Activism. Action. Change. Team. Inspiring. Valiant. Illuminating. Social. Movement.
300 words, can include bullet points, in which you:
-define the topic clearly -raise questions you would like to pursue -define any assumptions/hypotheses you start with -define a specific audience outside of this class Founded in 2004, Invisible Children is a global organization with the mission of bringing awareness to the violent and cruel activities surrounding the youth of Central Africa due to Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army. Invisible Children acts as a nonprofit humans services organization that utilizes the power of multimedia. Their four part plan includes media, mobilization, protection, and recovery. The spear headers of this organization create documentaries to introduce new audiences and populations to the crimes currently being inflicted on the African youth. The second aspect of their plan(mobilization) demonstrates the true power in numbers. They uses artist relations to hold charity concerts with performers such as Mumford and Sons, Fall Out Boy, Paramore, and many more. They also have a national tour which brings "lecturers" to schools in America in order to inform the American youth of these terrible crimes being inflicted on their peers. They sell t-shirts, bracelets, provide flyers, etc. so that even those who did not get to see a formal speech or documentary about said topic can become aware of this issue. In terms of protection, Invisible Children, Inc has formed relations with regional partners in Central Africa to warn of remote LRA attacks and encourage a peaceful surrender of Kony's Army. Last but certainly not least: Recovery. Invisible Children, Inc. has centers focused on rehabilitating children who were victims of these crimes. They focus on education and economic recovery. My goal in writing this 2nd hyperessay is to, like this wonderful organization, make this invisible children visible. Moreover, I am to show that activism requires more than raising awareness or a simple protest. Rather, activism requires us to ACT and change the world. It requires movement. In order to evoke action among us citizens media and the awareness that it brings must be inspiring, compelling, and most importantly it must find some way to connect with its audience. In turn, the connection will strike individuals and bring about ACTION against the injustices of the world. This week in class we spent a lot time discussing Occupy Wall Street and the 950 smaller activism movements that resulted from. In my freshman seminar entitled Citizenship here at Emory, we spent the the latter half of the semester reading Joseph Stiglitz's "The Price of Inequality" as well as watching documentaries about the subject. In this class, we discussed the specific details of what the protesters where arguing and whether or not their was truth to the power of the 1%. The discussions where extremely informative of what the Occupy movements were truly about. However it was not until we watched the documentaries, listening to the audio and seeing the visual acts of wrongdoing that I truly understood what the we the 99% were protesting for. This goes to show how strong the power of media is in not just informing but educating the youth in social and activist issues of the global society in which we live. The media inspired me to research and investigate on my own to find out more about the movement that was truly fighting.
In Eltantawy and Wiest's "Social Media in the Egyptian Revolution: Reconsidering Resource Mobilization Theory", they discuss the power of social media in informing not just the youth but also the general public of current events and issues. The social media provides not just the information and basic facts but also empowers the creation, organization, and implementation of social movements around the world. However, at a certain point the social media and articles posted about sensitive topics become overwhelming. There are too many views and opinions that it becomes too overwhelming to form your own opinion and find you own voice in the topic. At least, that's how I feel.....Often times, I find myself taking on the opinion of others without fully researching the topic in order to just move on and steer away from the confusion. However, it is important to note that just like me the person forming this opinion may not have fully researched to topic. SO while media is all well and good without using Henry Jenkin's method of participatory culture of education and truly investigate the knowledge on our own instead of simply accepting what we see blogged and plastered all over the internet as fact and truth, we cannot truly creat |