Week 9

     Social injustices occur every day in the world, but sometimes many of those go unnoticed by the general population. It is hard to make everyone aware of all the bad things, whether they be small or large, that are going on. It was even worse 10-20 years ago without the use of the Internet to speed the telling of news along. While some individuals may abuse the use of the Internet to simply spread meaningless gossip about celebrities, some use it to spread useful information. Now days, it is easy to reach hundreds of thousands of people simply by posting something on Facebook or Twitter.
     Important world events like the Boston Marathon Bombing or the massacres in Paris, news of those was spread in minutes after they happened-all through the use of social media. And while turning your profile picture blue, white, and red after the massacre may not seem like it really helped anything, it did. Individuals were able to show that they stood with Paris, that they felt horrible about what happened there, that they were grieving with the citizens of Paris even if they lived thousands of miles away. They were also able to spread awareness of what happened. Social media is an important tool for getting news out there fast.
     Then you have things like the ALS ice bucket challenge. While it may have seemed like a stupid challenge, and like it wouldn't really raise any money to support the cause, it did. You were supposed to either dump ice water on your head or donate $100, if you got called out. The majority of people dumped the ice water on themselves. But the foundation still raised a great deal of money. How? Well, despite the fact that people were choosing to dump water on their heads, it brought attention to ALS. All the social media coverage it got raised the awareness of the disorder and people were moved into donating even if they didn't get challenged or chose to dump the water on their heads.
     Whatever the cause or breaking news event, social media is an excellent tool for raising awareness of things and spreading information fast.