Hi Change community! Though I'm not based at UW, I have learned so much from your posts and appreciate this virtual network and discourse. (in brief I work on an mHealth evaluation w/ the world bank in ethiopia)
I wrote a response to Kony2012 that touches upon many of the points that Yaw, Amer, Varun, Abhishek, Clint, and Abraham raised: http://everydayambassador.org/2012/03/10/kony-as-a-catalyst/ The focus of my site/book, philosophically, is encouraging people to use tech/social media to become closer to people far away, not end up farther away from the people right around us. You'll see why I think Kony2012 is too much of the latter (and hence I don't endorse it), but I'm really happy that it happened... All my best, Kate On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 10:32 PM, Clint Tseng <cxlt at cs.washington.edu> wrote: > Of course not, but that's never been the reality. The truth is neither > here nor there. > > Relevant people have been discussing and taking action on Kony for a long > time now. The US has committed troops to capturing him, the relevant > countries have his capture as a primary objective. That you presume these > things aren't true is part of what's wrong with this approach to > storytelling. > > This article is a good analysis from that standpoint; better than I could > formulate: > http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2012/03/08/unpacking-kony-2012/ > > What I'm not convinced of is that a bunch of people hitting "Retweet" on > questionably accurate agitprop from a shady charity is a positive social > outcome. Even presuming that awareness is itself a valuable goal (a > standpoint I'm not convinced of), I feel like what's happening with this > "movement" is even a lower standard of awareness than we're used to. The > campaign itself basically validates the belief in the viewer that all they > have to do is link their friends to the video, and voil?, they've > contributed social good. The probability that they then go do anything > actually useful at all afterwards seems even lower to me than with other, > older awareness campaigns I've witnessed or participated in. > > The best thing to have come out of this all in my mind is how well the > counterargument has spread along with the video. Most Twitter celebs I see > RT the video, then also RT the visiblechildren critique when it's brought > to their attention. This is a good thing. The Internet is usually not this > considerate to contrarian points of view. > > -Clint > > On Thursday, March 8, 2012 at 7:17 PM, Abhishek Bhardwaj wrote: > > Would you rather that people not know it at all ? That there is no > discussion about it ? > > I bet you for the first time in years people are genuinely taking an > interest in Africa , everything starts from awareness. > > > On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 9:04 PM, Clint Tseng <cxlt at cs.washington.edu>wrote: > > You're presuming that getting people "excited" is a valuable goal in and > of itself, regardless of the means. What's the gain? > > -Clint > > On Thursday, March 8, 2012 at 5:26 PM, Varun Arora wrote: > > I respect what all of you are saying in terms of critique - but there is > no way on earth he (the movie maker) would have been able to get people so > excited and energetic in 30 minutes if he had cared only to be > developmentally and logically and theoretically and politically correct. > That doesn't resonate with youth who are too lost in their social media > lives. They need quick, invigorating, actionable, triggered media on their > face to feel provoked. I felt provoked. There is a reason why UN supported > documentaries are not shared by every other teenager over 3 days on a viral > social network - they struggle to be compelling, and are terrible story > tellers. I highly doubt the folks at Invisible Children are not aware about > the implications of their approach. They tried to tell a good story here - > and they did an excellent job at it. And the fact that we are having these > discussions on an important listserv is a blessing in disguise; we are > learning more about policy implications of international peace efforts, > than we would have ever cared to learn about had we not heard of Kony. > > I am an entrepreneur myself, and know how when you sell stuff, even if it > is a social product and if it's going to challenge the Solow model of > growth, it doesn't matter: you got to put it in lay man terms (sometimes > very embarrassing) and over simplify what you are doing and offering. And > often end up taking a completely different politically incorrect (not > wrong, though) approach to resonate with your audiences. None of our > research evidence and learnings are ever useful to any partner or investor > or customer. None of our proven theories on economic development are even > looked at. The only people who question you about that are people at > conferences and classrooms; we are living in bubbles, and if we cannot > learn to communicate important and proven theoretical ideas in crisp and > pervasive media, we will be left behind. > > > Varun > > On 03/08/2012 08:04 PM, Abraham D. Flaxman wrote: > > to make this critique a slogan, "Know Why 2012" > > Sent from phone > > ----- Reply message ----- > From: "Amer Dahmash" <adahmash at gmail.com> <adahmash at gmail.com> > Date: Thu, Mar 8, 2012 4:27 pm > Subject: [change] Kony 2012 > To: "Yaw Anokwa" <yanokwa at gmail.com> <yanokwa at gmail.com> > Cc: "Change Group" <change at change.washington.edu><change at > change.washington.edu> > > I think the Invisible Children response is great but I feel that it > fails > to address one of the biggest problems with their campaign which one > of my friends captured by referencing Paulo Freire's theory of False > Generosity: > > "When a system is structured so that there are oppressors and oppressed, > some of the oppressor class feel genuine compassion toward the suffering > of the oppressed. > They move to isolate that suffering and to aid it, not to address the > structures of society which > are the root causes. Thus, to the extent that they relieve any suffering > they do so by hiding from > themselves the genuine causes, their own privilege as oppressor class > members." > > An over-simplification perhaps but that's what the Kony 2012 campaign > smacks of to me. > -amer > > On Mar 8, 2012, at 3:56 PM, Yaw Anokwa wrote: > > > Invisible Children has written a response at > > http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.invisiblechildren.com/critiques.html > > > > http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com/post/18954353409/not-alone has links > > to other critiques. > > > > On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 19:32, Yaw Anokwa <yanokwa at gmail.com><yanokwa at > > gmail.com>wrote: > >> You may have heard about Kony 2012. It is a film and campaign by > >> Invisible Children that aims to make "Joseph Kony > >> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kony) famous, not to celebrate > >> him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for > >> international justice." The film is at > >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc. > >> > >> While almost everyone agrees that Joseph Kony is a bad person, > >> Invisible Children has been criticized for their approach. Grant > >> Oyston lays out some of those arguments against Kony 2012 at > >> http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com/post/18890947431/we-got-trouble. The > >> follow on posts are also informative. > >> > >> The spread of the Kony meme, both for and against, has been possible > >> only because of social media. In that sense, it's quite relevant to > >> those of us interested in leveraging technology for change... > >> > >> Yaw > > _______________________________________________ > > change mailing list > > change at change.washington.edu > > http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change > > > _______________________________________________ > change mailing list > change at change.washington.edu > http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change > > > _______________________________________________ > change mailing listchange at > change.washington.eduhttp://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change > > > -- > > * Varun Arora > Information Systems Management | Class of 2012 > Carnegie Mellon University* > > Mobile/Cell: +1-412-478-2164 > varora at andrew.cmu.edu > http://www.varunarora.com > [image: Carnegie Mellon University] > _______________________________________________ > change mailing list > change at change.washington.edu > http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change > > > > _______________________________________________ > change mailing list > change at change.washington.edu > http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change > > > > > -- > Regards, > Abhishek Bhardwaj > > > > _______________________________________________ > change mailing list > change at change.washington.edu > http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change > > -- Kate Otto web: everyday ambassador <http://everydayambassador.org/about/> mobile: +1.401.692.9327 skype: katherineelaine follow: @kateotto -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/private/change/attachments/20120311/81bd08a3/attachment.html>
