My name is Ambra and I support the #BlackLivesMatter because it is the right thing to do, to save the lives of innocent men, women, and children who are imperil because of their skin colour. Nobody has the right to treat people of colour maliciously. I have chosen this topic because I wanted to explore a subject that is hidden and apparent at the same time in the #BlackLivesMatter movement. The Black Lives Matter movement is giving voice to the oppressed and making oppressors accountable for their actions.

I am Christopher, a 20 year old white male that stands against any type of discrimination. I have chosen to make a video to help raise awareness on racial discrimination and police brutality.

Our page is about how #BlackLiveMatter helped gain influence on social media and how the recent controversy of George Floyd’s death reignited the hashtag. We are two students who were asked to express our opinions about the BLM movement that is taking place nationwide and worldwide. We were interested in finding the correlation between the growth of social media and the BLM movement, more specifically how the movement was reignited through social media.

– Christopher & Ambra

The video “The revolution will be Televised” was created with the purpose of raising awareness on police brutality and the injustices of racial discrimination towards people of colour. The video depicts an underlying issue in de escalation tactics by the police force by showing disturbing videos and images.

1.What is the influential role that social media plays in the BlackLivesMatter movement?

The role of social media in the BLM movement is to reach out to users nationwide and worldwide to gain as many followers and supporters as possible to make them aware and endorse on their behalf the discrimination and systemic racism that has taken place for a long time and continues daily. To concise Madeline Gaeta’s words:

“#BlackLivesMatter is what initially propelled the movement. Although graphics and hashtags serve the purpose of spreading awareness, further action must be taken for social change to occur.” (The Essential Role of Social Media in the Black Lives Matter Movement Today)

Social media is helping the BLM movement to push for a change in this world we’re living in. If social media had existed earlier, people would have used it to help defend the injustice towards the victims before Treyvon, and things would have been a little better. Although we hope for a change, realistically change is sometimes too slow. It is only now, since the arrival of social media, that we hold a new kind of power and can strive for change using social media platforms such as #BlackLivesMatter. People across the globe are hollering the streets to get U.S. attention. They are demanding to change legislation. Juliana Kaplan, Allana Akthar, and Laura Casado inscribe in the Business Insider state:

“Thousands of protesters from around the world — from the UK to New Zealand — have demonstrated in solidarity.” (A world on fire: Here are all the major protests happening around the globe right now).

People are sympathising with the movement because if they were in the country themselves, as a tourist, they would fear for their lives too, especially people of colour and racial minorities.

2. Why is social media so important for this movement?

In her article for Logic Design Blog, Lucy Turner sublines:

“Social media impact on social movements is significant because it’s the main outlet of technology available.” (Social Media Impact on Social Movements like Black Lives Matter).

Social media is the new newspaper that everyone has access to all over the globe, allowing opinions, hashtags, collaborations, and movement towards a better future. Social media platforms are educating and informing millions of people around the world who have access to the internet on many subjects. Twitter is notorious for being a political social platform for the public to write on, hence the importance of Twitter on the creation of #BlackLivesMatter.

We can see from the posts, the articles, the music, the words and the images in the video posted on the internet that social media and is playing a huge role in facilitating the BLM movement through disseminating information, ideas, values and beliefs. We can also see on social media where the movement is going and how social media will facilitate the BLM movement. We think that it will be less arduous in the future and we hope that it will be easier for people to accept that racial discrimination and police brutality associated with racial profiling that plays a large role in continuing the discrimination of different minorities have to stop!

Ambra & Chris

Group Link: meet.google.com/wbn-xctn-koc