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Online Activism and Citizen Participation

Online Activism and Citizen Participation. “Kony2012” : Thin Solution for Thick Problem?.

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Online Activism and Citizen Participation

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  1. Online Activism and Citizen Participation “Kony2012” : Thin Solution for Thick Problem?

  2. "War, Famine, Plague & Death are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and these days they're riding hard through the back roads of Africa.” Bob Geldof Quoted in William Easterly: What Bono doesn't say about AfricaCelebrities like to portray it as a basket case, but they ignore very real progress.LA Times July 6, 2007. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/06/opinion/oe-easterly6 "From Sachs to Kristof to Invisible Children to TED, the fastest growth industry in the US is the White Savior Industrial Complex."Teju Cole @tejucole <https://twitter.com/#%21/tejucole>

  3. Questions…. • What's new about the representations of Africa in "Kony 2012"? Are they old messages in new media bottle?  • Does the video represent theft of agency and voices from Africans themselves? • What can we learn from the video about the characteristics of "new" media that made them different from traditional media?

  4. Can we raise awareness about complex issues without oversimplification? • Why is critical media literacy more important than ever before? • Are we seeing new forms of political participation? • What are the impact of social media campaign on policy making? • What important lessons about advocacy can we learn from this and similar episodes? • Who are Facebook, Youtube, TED etc., empowering?

  5. Convergence of two trends • “Saving Africa” • “Digital Activism”

  6. Invisible Children: Storytelling-Based Activism • Media as Development 50% of its budget spend on media production and events discourses of personal growth mixed in with messages of hope

  7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc

  8. What are the key features of the “script”? • What actions from the viewers does the video promote?

  9. The Script • Once upon a time… • Good guy vs bad guy • Get ride of the bad guy and problem solved • Happily ever after…

  10. Types of actions • Consumption • Donation • invisible night protest – cover the night • clickism. ‘performative action that [does] not require solidarity…and [can be] devoid of any critical or radical urge’ (Tatarchevsky 2011, 309–310)

  11. Henry Jenkins • Civic Path research group (Spencer Foundation) Youth and Participatory Politics (MacArthur Foundnation) • Digital activism as new forms of civic learning • “using social media and participatory culture tactics to empower young people to see themselves as active political agents who can make a difference in the world” • “Awareness of Kony 2012 remains highest among teens and young adults, suggesting how central these same groups were to circulating the video from the start.”

  12. Transmedia mobilization • “The "Movement," as Invisible Children calls its US-facing work, includes visually-arresting films, spectacular event-oriented campaigns, provocative graphic t-shirts and other apparel, music mixes, print media, blogs and more. To be a member of Invisible Children means to be a viewer, participant, wearer, reader, listener, commenter of and in the various activities, many mediated, that make up the Movement. It is a massive, open-ended, evolving documentary "story" unfurling across an expanding number of media forms.” Lana Swartz http://civicpaths.uscannenberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Swartz_InvisibleChildren_WorkingPaper.pdf

  13. new media tactics and practices. • Share a “secret” • Use simple narratives • Create a “meme” • Tap celebrities • Use cute kids • Ask people to join a movement • Propose simple solutions • Don’t underestimate people’s attention spend

  14. Not a Click Away: Joseph Kony in the Real World “I’ve spent my career writing, researching and traveling through Africa, and what I am always astounded by is how little I know.  I couldn’t explain to my son, much less offer a solution to, any of the conflicts I’ve worked on, anymore than I could explain to him why so many people are poor or homeless in America, why our public schools are failing, or why we don’t have better healthcare. I can’t explain the world I have focused on daily for most of my life, and yet this film would have you think that in thirty minutes of child-talk, we can somehow understand, and then resolve, a conflict in a distant part of the world.” DinawMengestu http://www.warscapes.com/reportage/not-click-away-joseph-kony-real-world

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