Kony Video Goes Viral

Joseph Kony the Lord Resistance Army has abducted more than 600 children soldiers and sex slaves over the past two years (UN 2012). He is one of the world worst criminal and due to that there have been a video for the whole world to stop him and his activity. Kony2012 is a film and campaign by Invisible Children to get support from the authority to arrest him for international justice. 

Source: http://alex.leonard.ie

Kony2012 is a video about an issue of Ugandan warlord by using children as his slaves cum soldiers. The video suddenly become on the top topic in Facebook and Twitter. Cherubini (2012) stated that it has become the viral on the web just because its content which consists of sensitive issues.

 

KONY 2012: Part II-Beyond Famous

The reason why the video was made is for the purpose of activism. According to Harlow (2011), he argues that social network sites are not mainly for the activism activity therefore the internet can lead to a traditional method of activism and by adding current type of campaign that can be done via email and online. Basically this kind of social movement are solely to grab public attentions and certain public figures to start taking action towards this warlord like Joseph Kony. 

Source: thelede.blogs

The internet has giving such a big impact and in few days, there are 14.4 million viewers on Vimeo and 49 millions on YouTube. Can you imagine these things to happen on internet? This is a massive viral that have been going on since the video was on air. Nevertheless, Van De Donk (2011) said that the internet can never replace existing movement tactics even with big numbers of viewers.

Therefore, I strongly believe that online activism can easily spread viral information in the fastest way as we cannot imagine but it only for a short period. Everybody is using internet to delivered and spread news because the learning process is very understandable. Internet activism is the first step before a real activism has been being performed. They will start gathered online with other audiences and it’s the easiest way to reach other activist or audiences. Thus, I would like to state here that, online distribution or online activism is the fastest way to create awareness to others in the future. 

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REFERENCES

• Cherubini, F, 2012, Kony2012: once information goes viral, there's no stopping it, World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, March 9, viewed at 10 June, http://www.editorsweblog.org/2012/03/09/kony2012-once-information-goes-viral-theres-no-stopping-it
• Harlow, S, 2011, Social media and social movements: Facebook and an online Guatemalan justice movement that moved offline, New Media & Society, vol. 14, np. 2, pp. 224-243.