http://feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=14553
It's a commonly known thing that when something bad happens, humans tend to bond together. Whether it be something racially offensive, something that gets national/global attention, a natural disaster, the passing of an influential public leader or even things that happen in our own local communities. Social media sites help spread the news of these happenings and have even helped the piece of solidarity of those who are affected by the event.
In late August, a pregnant Swedish Muslim woman was attacked. Her hijab, a garment worn to cover the neck, chest, ears and hair of a woman of Islam, was snatched from her head and her head was slammed against a car. The outrage sparked Twitter hashtags like #hijabuppropet and #hijaboutcry from both males and women. Women that were not Muslim wore hijabs to show support for the hospitalized woman and to show their government officials that the issue should not be taken lightly. Hate crimes towards sex, race/ethnicity and religion were not going to be tolerated.
The power of a hashtag is a lot more powerful than we suspect. The prevalence of a topic brings attention to it by governments, Twitter viewers, Twitter staff, other social media sites, journalists and even radio/television broadcasters. By binding together through the use of social media, the Prime Minster agreed to meet with campaign members.
If it weren't for the use of social media to spread the outrage of the Swedish people over the hate crime inflicted on the pregnant Muslim woman, do you think the attack would have been declared a hate-crime rather than a random attack?
The use of social media to get messages across can be very powerful in, both, positive and negative ways. In this instance, a positive outcome came from social media. It brought a hate-crime to the light so government officials would not ignore it. Even though this one incident was publicized, there are many others that do not make it and are never heard of. Situations like this happen way more often than not, unfortunately. For example, the death of Paul Walker was spread quickly because of social media. Everyone was showing their love, support, and remorse for the actor and his family because he was well known. On the other hand, what most did not know until later, was that there was another person in the vehicle who died. In fact, it was this person who was driving the car when it crashed; it wasn't even Paul Walker. Yet, no one really publicized on that portion of the story.
ReplyDeleteI believe the attack would have been declared a hate-crime in many others' eyes despite the fact its story streamed throughout social media. Social media just helped gain public notice to other attacks that take place just like this and how there should not be tolerated in any case.