Search: kony 2012

18 Apr Kony 2012: The Fallacy of Slacktivism: Kony 2012 and Disruptive Activism

issue and begin discussions on the topic. The old model was to write the article and let it find a place in academia. But the numbers don’t lie. I receive many, many more views and downloads by sharing my ideas through Facebook and Twitter—a groundswell of interest and support that a purely academic audience can’t match. International law needs to embrace social media. Kony 2012 should only inspire and encourage us—international law got the attention of the world. Kony 2012 accomplished what we all wish our ideas could do. So,...

18 Apr Kony 2012: Seven Questions about Social Media Campaigns and International Law

court.” If Kony is arrested this year, and if we believe that this would not have happened in the absence of the video, it is likely that the key change will have been in elite interest, not mass interest. 2) Does “citizen engagement on social issues” (where we see it) necessarily equate to “citizen understanding”? Obviously not: what KONY2012 has taught us is that the quantity of that “awareness” around issues may not be matched by the quality of citizen’s “understanding” of the relevant international law or the issues. KONY2012...

20 Apr Kony 2012: Social Media: Helping or Hindering Child Soldiers?

to create a distinction between the unfortunate Ugandan child soldier and the fortunate American child who describes Joseph Kony as a ‘bad guy’. But it raises the question of how social media can assist in bringing those who commit war crimes and crimes against humanity to justice. There are two competing sides to this argument: that awareness raising on atrocities is a sufficient goal in and of itself, but, conversely, that it perpetuates a false message that knowledge of atrocities will somehow stop them; that making Joseph Kony ‘famous’ will...

20 Apr Kony 2012: Clicktivism and Child Soldiering

[Mark A. Drumbl is the Class of 1975 Alumni Professor at Washington and Lee University and author of Reimagining Child Soldiers (OUP, 2012).] How does Kony2012 inform our understanding of child soldiers? How does it sculpt international efforts to prevent child soldiering? Kony2012 feeds into and reinforces pre-existing assumptions and narratives. I argue in my book Reimagining Child Soldiers that these assumptions and narratives, however well-intentioned, lead to policy initiatives that assuage collective sensibilities but ultimately fall short in terms of actual effectiveness. People had thought hard about the effects...

20 Apr Kony 2012: The Complex Kaleidoscope of Transitional Justice in Uganda

[Michael A. Newton is Professor of the Practice of Law, Vanderbilt University Law School] The Kony 2012 campaign had the laudable goal of increasing public awareness in order to aid the search for justice and accountability in the wake of LRA atrocities. In fact, the worldwide attention had the paradoxical effect of demonstrating the lamentable reality that the optimal pathway towards authentic justice for LRA victims in that setting is neither simple nor self-obvious. This is true for a number of reasons which I shall summarize. Firstly, the complexity of...

18 Apr Kony 2012: Catching Warlords with the Stars

you dare to dream big. And so was born a new national pastime: catching warlords with the stars. According to YouTube, most of the initial viewers of Kony2012 were 13-17 years old. Kony2012 drew this audience, too young to even vote, by enlarging its sense of civic possibility – you can help catch Kony, it proclaimed, and here is how you do it. The film’s Hollywood production values and emotional narrative are credited for its appeal, but just as central were its celebrity interlocutors. Would Kony2012 have gone viral without...

19 Apr Kony 2012: Diverging Trajectories: Social Media and #InternationalLaw

...bridging these diverging trajectories, however, IR and IL can retain salience in an increasingly interconnected world. Reducing complexity is central to social media. The viral campaign by Invisible Children, KONY2012, serves as an obvious example. The campaign efficiently, if brutally, simplified the situation in northern Uganda and areas of Central and Eastern Africa afflicted by Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army. While widely discredited after a spectacular series of blunders, Invisible Children’s message is simple, fitting within the 140 character limit of a Twitter post. Its Twitter ‘hashtags’ were...