The Kony 2012 Movement

Despite the eventual fall of the public sphere, the Kony 2012 campaign was still effective in unleashing the ability of social media to legitimize authority by effectively using the public voice to create change. Kony 2012 caused a huge reemergence of Habermas’ public sphere. Kony 2012 was the first time that social media was used for activist purposes. With Facebook being the most heavily used medium to voice the campaign, it created a platform for public discourse to take place. However, through the failure of this campaign emerged a new way to facilitate the public sphere. Several campaigns that took place after Kony 2012 exemplify the reemergence of the public sphere. Without the fall of the Kony 2012 movement, the emergence of other campaigns

(Habermas, 1989) Kony 2012 was able to re-create social order through instrumental reasoning. To begin, the public sphere emerged as a body that questioned ‘slacktivism’ and conspicuous consumption. The issue with Kony 2012 was that Invisible Children oversimplified the issue, making it seem as though a simple pledge for support, donation, tweet/share of the video would make the main difference in the cause. In reality however this is not activism, it is what is known as ‘slacktivism.’ This term in essence means that people feel as though they are being active, as they gain the feeling of helping but the actions may not carry out any weight. Conspicuous consumption is the purposeful use of charitable donations in order to enhance social status or appear to be a good person, while also claiming oneself socio-economically superior. (really not sure what to cite, don’t know where we got this info :’)) The Kony Action Kits, priced at $30, were a great way for conspicuous consumption to take root. People would sport their Kony 2012 merchandise while doing nothing else to help the issue, which gave off the illusion of charity. Once the public became more critical of Kony 2012, and the relevant activist activities, the conspicuous consumption of donating to Invisible Children became apparent. The rejection of money

One of her big criticisms of the public sphere was that it was not inclusive. Which means that the public sphere was not open to just anyone, it excluded women, children, and those less wealthy. The public sphere became a place where the bourgeois where left out. This excluded the voices of the minority and gave rise to wealthy men in power to speak about current issues and form opinions for the larger community. Kony 2012 reached out to millions of people, however lacked to reach the Ugandan population. Kony 2012 was unable for the most part to even reach the people of Uganda to cause any kind of real solution. This in tern left their voices unheard, when there was a great need for authentic Ugandan voice. (Jacobs, 2013) Nancy Fraser suggested that one look for existing public spheres rather than imposing new ones. (Fraser, 1990) Causing the already formed spheres to grow, and develop to become something exclusive to most people. With Kony 2012 this public sphere was newly created and failed to meet the standards that Fraser had referred too. By not recognizing speech from Ugandans the public sphere was unable to bring forth a stable opinion about the