#Stayathome! Digital engagement in times of the COVID-19 pandemic

As in times of crisis
the internet can suddenly exhaust its full
potential

Me Too – me too. I stand behind you. I have experienced the same thing. A call that can provide much emotional support and perhaps a small revolt even in a small circle. 

#MeToo is the hashtag that, since October 2017, has triggered a wave in social media that was hardly thought possible, after it was used by Alyssa Milano on Twitter in the course of the Weinstein scandal with a call for dissemination to draw attention to sexual abuse in Hollywood and in general. At the centre of the scandal is Harvey Weinstein, a US film producer who is said to have abused, sexually coerced or raped dozens of women from the film industry for years. In February of this year, Weinstein was found guilty on both counts of rape and sexual coercion and sentenced to 23 years in prison.

MeToo – a hashtag that goes around the world, not only because it brings a long-suspected and covered-up truth into the light of the public, but because it has managed to set in motion an entire movement that points to a general grievance in society: that there are still far too many women and men who become victims of sexual violence. 

#Metoo is a prime example of so-called cyber-activism, represented here as a means of digital identity formation. Sandor Vegh divides cyber-activism into three categories, which can also be understood as successive levels building on one another. The first category is that of advocacy: the aim of this level is to use the reach of the internet and social media to create awareness of a particular grievance. The second category is organisation/mobilisation: calls are made for both offline and/or online actions. The final level is action/reaction: Vegh understands this to include, among other things, hacktivism, as a partly criminal form, as well as cyber-campaigns and, as the most extreme form, cyber-wars.

But what does online activism look like in times when almost all social and social life has been shifted into the digital space?
What does the Corona crisis do to online activism? The hashtag that currently dominates the media is one that does not sound like activism at all, but on the contrary calls for consistent attentism: #stayathome. 

Never has it been so easy to do something "good", or at least not to do the wrong thing:
Stay at home to protect Covid-19 risk groups and the healthcare system. But still, people apparently need to be motivated to do so, even though the benefit to the common good is so immense. The Corona crisis is estimated to be one of the greatest stress tests for both the healthcare system, the economy and our solidarity since the Second World War. With one difference: back then, the internet as a huge social network and its possibilities for shifting activities such as shopping, donating, communication and humanitarian support into the digital space did not yet exist.

The Federal Government recognised the potential early on and organised the largest hackathon ever held: around 43,000 people came together – online. #WirVsVirus was the name of the event. Another hashtag for the good. Ideas emerged such as the digital waiting room, through which one can query symptoms online, the mediation of neighbourhood help or apps that record the capacity of supermarkets and thus coordinate visitor numbers and reduce infection areas.

And not only the government is putting its citizens in a position of responsibility: after analogue life has been brought to a virtual standstill and gatherings with people of more than two persons are prohibited, which in most (and best) cases also means that demonstrations fall under the prohibited event category, this form of protest must also adapt: Luisa Neubauer, known as an author and figurehead of the German Fridays-for-Future movement, calls for a digital Friday demonstration. In the digital climate strike, activists thus hold their placards into the webcams of their laptops instead of marching through the streets with them. 

And what can we students do now in Würzburg? How can we support our neighbours, risk groups and local shops?

For example, by dancing at home in our living rooms to live streams from Kurt and Dornheim and donating the amount we would otherwise have spent on admission and gin and tonic. Or see what alternative offers the shops currently have in the Corona crisis. For this, there is a very helpful platform on Instagram that provides information about this. Here too, a hashtag plays a key role in the name, this time one of solidarity: #einwuerzburg. 

Viktoria Horn