Kony 2012 Communication Theory Paper
COMMUNCIATION THEORY
COMS 3901
RESEARCH ESSAY
FRIDAY 6TH JULY, 2012
In 2004, Invisible Children, a United States-based non-profit advocacy organization, was founded by filmmakers Bobby Bailey, Laren Poole and Jason Russell. They adopted the mission of capturing Joseph Kony, an Ugandan warlord who commits war crimes in both northern Uganda and surrounding countries since the 1980s for the purpose of building his rebel force, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). On March 5th, 2012, they released a video titled KONY 2012 which told the story of abducted children in Northern Uganda, forced to become child soldiers and sex slaves and operate with the LRA. The campaign is aimed at capturing Joseph Kony by “making Kony famous” and it targets celebrities, movie stars, millionaires and politicians to help spread the campaign. They hope to stimulate action that will have Kony arrested and prosecuted by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The video was extensively shared over Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, blogs, and other social networking websites – in other words, it went viral. The video has received approximately 92 million views on YouTube and over 18 million views on Vimeo, both video-sharing websites on which users can upload, share and view videos, making this initiative one of the most effectively distributed advocacy campaigns of the last decade. This essay will take a cultural studies approach to utilize theoretical perspectives to critically analyse the text.
In the beginning of the video, an image of a world is shown which connotes globalization and how everything is more accessible by everyone all over the world as they can use the internet and communicate more easily. This connects with the idea of McLuhan (1964) as he believed that we live in a “global village”. There are also several snapshot’s of the producer’s son which are taken from the point of view of the producer and could possibly allow audiences to emotionally attach themselves to the
COMS 3901
RESEARCH ESSAY
FRIDAY 6TH JULY, 2012
In 2004, Invisible Children, a United States-based non-profit advocacy organization, was founded by filmmakers Bobby Bailey, Laren Poole and Jason Russell. They adopted the mission of capturing Joseph Kony, an Ugandan warlord who commits war crimes in both northern Uganda and surrounding countries since the 1980s for the purpose of building his rebel force, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). On March 5th, 2012, they released a video titled KONY 2012 which told the story of abducted children in Northern Uganda, forced to become child soldiers and sex slaves and operate with the LRA. The campaign is aimed at capturing Joseph Kony by “making Kony famous” and it targets celebrities, movie stars, millionaires and politicians to help spread the campaign. They hope to stimulate action that will have Kony arrested and prosecuted by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The video was extensively shared over Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, blogs, and other social networking websites – in other words, it went viral. The video has received approximately 92 million views on YouTube and over 18 million views on Vimeo, both video-sharing websites on which users can upload, share and view videos, making this initiative one of the most effectively distributed advocacy campaigns of the last decade. This essay will take a cultural studies approach to utilize theoretical perspectives to critically analyse the text.
In the beginning of the video, an image of a world is shown which connotes globalization and how everything is more accessible by everyone all over the world as they can use the internet and communicate more easily. This connects with the idea of McLuhan (1964) as he believed that we live in a “global village”. There are also several snapshot’s of the producer’s son which are taken from the point of view of the producer and could possibly allow audiences to emotionally attach themselves to the
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