Student organizers of a walkout at Sir John A. Macdonald Secondary School in downtown Hamilton said social media played a key role
By Cory Ruf, CBC News
Posted: Dec 14, 2012 10:06 AM ET
Last Updated: Dec 14, 2012 10:43 AM ET
Alex Sévigny is an associate professor of communication at McMaster University. A "shift to a culture of participation" is empowering Ontario high schoolers to speak out about the labour impasse between teachers and the provincial government, according to a McMaster prof.
The level of student involvement in the current debate didn't exist during earlier Ontario teachers' strikes, said Alex Sévigny, an associate professor with the university's Department of Communication Studies and Multimedia. It's a trend he attributes to the ever-growing popularity of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
"In the past, students, as a stakeholder public, would have to just sit on their hands and grin and bear [the job actions]," Sévigny said. "But now, with social media, they feel like they are part of a community and should have a voice and that their concerns should be part of the conversation."
This week, thousands of students — including hundreds in Hamilton — walked out of Ontario schools to protest the ongoing labour strife between teachers and the province.
High school teachers in many boards have taken up work-to-rule measures, while public elementary teachers are staging rotating one-day walkouts. They are protesting the province's Bill 115, which gives the government tools to clamp down on teachers' strikes.
Student organizers of a walkout at Sir John A. Macdonald Secondary School in downtown Hamilton said social media played a key role in their mobilization strategy. On Monday, 300 teenagers marched out of class in protest of Bill 115 and demanded the government and the teachers' unions reach a quick resolution.
Daniel Panciuc, one of the coordinators of the protest, said his team created a Facebook event to inform other students about the demonstration, dubbed Operation 9:30. They also used Twitter to spread the word.
"Most of the school is very tech-savvy, very connected," he said. "It's very helpful to have media like that."
Invoking the late Canadian media scholar Marshall McLuhan, Sévigny pointed out that the student-organized protests are proof that society has become a "global village," in which information passes freely and easily over electronic channels, as if by word of mouth.
"We're moving to a new culture — McLuhan predicted it," the Mac prof said. "People are using social media to communicate with one another in an interpersonal way and that gives groups an awareness of their role and importance.
"It's different from the past, when [students] were separated out at home and were really only ever together when they were at school."
Student activists aren't the only party in the education conflict using social media to their advantage. Governments, school boards and unions also use these tools to communicate information and to mobilize their backers.
"Social media is a very important tool and we know that parents and students use it," said Jackie Penman, manager of corporate communications for the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board.
"So that is one avenue through which we try to get information out."
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