowing it to include:
- Protests & direct actions
- Ongoing advocacy campaigns to change the behaviour of powerful groups - i.e. corporations, governments, international organisations etc.
- Boycotts and market behaviours to effect change
- Gathering & dissemination of information, including media attention, to influence the opinion and attitudes of the public
Involving many of the same activities as advocacy (lobbying, awareness raising etc) - activism can be described as the part of the advocacy process where some kind of direct and deliberate action is taken to bring about political or social change.
What does this mean for young people?
Whereas advocacy tends to be used broadly as an umbrella term to describe a wide range of practices employed to advocate on behalf of an idea, organisation or individuals; activism is used as a more specific term to describe actions taken to make change happen - covering many of the same actions, but with an emphasis of taking action.
For young people trying to make change on many of the social issues we care about, it helps to understand that by being involved in activism, we are carrying out what could be considered the more active part of advocacy. As advocates, we write blog posts, comments, post videos and share information. As advocates engaged in activism, we actively lobby, petition, raise awareness and work to make change happen.
Reference Material
Cohen, D., R. de la Vega, G. Watson. (2001). Advocacy for social justice. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press Inc.
DoSomething.org. (2011). Activism vs. Advocacy. Accessed 15 Mar 2011 from http://dosomething.org/
Masner, c. M. (2008). The Ethic of Advocacy. Florida, USA: Universal Publishers.
Onyx, J. (2003). Re-inserting advocacy into social capital debates. NCOSS Conference Paper. Sydney, NSW: Council of Social Service of NSW.
Sherrod, L. R. (2006). Youth Activism: An international encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
Tusinski, K. (2007). A Description of Lobbying as Advocacy Public
Relations. Originally published in the proceedings of 2007 International Public Relations Research Conference. pp. 563-570.
Zeitz, P. (2008). What is advocacy? What is activism? USA: George Washington University.
