“Advocacy is the active promotion of a cause or principle that involves actions …show more content…
You can have all the components, but without grease it is very difficult to get things moving. The spokes of the tire are like the ingredients that make advocacy effective. One spoke might be the cause itself, another is the power of the advocates helping, another is the research that has been done on the cause, it can also be the skills needed to use appropriate tools available (media outlets, local newspapers), and the last spoke can be the strategy and tactics in which everyone will use to bring about change. Advocacy at its core is communication by the use of resources and information to bring about systematic change, thus the grease that keeps everything …show more content…
This increases the ability and potential to make advocacy efforts more effective and efficient. When advocates use technology they are not limited by time and space or method and often can have change happen in real time. Cell-phones and social media (affordable technology) sites help with raising awareness and shaping attitudes towards social outreach. This accessible technology helps provide opportunities for young adults to participate in social change by giving them a voice, which in turn, hopefully, help them develop a mind for advocacy in the future. Technology allows an ease of participation that has been stronger than it has been available in the past. “Research shows that networks serve three purposes, structurally connecting prospective participants to an opportunity to participate, socializing them to protest the issue, and shaping their decision to become involved” (Passy & Giugni, 2001, p. 123). Technology helps expand information no matter a person’s socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental conditions. In teen advocacy, technology plays a large part of connecting to a large, mostly ignored, resource within communities. Young adults are part of the community and can become part of the solution to its problems. For example, Lifting New Voices, a demonstration project aimed at 15-21-year-olds in community organizing and advocacy has been very successful (Checkoway et al., 2003).