Media Coverage of Social Movements
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In less than a twelvemonth, the #MeToo movement became a global phenomenon. On social media, it became a simple fashion to limited solidarity with victims of sexual harassment and abuse, as well as an easy mode to comment on the remarkable ability imbalance that still exists in American society between men and women.
How #MeToo went viral
So how did #MeToo become such a powerful rallying cry for women? Information technology can largely be attributed to extra Alyssa Milano, who sent out a single tweet using #MeToo, encouraging all women who had been either sexually harassed or assaulted to use the hashtag. And information technology immediately went viral.
According to Facebook, within a 24-hour menstruum, over 4.7 1000000 people worldwide had used the hashtag, and over 12 one thousand thousand posts, comments and likes had been generated. The unmarried tweet from Alyssa Milano has now received over 68,000 replies.
#MeToo every bit a global phenomenon
And, even more fascinating, #MeToo truly went global. In Spanish, the hashtag became #YoTambien. In French, the hashtag became #balancetonporc. And there were various iterations in other languages besides, including unlike versions in the Eye East.
In the United States, #MeToo was sometimes transformed into #NotOkay, merely the meaning remained the same: men could no longer get away with the same type of behavior. They could no longer harass or bully women in certain situations, and the fact that prominent Hollywood stars were coming out with their own stories made the hashtag all the more powerful.
It's easy to conclude from all this that social media still has enormous sway in our popular culture. There's no easier fashion to get out a bulletin than to launch it on social media.
The building blocks of a global phenomenon
In thinking nigh how and why the #MeToo movement was (and is) then successful, it'southward useful to consider all the diverse elements that made it so successful:
- A social media influencer (Alyssa Milano) with a powerful voice
- A timeless message that transcends cultures and nations
- Social platforms – Twitter and Facebook – that makes it very piece of cake to re-tweet and similar content (thus making information technology very like shooting fish in a barrel for other people to show solidarity with merely a single click)
- A hashtag that is simple, straight, empowering and highly personal
That'due south not to say that it's possible to re-engineer the #MeToo movement for other causes and other movements, just it is singularly fascinating to understand why some movements never seem to go off the ground, while others seem to become viral inside 24 hours. In recent memory, perchance the #LeanIn movement is the closest thing we've seen to the #MeToo movement.
Social media tipping points
If y'all're a social media marketer, ane way to put all this into context is past considering Malcolm Gladwell'due south "Tipping Indicate" theory. He challenged people to remember of trends and memes as infectious diseases that start with Patient Naught and literally get viral, infecting each new person with ideas or beliefs.
That might just be what nosotros are witnessing here with the #MeToo move – the best example nonetheless of how social media can plough unproblematic ideas and concepts into infectious ideas that are incommunicable to exit of your head. The world has changed forever equally the result of a single tweet, highlighting the power of social media.
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