HOW DID SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCE THE MOVEMENT? WHAT WAS THE IMPACT?
” It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats it highest citizens, but its lowest ones”
nelson mandela
As someone who participated in the Black Lives Matter movement last year, between May andJune 2020, not in person, but on social media, this final year project emerged to me to demonstrate how social media played a major role in comparison to the first movement which occurred in 2014 with the death of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. The union and support which the movement had worldwide for the death of George Floyd, which occurred May 2020, made history last year. All this happened thanks to social media because, the video of the death of George Floyd was recorded by a lady who was around during the arrest of the individual. In the video, we could see the police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd which caused him his death by suffocation. This video went viral worldwide on social cause so much frustration on the black population, which bring to light the systematic racism people of colour have been facing in America for decades.
Writing this blog gives me the opportunity to voice my opinion about this issue, but from a social media aspect. As a Media and Communication student at Coventry University, being able to understand how social media works is an important task, now being able to understand how it works and supports an active movement goes beyond the traditional protest people have been doing for years.
To give short background information about the situation a video of George Floyd being suffocated circulated online on the 25th of May 2020, which shows police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on the deceased neck whilst he was gasping for air, who later died in the hospital. This event caused a worldwide protest, a day after, on the 26th of May 2020 against police brutality in Minneapolis, which also other cities joined on the 27th of May, spreading accross the American continent. To show solidarity, but also to prostest about issues accusing in their respective countries, the Europeans joined the protest, places such as the Uk (which was formerly part of the European Union) , France, Netherlands, among others.
Social media played a big role during last year’s protest, and why is that? Because we were in a pandemic. Covid-19 hit the world last year, and made things hard for social gatherings. Although the protest still went ahead, it started with smaller groups, and in a short period of time, it turned into a national movement worldwide. There were physical protest, which started in America, which extended to different parts of the world, to show support and solidarity to the movement. Although there were a large number of protesters on the streets, social media also played a big role, especially for people who didn’t attend the protest and also to create awareness of what is going on worldwide. Social media has become a large platform which unites the population in a unimaginable way.
The video of George Floyd death was posted online by Darnella Frazier who recorded the event, and started circulating when people started sharing it online, in less than 24h, the video had already gone viral worldwide. Personally I saw the video for the first time whilst I was living in The Netherlands for my placement year.
Here I leave a short video, in which I explain the situation briefly.
Now moving on the the most important part of this blog, how social media affected the success of this movement. Thanks to social media the video of George Floyd went viral, will it have happened if it was traditional media, of course not. It would have been a long process to get the video to the news, radio and newspaper, that’s if they accept the evidence and are willing to publish it. In comparison to social media, which is more the voice of the people, gave the opportunity to share the information in a very short period of time.
Because of the pandemic, although people went out to protest physically, majority of people also did that on social media. Thanks to the platforms the news was able to spread worldwide, in which enabled people to show support throughout the movement. To support the movement, although the hashtag #blacklivesmatter already existed, for the movement to be more specific to George, hashtags #GeorgeFloyd, and #BlackoutTuesday was created. #Blackouttuesday was created to protest against racism, and police brutality. This hashtag too place mainly on instagram, where people posted a black image on their profile on the 2nd of June to show solidarity to the movement. This day symbolises the day the whole world came together as one. In every positive outcome, there is always a negative one, there were people who obviously didn’t support or participate in the movement
I had an interview with a student from Coventry University, Sammy Ajoku, who was the sports and wellbeing officer in the Student Union at Coventry University. I decided to interview him because from my little research around, he was very active during the protest and the movement both in person and on social media.
Social media is a platform in which it connects the whole world together. According to statistics, the usage of social media on a daily basis goes to 146 minutes per day.
If I have to conclude on this blog post, would everything had been different if social media isn’t has popular as it is now in comparison to a decade back? No, and that is because social media forms a big part of peoples life and on a daily basis. With what happened during the movement last year, and how the voice circulated as fast as it did because of social media, it has opened a medium for people to come together and have their voice heard.
Social media has become a place where we can go and get our voice heard, don’t be silenced, voice it out, we are together.
Sandra Unuigboje Unuigboje
