The wall of the Invisible Children’s Facebook displays an incredible number of posts by IC’s supporters. It was especially astonishing to see the real time updates on the number of people who “like” IC’s page. For example, take a look at the updates from the following days:
March 24, 2011
9:50pm: 358,849 people
10:15pm: 358,873 people
11pm: 358, 911 people
March 25, 2011
9:50pm: 359,500 people
10:15pm: 359,514 people
11pm: 359,532 people
IC’s Facebook page also has sub pages such as Events, Shops and Discussions.
As of March 25th, there were 9,308 guests to the Invisible Chidren’s 25 (Event) and there were 53 topics in the Discussions. Topics vary from someone’s passion to go to Uganda, poetry and delivering artworks to orphanages. The oldest post for the Discussion was made in November 14th, 2007 and the newest post was made in March 15, 2011. As evident in the wall posts and discussions, the digital communication between IC and its supporters continues to be active since the creation of IC’s Facebook page.
Here are some of the most commonly used words on the wall:
“touching”
“eye opening”
“moving”
“inspiring”
“help”
“thank you for coming to…”
IC usually responds to their supporters by using the following words:
“We love you!”
“You are amazing”
“Lets talk. Email us at movement@invisiblechildren.com”
“Give us a call at 619-562-2799”
last two lines are particularly used to comment on the students who are brainstorming about their fundraising strategies for The 25 Campaign. Facebook is widely used among the participants of the 25 Campaign, however, it is interesting to note that Jedidiah and Jason actually encourage students to “get on the phone” and “send out some hand written letters” and use more traditional methods for fundraising. In the video (http://vimeo.com/21419843), Jedidiah says “first tweet it [The 25 Campaign] and facebook it” yet Jason says “…but that stuff doesn’t work for most of us”. In summary, it seems you need to get on your feet and act off-line if you really want to engage others in your action for a cause. I suppose that means there are limits to the virtual interaction. Through the social media, would our project face a superficial level of interaction with our audience? How much does a person actually have to care about the issue when he/she clicks “like” on our Facebook page?
Although I am observing our progress with social media from a critical perspective, I do feel encouraged when my friends “like” our page and share their thoughts. I especially like how our project is making our friends “think” about the role of media in humanitarianism. By all means, we are “learning by doing”, so we would like to thank you for visiting our blog and please keep us posted with your comments!
Jedidiah mentioned that IC targets high school students with Facebook. IC uses Facebook as a platform to maintain the relationship between IC and the people they met through their campaigns. Accordingly, there most of the posts seem to be from students who were inspired by IC’s visit to their schools.
Now here is the question: what about the people in Uganda? Even if their intended audience is in North America, are people in Northern Uganda aware about how they are perceived in North America? Where is their voice? Can social media connect the individuals in Northern Uganda and high school students in North America? What would the wall of IC’s Facebook look like if there are posts from the very people they care about? To begin with, how many people have access to the internet in Uganda? I would be interested in knowing more about the digital divide between the members of IC (including its supporters) and the people in Northern Uganda.
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