KONY 2012? Uganda be kidding me!
Since the formation of my web blog, Chasingpulitzer, I have learnt an enormous amount about the controversial issue of KONY 2012. Almost overnight, the KONY campaign came into our lives, it was strewn all over Facebook, media headlines, newspapers, and yet the majority of us were still questioning, who is Joseph Kony? After watching a 30 minute clip on Youtube, and clicking “like” on Facebook, the greater number of us believed that we had all become online social activists and that our cause would was really making a significant difference. But what did it really do? When was the last time any of us heard about Joseph Kony? I bet it was around April 20th when the world was “covered in KONY”. I must have slept through that day because I don’t recall it ever happening.
Over the past four months, the creators of the KONY campaign, Invisible Children and the media have created a moral panic on the issue of child slavery in Uganda. According to Stanley Cohens book Folk Devils and Moral Panics, a moral panic occurs when “a condition, episode, person, or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests”. The book also describes the person(s) starting the panic are known by researches as “Moral Entrepreneurs”. If we put these terms into the case of KONY 2012, Josephy Kony is the Moral Panic and The Invisible Children and Jason Russell are the Moral Entrepreneurs.
During the semester, I studied a media concept known as the Hypodermic needle model. As it suggests, it is a model of communication suggesting that an intended message is directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver (Wiki). It is meant to give the mental image of a direct, strategic and planned injection of a message to an individual. The KONY campaign would appear to be an example of the hypodermic needle model following the world wide reaction to the video. This is not the case, showing that the reactions to the broadcast were, in fact, diverse and were largely determined by situational and attitudinal attributes of the listeners (Carroll, 2012). This can easily be related to Shannan and Weaver’s debunking of the hypodermic needle model theory, they suggest that public can select which messages affect them and which ones don’t.
Conversely, Shannon-Weaver created a theory of the two step flow model which relates to the KONY campaign in that the media does not directly have an influence on people anymore. Alternatively, interpersonal connections and selective exposure play a much larger role in influencing the public sphere. The Shannon-Weaver model can be seen through the various opinions of people throughout the world. Whilst the KONY campaign is promoting a good cause, there are many people who believe it’s dangerous, ignorant and that the whole campaign is nothing but a glorified petition. Adam Branch, assistant professor of political science at the San Diego State University, USA believes that “The video qualifies as irresponsible advocacy by promoting militarisation and detracting from Uganda’s real problems”(Branch, 2012).
Some of the world’s larger news broadcasts also had some criticism of the movement. Rory Caroll of the Guardian UK reported “KONY 2012 cover the night fails to move from the Internet to the Streets”, CNN U.S also had some negative comments about the movement such as “ Why KONY 2012 created the wrong buzz?”. One of the blogs that I wrote was on a headline from one of our national news broadcasts, Nine MSN. The blog post was titled “The Media never forgets” and the headline of the online article was “Kony campaign falls flat in Sydney”. These headlines have successfully convinced me that online social activism is not the correct path to be taken when trying to tackle the enormous issue that it Joseph Kony and the LRA.
Jason Russell’s passion for this project is like something I’ve never seen before, and I commend him for all the work he has done. In retrospect, Facebook is the largest online social networking site in the world with over 900 million members. What is popular on Facebook one day is going to be ancient history the next day and unfortunately this appears to be the case with KONY 2012. In order to make this work, People really do need the passion, belief and love that Jason Russell has for his campaign, and not just the ability to use a mouse and click “like”.
References
- Rory Carroll. 2012. Guardian UK. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/21/kony-2012-campaign-uganda-warlord. [Accessed 21 May 12].
- CNN US. 2012. Why KONY created the wrong buzz. [ONLINE] Available at: http://articles.cnn.com/2012-03-12/africa/world_africa_kony-2012-tms-ruge-opinion_1_social-media-viral-video-buzz?_s=PM:AFRICA. [Accessed 20 May 12]
- NINE MSN News. 2012. Kony campaign falls flat in Sydney. [ONLINE] Available at: http://news.ninemsn.com.au. [Accessed 01 May 12].
- Adam Branch. 2012. Aljazeera: Dangerous Ignorance. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/03/201231284336601364.html. [Accessed 02 April 12].
- Berger, A , 1995. Essentials of Mass Communication Theory. 1st ed.London: SAGE publications
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