Social Media and the Organization The Black Lives Matter - Essay Example

Introduction

Social media has been considered a rapidly growing platform where individuals can share ideas, connect, and communicate on shared objectives. In the past, especially when the platform was introduced, users primarily used the platform to share multimedia messages such as photos, videos, and ideas about particular topics. However, in recent years, individuals have used the platform to form organizations and groups through which they can air their grievances and champion human rights. The platform has been used to voice citizens' plea on human rights breaches across the world. Early this year, a movement is known as "black lives matter" was formed in the wake of the death of George Floyd owing to police brutality in the United States. The movement has called for global attention. Most members use social media platforms to share their ideas and concerns while voicing their grievances to the government concerning human rights protection. This motivated the need to analyze the need for the group's establishment, "black lives matter" and understand why it has attracted much media attention.

Owing to this background, the main question to be answered in this research paper is “why has The Black Lives Matter attracted much of the social media attention?” in answering this research question, this paper will soundly understand the reasons behind the establishment of the organization, the primary objective of the organization as well as the organization features that have led to the massive social media attention globally. As indicated by Updegrove et al. (2020 P.93), the organization, as its name suggests, "The Black Lives Matter," is not merely the leaders of the organization but the black victims. They have drawn great attention to issues of racism in the country. This gives the perception that group members are those who are at one point or the other have encountered problems of racism in their endeavors, maybe at their working places or within their societal environments. While this is the perception, the group appears to have a mix of individuals, and therefore it is significant to understand the core objective of the group. Holt et al., (2020 P.22) also illustrated that the group commenced not only with George Floyd's concern but also with Erick Garner, Michael Brown, and Breonna Taylor.

While individuals have had the opportunity to articulate black lives matter, this paper found limited information on the organization's core goals and vision. For instance, Aleem (2020) interviewed a section of Americans about the Black Lives matter organizations, some of the responses she received were;

"Honestly, I don't know who Black Lives Matter is," respondent 1 acknowledges. Another respondent also illustrated that; "I don't know who the leaders are. In fact, I don't know that they even have any leaders. I think perhaps it's a spiritual, emotional movement created by implicit evils in our society that we have not been willing to face." (Aleem (2020)

These responses give a clear outline that very few or limited information is known about the group and lacks adequate knowledge of what the organization does. It drove the researcher's attention to understand that even if the organization is viable.

In the author's consciousness, activist organizations are not only established to protest against a single issue, but they are often centered on significant factors that have hindered their growth and development. This was the critical reason for analyzing the topic of Black Lives Matter to understand their key goals and objectives. Similarly, understanding reasons for their popularity in social media will also give insight into how social media has been able to shape civil activism in the contemporary societies compared to decades back before the introduction of social media platforms.

Thesis

The establishment of the Black Lives matter organization can be traced back to the 1950s and 1960s when Martin Luther King proved the importance of social media in advocating for civil rights. He knows how to organize individuals to an activist group that can viably push the government to act concerning protecting civil liberties. Even though Kings is not alive now, his legacy of forming an activist group still wonders among activists. It is from this concept that the Black Lives Matter initiative was born to champion for the civil rights violations and violence that is directed among the African Americans.

While most people believe that the organization is established to elevate black lives, among other lives, this paper found contrary to the belief in the system. It was realized that the organization is objective in creating an awareness campaign focused on issues that disproportionately affect a particular population. Perhaps this explains why the group is a mix of individuals from varied races, but though with the majority of African Americans as they are the most affected.

While the organization advocates for equality, much has been directed towards issues concerning the increasing violence and police brutality among African Americans. The organization Slogan, "a vision for Black Lives," forecasts a future where African Americans in the country will receive justice and treated equally without police brutality and the ever-increasing disproportionate issues in the country. The disproportionate primary problems that the organization champions include diversity in economic justice, political power, community control, and end of violence among the black and invest-divest.

Since the killing of George Floyd on May 25th, there has been a collective awakening across the country. At the occurrence, the protests did not only go throughout the United States but also attracted attention from other countries, thus the boom in social media concerning civil issues affecting the black in the United States. Since the organization’s primary objective is to educate and create awareness on the issues affecting (mostly) the black population, members of the group have seized the opportunity of using the social media platform to educate and advocate for civil rights. Their target was to educate the marginalized on their civil rights while at the same time championing for economic and civil justice, among other issues aforementioned.

Facebook twitter posts regarding anti-racism books have played an integral role in increasing membership to the organization through social media within the United States and in other parts of the world. In her article, Nicole (2020) illustrated that "The latter has become so popular that on June 5th, five of the top 15 titles in the New York Times list of best-selling nonfiction books address racism. At a time of this writing, there are 12." In her sentiment, she agrees that posts on Black Lives Matter issues have attracted many people to the extent that even books related to racism have started to sell online. Besides, this is another approach through which the organization has been able to advocate for civil rights while at the same time educating the marginalized communities on their civil rights.

In line with this analysis, Black Lives Matter's establishment appears to have a justification since most researchers and authors or racism-related articles are in consensus that social media platforms are the best way to attract the majority of civil rights activists. It is a form of protesting that appear to be peaceful and full of ideas while at the same time protecting the rights of the marginalized individuals. As indicated in the thesis analysis, the organization has been able to cite books related to racism that educate the target communities and provide an opportunity for value addition in their operation. Considering the organization's vision, African Americans are ambitions for creating a just society where every person in the country has equal opportunity and where economic justice is served. The primary issues addressed by the organization show that they seek a level ground where every individual can compete for equal opportunities in the country despite their racial origin. This thesis thus concludes that indeed there is the need to have the organization.

Topic sentence.

The topic sentence is to explore the impact of social media in enhancing Black Lives Matter initiatives. Through this topic, the researcher was also able to understand the organization's key goals and objectives. The focus was given to the period when the organization became more popular in social media after the killing of George Floyd. While examining how social media platform has been able to shape the organization activities, the researcher was also keen to understand whether the organization's goals and objectives are oriented to enhancing social development in the country.

The results of the thesis showed clear evidence that the organization's goals and objectives are not spiritual or emotional, as has been thought by many, but to advocate for civil rights for the marginalized individuals in the society. Besides, the organization emphasize on civil rights campaign as well as educating communities about their civil rights. Their popularity in social media has enabled the sellout of books and articles related to racism and disproportionate issues affecting marginalized individuals in modern societies. Especially those affected by violence, police brutality and economic injustice.

Work Cited

Updegrove, Alexander H., et al. "Red states and Black lives: Applying the racial threat hypothesis to the Black Lives Matter movement." Justice Quarterly 37.1 (2020): 85-108.

Holt, Lanier Frush, and Matthew D. Sweitzer. "More than a black and white issue: ethnic identity, social dominance orientation, and support for the black lives matter movement." Self and Identity 19.1 (2020): 16-31.

Nicole Lee. Social media’s recent embrace of #BlackLivesMatter was a long time coming. (2020) Retrieved from: https://www.engadget.com/blm-online-activism-social-media-173947544.html

Aleem Maqbool. Black Lives Matter: From social media posts to a global movement. (2020). Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53273381