Any of you with profiles on Facebook or other social networking websites are probably familiar with groups that support stopping genocide. The largest I found is “For Every 1,000 People That Join This Group I Will Donate $1 to
The benefits of these kinds of groups are that it is a great way to reach a vast audience, since millions of people are members of social networking websites. Someone who stumbles across one of these groups may be the type of person that doesn’t usually watch the news, and therefore will not have known before about a genocide and inspire them to do something.
What makes me worry about this phenomenon is that I feel like it can make someone feel like they’re being an upstander without making any significant changes to their life or making any difference. The majority of Facebook groups I’m I’ve never really thought after. If people feel like they have changed the world by simply clicking their mouse, will they ever do anything else? I also feel that possibly, since people generally come on Facebook to talk to friends or look at pictures, it may create resentment or fatigue. When people just want to be carefree for a half an hour on Facebook, they are instead reminded of tragic world events. I think this may cause some people to not want to think about genocide at all.
Some other questions to consider
1) What are other benefits and drawbacks to groups that aim to raise awareness about genocide?
2) Do you believe these groups make a difference for people who join them, aid organizations, and victims of genocide?
3) Does widespread use of Facebook make stopping genocide seem less important? Tha is to say, does seeing a group about stopping genocide in between a group about Fergie and a group about the Disney "D" make it seem like a less worthy cause?
Please add anything else I haven’t thought of also.
4 comments:
I think that these groups might help increase awareness, but after clicking that "join" button, someone will most likely forget about the group and continue facebooking for hours. Although I don't have a facebook myself, I see through my sister that it is becoming possible to add so many different applications and of course, join so many groups. Many people add applications or join groups just so it looks like they have "more". I know some groups are really dumb, but this one seems more serious and worth joining. I honestly don't think however that the people who join this groups are real activists. After joining, they will most likely forget about it and not take any further action.
To answer your 3rd question Diego, I don't think that having groups about genocide on facebook makes it less important. While it may not be as playful as some of the other groups, it can still be taken seriously. Some groups are more serious, and others arent, right? (tell me if I'm mistaken...)
I think that there cannot be any serious harm in creating or becoming part of these online groups if the intention is to raise awareness about an issue such as genocide. While I can understand how one could possibly succumb to some of the concerns that Diego posted about, I don't believe that that majority of the people who join these groups on Facebook and other internet sites view their presence as an inconvenience, but rather a convenient way to show support for a particular cause. This goes back to the power of the internet that we discussed earlier in the semester, but in this case the internet is being used to positively spread/promote awareness of a particular cause. I think that if people truly wanted to become upstanders of genocide they would take the initiative to find a way to help that wasn't as simple as clicking a button on their computer screen. As someone who is a member of a number of these group online, my intention was never to make myself feel as though I was saving lives or becoming an upstander of genocide, but rather to show support of a cause and demonstrate my awareness of the events outside of my life.
As Casey mentioned, I see no harm in having these groups on Facebook. In fact, after reading this post, I perused a couple of groups that support stopping genocide, and was surprised to see very stimulating discussions taking place. Although many members may just join a group with little intentions to fight for the cause, much of what I have read on these discussion boards prove that there are some who take these matters very seriously and are using Facebook to spread their ideas.
As has been mentioned continuously on this blog, awareness is extremely important, and getting messages out to mass numbers of people is Facebook's main strength. One event recently that shows this is the day of support for the Jena Six. According to one group 18,900 people participated across the nation by wearing green or black. Even if not every one of those people participated, that is still an impressive number of what was mostly young people. Facebook has the power to make current events and issues accessable for young adults. In a society where social and political apathy reign, Facebook can be and has been a valuable tool.
This question reminds me in some ways of an AP prompt from the AP English language test last year, which went something along the lines of, is it ok to bribe young people to do community service? In this case as well as in the case of the AP prompt, the proposed solution allows young people to be hypocritical, either showing support for a cause that they really take no action to support (not always the case in these groups) or helping the cause only for their own gain. However, I think that the amount that middle-class teenagers with computer access, etc (myself included) feel secure in their morals is less important than spreading awareness about issues that are often direly in need of attention. So, if more people are informed about an issue and it maybe helps improve matters even slightly more, it is worth the potential for hypocrisy.
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