Why Posting Ukrainian Flags on Social Media Can Actually Help the War Effort

New Research Shows That Sometimes the Little Things Can Lead to Big Things.

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Just one day after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I was rapidly scrolling through social media, devouring news at a pace I hadn’t done since the early days of the pandemic. One unavoidable trend: an abundance of blue and yellow, the stirring colors of the Ukrainian flag. (The official colors are strong azure and gold, or, in Pantone, 2935C and 012C.)

These colors have been everywhere in the last week. In London at #10 Downing Street, MI6 headquarters, and the London Eye. In Paris at the Eiffel Tower. In New York at the Empire State Building. Even South Carolina, which took decades to remove the Confederate flag from its statehouse, had the Ukrainian flag up over the statehouse within hours.

And of course, the flag has been all over people’s social media feeds, from Facebook to Instagram to Twitter.

Looking at all these displays, I had a thought. The color and configuration of the yellow and blue reminded me of one of Vincent Van Gogh’s final paintings, “Wheatfield with Crows,” which he completed just days before he died in July 1890 and which I had seen in Amsterdam a few summers ago. The pitch black of the crows struck me as a haunting reminder of the winds of war descending on Kyiv.

I posted the image on Facebook and Instagram. The reaction of swift. Nearly twenty thousand people liked, loved, or shared the image within 24 hours.

But then I began to worry: Had I participated in a cheap stunt?

In recent years, a consensus has formed that even well-minded, genuine gestures like mine actually contribute very little to change. Such posts have been derided as slacktivism, armchair activism, and hashtag activism. As early as 2010, Malcolm Gladwell questioned the idea that social media had galvanized protests in Iran and (Ukraine neighbor) Moldova. “The revolution will not be tweeted,” he wrote in The New Yorker.

But more recent studies have suggested that this criticism may not be true after all. Social media postings can actually play a meaningful role in helping to advance change in the real world. If the early days of this conflict are any indication, particularly the swift groundswell in public opinion and public policy (see Germany’s rapid U-turn of 50 years of hesitancy to spend money on national defense), the Russian invasion of Ukraine may prove to be a watershed moment in how a spontaneous global outcry, expressed on social media, can help convey widespread public support for more concrete actions.

As Mindi Foster and Eden Hennessey of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada, along with Benjamin Blankenship of James Madison University, wrote in their 2019 study, “Can ‘Slacktivism’ Work?’, “There is cumulating evidence to support the effectiveness of various types of social media activism.” They go on to say that “activists and non-activists alike” consider the cumulative effect of posting, clicking, liking, and sharing to be “equally effective” as offline activities.

Based on these new reports, here are three ways that online activism can lead to real-world results.

1. Effective Social Media Posts Can Amplify Weaker Voices

Social media is especially effective for marginalized communities, both in getting their message out and in finding allies among non-marginalized communities. Even though Ukraine is outgunned and outmanned in a conventional military sense, it plays as an equal on social media. Russia has 403,000 followers; Ukraine has 1.5 million. A recent tweet from the official Ukraine account said, “Tag @Russia and tell them what you think about them.” It got 163,000 likes.

As Andrew Case of the University of North Carolina and a colleague published in the American Journal of Community Psychology, social media is a “counterspace” that promotes wellness among marginalized groups who experience oppression and helps these communities both find their voice and build narratives that resonate in the larger world. The conflict in Ukraine is still in the early days, but who believes that without the global outcry of support, such otherwise weak organizations like soccer powerhouse FIFA would have acted as quickly as they have to separate themselves from Russia? The same with Apple, Exxon, and Ford.

2. Good Thoughts Create Good Actions

A chief complaint about social activism is that it merely “makes people feel good about themselves.” But feeling good is not so easily dismissed. As B.F. Skinner suggested 50 years ago in Beyond Freedom and Dignity, feeling good after after taking small steps actually encourages us to take larger steps. Martin van Zomeren of the University of Groningen in Holland and colleagues argued in 2012 that receiving support from others “is what mobilizes individuals for collective action.”

In other words, if you post a flag of Ukraine or a story about a refugee and you receive abundant support from your friends, followers, and loved ones, you’re more likely to take the next step—go to a rally, encourage those around you to change your consumer habits, or make a donation. In fact, if you already are one of those people, here’s a list from the heroic folks at The Kyiv Independent, one of the last publications reporting from on-the-ground in Ukraine, with suggestions of how to help. Even better, support them through their GoFundMe page!

3. Engaging on Social Media Can Validate and Stimulate Engaging on the Ground

Finally, speaking out on sensitive political matters understandably makes many people hesitate. Will their position alienate them from their friends, imperil their livelihoods, put their families at risk? Scholars are finding that seeing others express support for a cause online gives people greater confidence to speak out themselves, which in turn encourages them to take bolder steps.

As Foster and colleagues suggest, most initial interactions these days occur online, from dating to job hunting to working on your sobriety. To expect anything different from fighting climate change or Russian aggression is unrealistic. These days, all mobilization begins “in a digital space rather than a physical space,” so if outrage at the war doesn’t begin online, where will it begin?

The bottom line: All those flags might not be the most robust gesture, but in the early days of what Tom Friedman of the New York Times calls World War Wired, they have proven themselves to be a powerful bellwether of global public opinion and a critical tool for building consensus for more robust responses.

So embrace your yellow and blue, everyone! And then perhaps open your wallet and pony up a little green.

If you’d like to make a donation in support of displaced Ukrainians, please consider the UN Refugee Agency.

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