Paper letters in a digital age
Since the writing of letters has declined with the arrival of mobile phones and email, Amnesty Netherlands also used these new media for actions. Email quickly became the most frequently used action method of Amnesty International. In 2012, more than 70.000 Dutch people sent an email for Amnesty, while there were only 10.000 letter-writers.
I have participated in email actions most frequently. The writing of letters was very time-consuming and expensive, due to the stamps. – Ellie, writing since the 1980s for Amnesty in Almere, 2013
An Amnesty greeting card, 2013
Courtesy of Headquarters Amnesty International Netherlands
As a cheap and fast medium, emails were used to campaign for the release of prisoners and to encourage them by 2013. Sample emails were available on the Amnesty website. The same goes for urgent actions, for which mobile text messages were used since 2002. With the recent use of social media, Amnesty can activate a younger audience than the usual letter writers and create an international community of people that fights against the abuse of human rights.
Greeting cards are now printed by Amnesty, to make it easier for people to participate. I think this effort is too little and Amnesty can ask people to do more. – Mea, writing since the 1970s for Amnesty in Amstelveen, 2013
There are some disadvantages about the fast and less intensive new media. A quick email asks for less dedication than the half an hour it takes to write a letter. Also, to reach the prisoners and accomplish Amnesty’s goals, writing letters is a more effective tool. For this reason, letter-writing for Amnesty has not disappeared in the Netherlands. In 2013, many local Amnesty teams still had active writing groups. These groups came together to write letters to authorities like in the old days.
For authorities a postbag with letters is harder to deny than a number of emails. Besides that, prisoners of conscience usually do not have computer access, so they cannot receive emails. – Mea, writing since the 1970s for Amnesty in Amstelveen, 2013
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