Reflection Paper

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KONY 2012

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The KONY 2012 was successful at going viral for various reasons, including tapping into celebrities, asking people to join a movement, and the KONY 2012 website. After the release of the KONY 2012 video by the advocacy group, Invisible Children, the video went viral on various platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. It dominated the news feeds of Facebook, tallied more than thirty million views on YouTube, and spawned many trending topics on Twitter, thus receiving media attention from different fields, including foreign policy publications (Thibodo-Carter, 2019). The makers of the video urged viewers to target key celebrities in order to raise awareness, and most celebs did their part. Some of the well-known celebrities who were involved include Bill Gates, Justin Bieber, Jay Z, and Oprah Winfrey.

Some of the things that other human rights advocates could replicate if they want to achieve similar results include working together with prominent people in society, encouraging people to join movements, and avoiding underestimating the attention of people. KONY 2012 shows inspiring shots of youthful crowds who have already joined the movement to stop such acts, thus increasing awareness amongst different groups of people. The involvement of celebrities also proves to be a great advantage since many celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Justin Bieber played a crucial role in raising awareness which led to the attention paying off.

Based on the many critiques of KONY 2012, the critique by McCarthy and Curtis on The Guardian resonates with me because it outlines the real story of KONY 2012. The criticism resonates with me because there are several questions about the funding of the charity and whether it is targeting the United States leaders instead of African leaders to enhance change by failing to criticize the Ugandan government for its poor human rights record (McCarthy & Curtis, 2012). Nevertheless, I reject Gerson's perspective in Washington Post that the attention Kony is receiving is disproportionate. The post states that people should also focus on the attacks going on in Syria, and citizens there require urgent attention and help than Uganda (Gerson, 2012). I believe there should be urgent attention on both countries in order to prevent such awful situations and protect people's lives.

Due to the massive critiques that human rights advocates face, they should adopt specific strategies in order to avoid being paralyzed by the critiques leveled against KONY 2012. Some of the strategies that they should use include reflecting on the situation that caused the criticism, talking with other people to gain perspective, and focusing on facts. It is always important to focus on facts because it is believed that there are three sides to every story and many people appreciate it when they see others striving to be objective. Besides human rights advocates gaining other people's perspectives on the situation, they should try to gain clarity by considering their perspectives and those of the critics to determine things that might have triggered the critiques.

References

Gerson, M. (2012). The controversy over Kony 2012. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/the-controversy-over-kony-2012/2012/03/10/gIQAzc6M3R_blog.html

McCarthy, T., & Curtis, P. (2012). Kony 2012: what's the real story? Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2012/mar/08/kony-2012-what-s-the-story

Thibodo-Carter, S. (2019). The polymedia movement of KONY 2012: humanitarianism and millennial activism in the digital age (Doctoral dissertation, University of Oxford).