Back in the 1960s, the media’s role from an institutionalist perspective was that media created the construction of truth, where although media obscure the news, it still created a new reality and leaders. Today, that has changed due to new social media outlets, such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube that allows individuals to release real news such as the The Black Lives Matter Movement (BLM) with the #blm hashtag. This hashtag started as a conversation between three sisters on Facebook when a guy by the name of George Zimmerman, who shot African-American teen Trayvon Martin was released. Therefore, #blm became a bigger movement and utilize whenever there were occurrences of racism. With the hashtag, it shows empowerment and creates dialogue …show more content…
Therefore, back in the 1960’s, people relied on mass media, such as television and the newspaper which was a reflection of truth, where it told people what was going and a deflection of truth, where the process information became distorted. Therefore, one was not sure whether media was tricking or informing them, but it created a new reality. In addition, people who were in certain movements had no real organization and everyone was distrustful of leaders, because no one wanted a hierarchical system. However, that is not the case for the BLM Movement. The BLM Movement organize events through careful planning on social media and they all trust one another. And when the BLM Movements does get shown on the media, it mostly consist of people marching in unity, shutting down highways, streets, stores, interrupting important speeches and peacefully protesting while shouting out “Black Lives Matter”. Therefore, there is not a single individual that gets shown to be the leader of the BLM Movement on media. Sometimes, the BLM Movement has to even fight for the media’s attention that I will further …show more content…
Kalev Leetaru, a contributor of Forbes looks at data through web searches and televisions to find out whether the BLM Movement is striving or fading. Through his research he notices that searches for the topic of the BLM Movement on Google and Youtube web searches did not happen until Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson was found not guilty of the shooting of Michael Brown, an African American who was unarmed (Leetaru 2015). However, what really cause the search to rise was when BLM protesters took over Bernie Sander’s microphone who is running in the presidential campaign and was trying to get votes. Therefore, they prevented him from speaking and got their message about “Black Lives Matter” out on the media. This shows that there are times when BLM does not even get to be on the media, which causes them to interrupt presidential candidates to gain their spotlight in media. This is similar to how Jerry Rubin received a subpoena to appear in court, but he utilize that moment and wore the American Revolutionary War costume which earned him a “national reputation” and “launched his career” as a seller of a symbol of being against the Vietnam war (Gitlin 2003: 172). However, instead of an individual, it was a group of people who was protesting about BLM and similar to how Rubin utilize his moments to represent his anti-war “Yippie Group,” the BLM
If there was any one man who demonstrated the anger, the struggle, and the beliefs of African Americans in the 1960s, that man was Malcolm X. The African American cultural movement of the 1920s lost momentum in the 1930s because of worldwide economic depression. The Great Depression helped to divert attention from cultural to economic matters. Even before the stock market crash of 1929, unemployment and poverty among blacks was exceptionally high. It was under these difficult conditions that Malcolm X experienced his youth in the South. Malcolm X was a very controversial character in his time. He grew up in a very large family. His father hunted rabbits to sell to the white people for money, and his mother stayed home to take care of all the children. Several times when he was young, his family was forced to relocate due to the racist groups that would burn or run them out of their home like the Ku Klux Klan. One of these groups called the Black Legion killed his father by tying him to the railroad tracks. Malcolm’s father had life insurance but was not given to his family because they said that Earl Little had committed suicide. This was quite impossible because his head was bashed in and he tied himself to the railroad. Without his father’s income, Malcolm's family was forced to get government help and food. Applying for this type of assistance brought many white Social Workers into their home. They asked questions and interrogated the entire family. Malcolm’s mother always refused to talk or let them in.
Commenting about journalism and equality for black Americans, Phyl Garland, a prominent reporter and journalism professor, said, “After the Civil War there was an enormous burst of energy, a desire to communicate, a desire to connect with black people establishing newspapers...It was the first opportunity to use the written word without fear of reprisal.” From that time forward, black journalists in the United States gained further opportunities in the press and used the media to galvanize support and communicate news relating to the Civil Rights Movement. Civil rights movements can be defined as political campaigns for equality by members of an oppressed group of people and their allies. It is crucial to understand the history of the African American Civil Rights Movement during the mid-1900s to understand how the role of black journalists changed. Before the Civil Rights Movement, blacks were disrespected and underrepresented in society and in the white press, because of racism and the legacy of slavery, persisting long after the Civil War ended in 1865. Emphasizing civil disobedience and non-violent protests, the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement aimed to end race-based segregation and discrimination against black Americans. Journalists and reporters, or people who provide news and analysis to the public through newspapers, television, and radio, documented and called attention to the progress of the movement. Black journalists laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement, and then saw their role and treatment change as the movement advanced.
People use mass media for many different reasons, such as enjoyment, companionship, surveillance, and interpretation. In order for a person to interpret what mass media puts out, media literacy is applied. Media literacy allows the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate messages in a variety of forms while focusing on being able to interpret media messages and its effects in many different ways. This is done through audiences whom actively receive and process the medias messages. In Adrian Chen’s article, “Unfollow” the effects media technology has on people is brought to light through the story of a previous Westboro Baptist Church member, Megan Phelps-Roper, who became acclimated with Twitter. The unfiltered and controversial
African Americans were becoming dissatisfied with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s approach to the Civil Rights Movement. Some African Americans argue “that turning the cheek” was no longer an option for them. Others believed that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a dreamer and a farce and sleeping with the archenemy. The FBI had wage a campaign against King;” the FBI went so far as to send King a tape recording of one of his supposed tryst and a letter encouraging him to take his own life” (Martin Luther King, Jr We Remember (Wolfson, A & Moynihan, D.P. (2003). Page
Because the justice system isn’t always in favor of the innocent, people have started to stand up for their rights. Whether it is by protesting or even showing their support on social media, this nation’s youth is standing up to these injustices and demanding their rights back. They are a community standing together against injustice. Social media has paved a way that allows today’s youth to connect and collaborate in order to achieve this. They come together through art, music, literature, protests, etc. to illustrate their support. Social media allows the entire world to see what is really happening. Instead of being fed information by the media, they are able to hear and listen to the people who have been silenced. They are able to share experiences with one another, which results in the community available today
According to Rose and Fox (2014), 'widespread use of social networking sites [...] has changed the way individuals engage with news, political institutions and society' (p. 774); as a result, the public perception of social issues, understanding of crime, and assumptions about criminal justice are challenged by a new digital and online interactive environment. Therefore, given the present-day critique of the established news media and their institutionalised misrepresentation, new ways of looking at crime pose a threat to the hegemonic cultural production of information. This essay is going to discuss this potential problem for news outlets, drawing on examples from the Black Lives Matter justice movement and its reliance on citizen journalism. Firstly, it will be shown how the contemporary media environment changes, and what alternatives to the mainstream are available through online platforms. On the other hand, the text will consider complexities embedded in online communication networks, and ways in which citizen journalism affects representations of criminal justice. The final analysis will examine impacts of the unregulated digital culture on social discourses in general, and public activism within criminal justice in
According to Apel (2014), on August 9,2014, Michael Brown,18, an unarmed black man of Ferguson, Missouri was shot and killed by a white police officer named Darren Wilson. Considering the evidence, a grand jury decided not to indict Wilson. This sparked a nationwide protest. People came from near and far to protest the judge’s decision. It was no peaceful protest, it might have appeared to start out as a nonviolent protest, but like many protests, it quickly turned violent. People wanted justice and the people felt as though the system once again had felled them. Barnett (2014), a reporter says that after the shooting groups such as the “New Black Panthers,” demanded a rebellion against the officer who shot Brown. For a while the head of police was not going to reveal the name of the officer who killed the Brown, but after a series of violent protest, the head of police released the officer’s name. If violence was not used during the protest it would not have received worldwide attention. Furthermore, the public would not have known the officer who killed Brown. Due to the amount of attention the Michael Brown’s case received and because of the amount of passion the protestors had and how they were willing to die to get their point across sparked attention. Requiring many people who were in the political spotlight to
In the 1960s it was a hard time for black Americans. There was a revolution being driven by two well know black civil rights leaders. The first phase of the revolution was driven by a young Islamic black man, Malcolm X, who was a spokesperson for the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X was adamant that blacks needed to take care of their own business. In the issue of black integration in American culture. Malcolm X had the ability to reach any one member of the black nation in America. This revolution was cut short on a sad day in February of 1965, when Malcolm X was assassinated. This left a void in the hearts of the people who he had touched upon in his revolt. This was where things began to get funky.
Lynching, which occurred most frequently in the southern states, resulted in the hanging, mutilation, and death of many blacks at the hands of a powerful white ruling class. While lynchings of this type have not occurred as frequently as in previous decades, it has morphed into a new form, a form that is arguably just as devastating. Instead of unjustly prosecuting blacks, this new form of lynching targets celebrities and politicians and media to accomplish what is commonly referred to as “hi-tech lynching”. The job of the media is to relay information to a general public.
Overall, many believe that the undeviating war on racism in today’s society is fueled by police brutality and anti-police violence. Specifically, the Black Lives Matter movement, which is the source of controversy regarding these topics. To summarize, this campaign is “both a hashtag and a political project that formed after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin.” (Miller). Later in the article Chelsea Fuller, senior communications associate at The Advancement Project, a multi-racial civil rights organization, states “The Black Lives Matter movement is to deal with anti-black racism, to “push for black people’s right to live with dignity and respect” and be included in the American democracy that they helped create” (Miller).
The invention of Snap Chat was literally an accident; two measly college students got bored and that’s why they invented Snap Chat. This app has revolutionized photo taking to a whole new level. In this paper I will talk about, who invented Snap Chat, how Snap Chat became popular, why teens use it and how Snap Chat influenced our culture.
The disciplines are simply a means to that end.” During my time here, I have focused most of my course work on the following: rhetoric, identity, and social change. How do these elements all effect each other and how do we use communication strategies and theories to make an impact on the world? In my previous course called Communication and Inclusion, Professor Sarah Jackson had written an article for the CAMD website called, “Looking ahead: Social movements in 2015.” Here, she talks about the most recent deaths at the time of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in NYC. These killings had brought up issues of race and inequality in America and essentially started the first major wave of the Black Lives Matter Movement. In her class specifically she taught about “how social and political identities are constructed in the public sphere, with a particular focus on how race and gender are constructed in national debates”
The media change the way minority groups are seen by the public by dehumanizing them. One victim Mike Brown, was he killed not only with his hands up without a weapon. His body was lying in streets uncovered for hours. The image of his body was posted on social media. It shows that black people can be killed for no reason and left uncovered because they aren 't important. When people on social media see that police officers can kill someone, leave them uncovered, and not be charged with the murders, they begin to think that minority groups are not people and that
Words can influence and move a group of people to fight for what they believe in. There have been several influential leaders throughout time. These men and women have changed the shape and direction of our world. Their influence and passion has made it possible for people to fight against injustices. Within this group of leaders there are several different styles and approaches to uniting people and fighting for a cause. Some of these leaders and their styles are ubiquitous, while others only have a few paragraphs in the history books. The civil rights movement in the United States and the civil unrest in Jamaica had two different types of leaders. The first was the civil, peaceful and universally excepted leader. Bob Marley and Martin Luther King Jr. encompassed these qualities. On the other hand, the militant, revolutionary and controversial leaders also played a major role in these movements. Peter Tosh and Malcolm X were the characteristically hostile leaders of each of these movements. Although, all four of these leaders were effective in their own ways, ultimately, it was only the peaceful and socially "accepted" leaders that had a lasting impact and were able to create, what seemed like, permanent change.
Technology has been and will continue to be an essential part of human life. Information technology is a revolution that has taken the whole world captive. Everyone around the globe is trying either to conform or catch up with the ever changing and improving technologies without having a second thought of its impact on their lives. The internet is the ground-breaking invention of the twenty first century, leading to the mushrooming of the social media and other communication platforms. The best invention that has captured my interest is the instagram. Its effect and how it has positively impacted on the lives of people, especially the youth cannot be underestimated. Instagram is improving the quality life. It has unlocked our creativity, enhanced connection and led to faster access to information. Comparing the past with the present, we can argue that information technology has done more good than harm and even as we progress into the future, we ought to adopt better technology because what we currently have may not be good enough.