Social Success..

Digital activism is becoming more and more common in modern day society. Organisations and activist groups understand the mass audience’s digital media consume and are using this in an attempt to increase the effectiveness of their campaigns around the world. At some point most of us would have been subjected to digital activism or eCulture jamming. Everyday facebook, Twitter and several forms of social media are advertising and making us aware of several worldwide campaigns. A few that you may be aware of that I have involved myself in are World Visions 40 hour famine and Kony 2012.

Being one of the 947,000 people like on a Facebook page regarding Kony I became so caught up in his story and his life I wanted to get involved in KONY 2012. Jason Russel was the film maker behind the viral film and after going to government agencies and letters to the president no help was provided in an attempt to find and arrest Joeseph Kony. Joseph Kony is the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Africa which for 26 years has been killing, maiming, raping and looting and unfortunately mostly children known as child soldiers “ It is estimated that over 25,000 children have been abducted by the LRA in Uganda alone since 1987” (Unknown, 2012). The power of digital activism was shown instantly with the "Kony 2012" video brought 800,000 people to the donation page in a single day" (Baker, 2012). The film/campaign goes for 30 min and I encourage you all to watch http://vimeo.com/37119711 .The day itself unfortunately wasn’t successful as many didn’t appear on the day but that just goes to prove how digital activism is a powerful form of awareness. On 12^th May 2012 Joesph Kony was captured and taken into custody.

An interesting way to see how the public respond to certain issues is cultural jamming. It is the process of taking a known image and manipulating it with critical content. Mostly activists that part take in the jamming I believe are very artistic and strong willed and devoted. I see them as very brave individuals stepping up against mass organisations in order to get there opinion herd, regardless of the consequences. I think they should be perceived as strong minded individuals trying to have their voices heard. Mark Dery is the person behind the ‘cultural jamming’ propaganda and presents cultural jamming in a fine light. He himself could be seen as a ‘cultural jammer’ and through his blogs expresses his concerns. This can be seen at http://markdery.com/

I see social media to be a mass contribution to digital activism in the future. Modern day campaigns are becoming more and more significant through the use of social media and this will only continue to grow due to the mass audiences social media consumes

“Right now there are more people on Facebook then in the world 200 years ago” (INVISIBLE CHILDREN 2012).  Social media is the key to letting these activist groups have their voices heard.

REFERENCES

Baker, P, 2012, “How and why did KONY 2012 go viral Overnight?’, TECHNEWSWORLD, 4^th Novembr 2012, http://www.technewsworld.com/story/74835.html

INVISIBLE CHILDREN, 2012, “KONY 2012”, 11^th March 2012, viewed 11^th December 2012, http://vimeo.com/37119711

Unknown, 2012, “Child Soldiers”, UNICEF, 8^th March 2012, http://www.unicef.org.au/Discover/News/March-2012/Child-Soldiers-in-Uganda.aspx?gclid=CO_L1d6pkbQCFQZcpQodykAATg

http://markdery.com/