#BringBackOurGirls: A Case Study of the Impact of Media Activism in the Global World
Media activism is a form of social movement that involves the use of communication technologies and strategies to communicate ideas, thoughts, and opinions about certain injustices on various social media platforms as a way to bring awareness to certain issues and causes. Today, people use these social media platforms to pass across information to a much broader audience to fuel their social or political movements. Social media activism is breaking bridges by enabling more people to participate in it. Through the use of a Twitter hashtag, Nigerian activists were able to garner media attention while drawing the attention of various known celebrities to support their cause and fight against Boko Haram, hence #BringBackOurGirls. In this post, I plan to analyze the use of social media in relation to the start and popularization of the #BringBackOurGirls movement while also discussing the transition from offline activism (protests, rallies) to online activism and the differences it brought to the movement.
The #BringBackOurGirls movement was a campaign that started in Nigeria in response to the unfortunate abduction of 267 female students by an Islamic terrorist group known as Boko Haram. These girls are referred to as Chibok girls as they were taken in the town of Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria on April 14, 2014. The hashtag #BringBackOurGirls was initially live-tweeted by a Nigerian lawyer, Ibrahim Abdullahi during a televised speech by the former minister of education, Oby Ezekwesili whereby he said, “bring back our daughters”( 4). This then garnered a lot of global attention by influential and notable people in the world. This was how the protest began in Nigeria, mothers whose children were taken used this hashtag to protest around the streets of Abuja, where the president resides. The hashtag was shared close to a million times on social media which really put this terrorist group on the mark and also brought attention to the group (5).
The image above was particularly created to invoke certain emotions from the people viewing it. Using the image of young girls, it is easy to imagine yourself or a loved one in the same position as the girls that were taken. The concept of pathos is applied to this image as it would increase the participation of people in this campaign by looking at this image and spread the word. According to Castell, “fear and outrage drive social movements”, fear for the abducted girls, what the future would hold for them and also fear for Boko Haram (4). This fear was experienced by both the mothers and the participants in the movements. It would encourage more people to participate either online or offline to fuel the movement to bring back the taken girls. It also encouraged Nigerian activists to move from a “local to a transnational movement” as a way to gain support from the international community (4)
According to Sturken and Cartwright, “social media has significantly increased social movements fueled by social injustice in the global world as well as helped ideas, images, and strategies circulate quickly and virally” (6). So not only does social media help reach a wider range of people, but it also spreads information faster. This is true to the #BringBackOurGirls movement when comparing the results in the differences in outreach in both offline and online movements of this campaign, it is clear that it benefited from online activism. Through social media, the #BringBackOurGirls movement was able to reach a wider range of people both within and outside the country.
This image is a campaign for the #BringBackOurGirls movement. Although this movement started in Nigeria, it is clear that it was able to reach well-known people and activists as well. In the image, Michelle Obama, Malala and Leona Lewis are all seen holding a white card with inscription #BringBackOurGirls. According to Ian Buchanan, “social movement is a contemporary term for a politicized group of people united by a common purpose” (7). The social movement here being #BringBackOurGirls and how these showed their support for the movement as well as their commitment to it. The fact that all three of these people are all from different countries but have been brought together by this movement is something to consider as well. It shows that social media activism indeed is more participatory than offline activism and it does not matter what country a movement originates. Sturken and Cartwright explain how “distance has been bridged by communication technologies” in the global world (6). This image shows how true this statement is, how a movement that started in Nigeria was able to catch the attention of various known celebrities is due to these communication technologies.
Although, after a year of the abduction of the Chibok girls, the hashtag died down. That was until Malala Yousafzai, who is a well known Pakistani activist, wrote an open letter to world leaders criticizing them for not putting enough effort in the release of the Chibok girls. This was due to the fact that even after a year of the abduction, a majority of the girls were still in custody, while some had escaped. After this letter was released, the hashtag was tweeted about 37 000 times by people(5). Manuel Castells states that although, “social movements have always been dependent on the existence of specific communication mechanisms…, interactive and self-configurable communication strategies allow movements to be less hierarchical and more participatory” (6). This again relates back to the idea of a participatory culture that social media allows, how a Pakistani activist was able to restart a conversation about a movement that started in Nigeria.
This image shows Ellen DeGeneres, who is a well-known American comedian and television host holding a sign that reads #BringBackOurGirls. This was taken on her show, the Ellen show and then posted on Twitter. She tweeted “It can’t happen soon enough” (8). She is seen to be very displeased about the situation as she also participates in the movement. She is seen to be providing support through her brand and her show in order to bring attention to the issue. This would be the impact of a globalized network. According to Sturken and Cartwright “globalized networks have enabled political movements to disseminate their ideas and build support throughout the world, thus constituting global communities of support” (6). This again refers to the idea of social media bridging the distances between the users, so regardless of what country or city a protest or movement originates from, people from all over the world are able to participate in that same movement through these social networks, thereby showing their support.
Social media platforms particularly twitter acts as a “public space where public opinion struggles social and political justice can be expressed, filtered, sorted, and amplified with ease; it is a place where access is not a concern(4). This is seen with the #BringBackOurGirls movement and how Nigerian activists moved to Twitter as a way to attract media attention, thereby putting pressure on the Nigerian government, as the protests and rallies in Nigeria were not doing the movement any justice. When interviewed, the head of strategic communications for the movement said, “Hadn’t this campaign gone viral the matter would’ve been covered up as has been done before. The Nigerian government would’ve pretended that nothing had happened, and life would’ve moved on” (4). This is sadly true as seen in the results of the rallies in Abuja, it was not until it became a global issue that the government then decided to act on it.
In conclusion, social media helped with the popularization of the #BringBackOurGirls movement and allowed more people to also participate in the movement regardless of their nationality. Although it brought more global attention to the issue, there are still girls in captive till this date and it is the hope of every Nigerian that they can return home safely and the movement would not have been in vain.
References
(1) Image Retrieved: https://www.lorensworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Bring-Back-Our-Girls-590x3392.jpg
(2) ) Image Retrieved: http://atlantablackstar.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/nigerian-girls-missing-2.jpeg
(3) Image Retrieved: https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2014/05/08/14/bring-back-our-girls.jpg?w660
(4) Smith, Chelsey. The Technology of Hope: Twitter and the #BringBackOurGirls Campaign. Royal Roads University, 2015, pp 13–60, https://viurrspace.ca/bitstream/handle/10170/842/smith_chelsey.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. Accessed December 1, 2018.
(5) Saul, Heather. The one Chart that proves how Fickle we are over #BringBackOurGirls. The Independent UK, 2015, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/the-one-chart-that-proves-how-fickle-we-are-over-bringbackourgirls-10175153.html. Accessed December 1, 2018.
(6) ) Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. London and New York: Oxford University Press, p.15, 2018.
(7) Ian Buchanan. A Dictionary of Critical Theory, Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 2018. http://www.oxfordreference.com.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/view/10.1093/acref//9780198794790.001.0001/acref-9780198794790-e-651
(8) Huffington Post. Celebrities, World Leaders Unite to #BringBackOurGirls. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/09/celebrity-tweets-nigeria-girls_n_5297188.html. Accessed December 1, 2018.