Social media has reconfigured numerous aspects of society and particularly enhanced people’s communicative power through the platforms which facilitate the expression of uncensored reality. Consequently, it has become the ideal tool for amplifying voices, raising awareness, and calling for social change. The networks have created expansive online communities where people source and share relevant information and call for collective action. For instance, the videotaping and sharing of a recorded clip on social media showing a police officer pressing his knee on George Floyd helped highlight the depth of racially-inspired police brutality in the United States. In this regard, such platforms as Facebook and Twitter served as tools through which awareness and mobilization were realized remarkably, ultimately triggering widespread protest across the country under the Black Lives Matter Movement (BLM). From this perspective, the global expansion of social media will motivate and energize people into calling for social change due to the platforms’ communicative and mobilizing power.
BLM is a social movement agitating for the eradication of white supremacy and racially-inspired police brutality targeting African Americans. It has utilized social media platforms to highlight injustices and racisms against Blacks and capitalize on the technologies’ broadening impact on the movement’s communicative power (Hatzipanagos et al., 2021). For instance, the sharing of raw and live events of George Floyd’s murder helped draw national attention and triggered a series of protests over police brutality (Dixon & Dundes, 2020). Notably, these demonstrations compelled authorities to take action and prosecute the officer. In this regard, BLM has been using social media to catalyze collective action, whistleblowing, and influencing the eradication of racism and police brutality. For instance, the graphic video showing how George was murdered led to the demonstrations in which all races participated.
Networking sites are an influential tool that has been used by such movements as BLM to engineer social change. They provide platforms through which individuals can raise awareness, call for social change, and increase awareness about such occurrences as injustices and police brutality. Social media’s communicative power facilitates the effective expression of reality and the coordinated execution of collective action. BLM exploited these inherent advantages to organize countrywide protests against the murder of George Floyd. Indeed, the conviction of Derek Chauvin indicates changing social trends, especially regarding the treatment of African Americans by law enforcers.
References
Dixon, P. J., & Dundes, L. (2020). Exceptional injustice: Facebook as a reflection of race-and gender-based narratives following the death of George Floyd.” Social Sciences, 9(12), 1−23. Web.
Hatzipanagos, R., Liu, M., & Vongkiatkajorn, K. (2021). ‘Not enough has happened’: Protestors reflect on what has changed – and what hasn’t. The Washington Post, Web.