Propaganda & Social Media
Today, propaganda is displayed in our media everyday and are much easier to produce than they were in the 20th century. Propaganda is very political and effortlessly spreadable in the touch a button in today’s world. Posters used to do the trick years ago, and now it can spread like wildfire on everyone’s technological devices. The goal of propaganda is to publicize a particular political cause or point of view. One form of propaganda are the large activists movements in this century, with one being the “#MeToo” movement. This is a form of corporate propaganda to manipulate large groups of people. This movement caused a lot of fake news and disinformation with propaganda campaigns outside the US and by the culture of men. The #MeToo movement encourages women to share their personal stories of sexual harassment and amplify the importance of speaking out rather than keeping it in to yourself.
The #MeToo movement is a fight for gender equality and has inspired social and political movements in the world. Equal rights and feminism are the advocates for this campaign and use social media as a platform to increase visibility of ongoing issues and inspire change for the future generations. In 2017, this movement spread virally over social media by the simple use of a hashtag “#MeToo” and this movement followed public revelations of sexual misconduct worldwide. Social media was the key to this movement and provided a platform for its users to express their opinions and feelings on this topic. Facebook, twitter, and other social media platforms facilitate the communication of these issues to a global audience. This created an awareness of activism and made a change for the future.
Online activism is the new form of propaganda and fastest way to spread information and trending topics. Social media activism has become a part of the twenty-first century activism that is initiated online. This is a huge campaign for millennials who have developed a sense of online community to make it an online activism platform. Social media gives them the access to social issues and allows for worldwide support of global issues and in this instance allows people to speak out about sexual assault.
The #MeToo movement is a great example of a successful social media activist campaign in the 21st century. After celebrity Milano started the trend by simply telling people to speak up if they have been sexual assaulted by tweeting #MeToo and this initial tweet triggered social media to make a change. The media quickly flooded with stories of sexual harrassment and assualt that women experience everyday. If it weren’t for this movement, people would not have been saved and felt afraid to speak out about what has happened to them in the past. The hashtag reached dozens of countries and millions of people. Twitter announced that in less than a week, over 1.7 million people tweeted the hashtag and 85 counties had at least 1,000 #MeToo tweets.
The gratification theory was the approach taken here to understand why and how people can reach platforms and actively seek out specific messages to satisfy specific needs. Twitter and facebook were the highest social media platforms used for this movement and it continues to get stories to this day and help people everyday who can relate to this movement. It was all about spreading awareness and helping those who can’t speak out and are afraid. People need to know that there are other people in their shoes before they want to speak out. Speaking out by using the hashtag and sharing their story, allows those affected to speak out about their experience in the process of trying to heal, and also gives others the courage and solidarity to seek help and support for their experiences. Facebook was used as an online community platform of healing and allowed people to communicate with friends online who can help those struggling and feeling lonely. This social media activism has influenced current social media activists and made people aware of how simple it is to make a difference in the touch of your fingers on your phone by simply using a hashtag to spread awareness.
