Invisible Children continues anti-Kony campaign
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Invisible Children continues anti-Kony campaign
Stacey Vanek Smith: If you’re a social media type, you maybe familiar with the KONY 2012 video. The controversial video about Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony went viral, and has been viewed more than 100 million times. Now the group behind it about to release Kony 2012, Part 2.
Marketplace’s Adriene Hill reports.
Adriene Hill: The first Kony 2012 video included this preamble:
Kony 2012 video: The next 27 minutes are an experiment, but in order for it to work, you have to pay attention.
And pay attention people did. The video was all over social media sites, it broke viral records. But criticism poured in as well — about the finances of the group that made it and the film’s accuracy.
Barbie Zelizer is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication. She says the video highlights the strengths and weaknesses of new media.
Barbie Zelizer: Its easiness and the smoothness of its delivery and the widespread nature of how easily it was shared hides the fact that it was simple and it was uni-dimensional and it was erroneous.
Zelizer hopes the new video will offer corrections and help contextualize the situation. But still…
Zelizer: The same people who access the first video may not be the same people who access the second.
In the new media sphere, messages go out quickly — without much control over what happens next.
I’m Adriene Hill for Marketplace.
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