The use of communications during the struggle for social justice
in the United States is far from being a novelty. News spread
quickly by word of mouth when black college students started a
host of nonviolent sit-ins in several states almost 50 years
ago, as The Washington Post’s Krissah Thompson noted. Today,
civil rights activists, particularly African Americans and
Hispanics, have found in social media a powerful channel to
voice their support for a cause and generate cause engagement,
according to a latest study by Georgetown University and Ogilvy
PR Worldwide. The study found that nearly one in three African-
American adults (30 percent) and four in 10 Hispanics (39
percent) say “they’re more likely to support a cause or social
issue online than offline,” whereas one in five (24 percent) of
Caucasians expressed the same interest. Likewise, a slight
majority of African Americans (58 percent) and Hispanics (51
percent) are more likely to believe that they can help spread
the word “about a social issue or ca