Some time back when I opened my facebook account,I just  took it as another site where I can see my friends’ contacts in a row and wonder how  this guy knows all these people that I don’t!   Well, that is still there.But what now interest me most about facebook like sites is that  the way people use it for getting their message across

Yes, I am speaking about lobbying and campaigning.

Gone are the days where we had to write all those postcards to get participants for an event and giving all those hard earned  money to  the  press so that they will print us some hand outs. I still remember ,it required days of manual labour to carry those posters and  banners   and  tie them in tree-tops and arches.

It took then hell out of people to organise an event or launch a campaign.Now everything is possible at the comfort of your home,sipping your cup of coffee  and keying in some lines in your laptop.On-line campaign has become the mantra of activists these days.

Well take it this way, you start a group in facebook.Write down your cause clearly and distinctively . Add a few photos and videos if you have any. Add links to your cause site or blog and  other relative informations.Invite few people. Start with your friends.

Congratulations!, you have launched your campaign.

That easy?, yes!. Thanks to the collaborative features of web 2.0. You need not be an authority of the subject you campaign for . Just put forth your idea. start. Rest will come in,more people, resources, materials….etc.

Say that you started a facebook group to campaign for an environmentally sensitive water-body in your city.You send invitation to 100 people in your friend circle and acquaintance, among them 30 people joined the group.Think that you got at least 10 active people from all those 30 joined. They add up more information in the home page of the group about the water-body issue in hand and also start submitting relevant photos,videos and links.It is expected that they also start inviting their friends to join the group as well. As mentioned above, again some of their friends join and they also bring in more content and contacts to the group.So in course of time you have so much of campaign resources in the form of photos, videos,links and contacts.Then someone may put up an event calendar to take tyour campaign to streets, organising a street march/ dharna etc .Usually these are the few times on-line campaigners get to see one another face to face , after holding all those discussions on-line.These  dharnas may catch up the attention of traditional media and make the cause reach further in respect of the locality.

In short with on-line campaigning even living in a distant city over another continent, you can actively participate in a cause back in your home town. Along with ‘groups’ in different social network sites and blogs ,now the web 2.0 applications like twitter and friendfeed are widely used for organising and running campaigns.Also the tools like Tor are widely used for keeping the campaigners untraceable,if it affects his/her security.

Reference 1: Support Chengara Land Struggle

Reference 2: Free Dr. Binayak Sen Campaign