Kony 2012: Inaccuracies aside, this is how to spread a message
Even the foreign secretary has weighed in. “We are working hard to ensure Joseph Kony is brought to justice, LRA atrocities are ended and civilians protected,” he tweeted this morning. Why now? Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army abducted children and created havoc in northern Uganda for a quarter of a century. In recent years, his followers have dwindled in number and been pushed into the jungles of the Central African Republic. He is – thankfully – no longer the menace he once was.
But this week his name has been evoked in one of the slickest, cleverest bits of social marketing I have ever seen. The video “Kony 2012″ has gone viral, with more than 30 million YouTube and Vimeo views since Monday.
In it, the American campaigner Jason Russell tries to explain to his toddler son, Gavin, who Joseph Kony is, and why he must be stopped. It’s designed to appeal to young Americans who have never been to Africa and it has succeeded wildly. But not just with them. One of the Channel 4 News Deputy Editor’s children came down to breakfast today and asked him what we were doing about Kony on the programme tonight. Alastair Campbell’s daughter told him to watch it. The rapper P Diddy told his five million Twitter followers to watch. The daughter of Joel Kibazo, a former Financial Times journalist, told him he had to watch it – and he’s Ugandan.
The video provides a simple solution to a simple problem: catch the bad man who is kidnapping kids. Such is the influence of Russell’s “Invisible Children” campaign, last October President Obama sent a 100-strong force of US soldiers to work as advisers to the Ugandan army trying to find Kony. The message of the video is that they must not be withdrawn and they must catch Kony this year.
Which is fine, except there’s no indication that they were going to be withdrawn, nor any reason to believe they will be successful this year. And, given that Kony appears to have been contained, it’s not as if arresting or killing him would make a huge difference to the children of northern Uganda. The video is a not-very-subtle Google-era version of the white man’s burden: the answer to the problem, it says, is American intervention. The nice white man must save the poor black kids from the nasty black man.
Tonight Joel will tell his daughter that it’s a good thing she’s seen the video, and he’s happy that she’s getting interested in Uganda. But he’s worried. “I think this shows that you can collate information using the tools of modern technology and it will be picked up by 14-year-olds and you can change their perception.”
But none of the articles Joel or I or a hundred other journalists who have covered Uganda over 25 years has reached the people this video has reached. OK, it may not be accurate. It may use out-of-date figures. But it’s struck a chord we have never managed to strike. What wouldn’t we do for an audience of 30 million? The video has reached people who would never watch Channel 4 News, or read the Financial Times.
The “Invisible Children” campaign could learn a little from those of us who care about accuracy and context. But I think we could learn something from them about how to get a message across, and how to talk to a generation that has stopped bothering to read newspaper and watch TV news.
Follow @lindseyhilsum on Twitter.
Why I think Kony 2012 campaign is wrong: read Polis Director Charlie Beckett’s view
There are 23 comments on this post
I am going to break the habit of a lifetime and disagree with you Lindsey.
We may be impressed by the ability of this campaign to reach people but if the message is inaccurate and the policy it advocates is stupid, then it will end up creating more cynicism and prejudice about both Africa and humanitarianism.
We have increasing evidence from our research that this kind of marketing does longer term damage to public perceptions and undermines support for longer-term, sustainable solutions.
The only reason I have optimism following this campaign is that it has provoked a brilliant counter-campaign that has exposed its weaknesses and made a much better case for how people might support human rights. So I guess social media wins after all!
best wishes
Charlie
Invisible Children / Kony. And what is the turnover of this business which has 30 million viewers, 3 million facebook followers and charges $255 per kit (watch end of video) and $25 per t-shirt…?
Is this charity or business?
Good questions. I was very interested to watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkB8o5VWAjE&feature=player_embedded
Jason Russell states that whilst others see IC as a non-profit or a charity, he sees it as a business. Speaks volumes, I think…
Yes, and I have to say I agree with Charlie, you can do the wrong for the right reason and in the end, this campaign may do more harm than good, aside from the angry response to it. I also suspect it succeeds for a very bad, sad reason – the use of a young child (the filmaker’s 4 year-old) in this way in this context is very manipulative. In the end, all Kony 2012 says is that as a tool of mass mobilisation, manipulation works where empathy fails. And woo betide humanity for that.
It doesn’t matter Uganda is full of oil and America needs oil lets go inside kill some bad asses , strangers and suck all of their oil and American Hit men and Jackals will smoothly occupy Africa as Arab countries John Perkins. Lets create American bases in Africa!
Call me a cynic, but the Kony 2012 video lost my attention after the first 2 minutes thanks the meandering montage and heard it all before, pseudo inspirational voice over and script.
This might not be a popular opinion but it just feels like a video made by a weekend warrior with some very good editing skills. Also, the opening 10 seconds of computerised noises sound like they’ve been pinched from the trailer for Prometheus.
WE cannot know if this is a business or not……..we need more evidence to support what the film maker is teeling us, no article is exempt from being one human’s perspective, and therefore we have to question every piece of news we read, including yours!
This article seems under supported. Ms Hilsum has told us that there are inaccuracies in the video by Invisible Children but I don’t see any examples.
The inclusion of the young boy in the video is clearly described as illustrating how young the minds of the recruited child soldiers are; journalists from all quarters use emotive images and ‘victims’ to get their point home – you only have to watch the evening news to see that.
‘The nice white man must save the poor black kids from the nasty black man.’ I find this kind of colonial guilt baiting repugnant and unhelpful. Why bring skin colour into this? It is not of interest to the organisation and not focused on in the video. The suggestion appears to be that if the wrong doer and the victim have a different colour skin to mine I should not intervene or help, which is a very grim outlook. Would Ms Hilsum think better of the cause if the leader of the movement was black? Why is this important?
And yes Kony has been pushed back into the Jungle, but for the last 26 years he has managed to keep coming back, because the problem is never fully solved.
so what do we have to believe now?
The whole “story” confirms one of the basics of education. Glib presentation and emotional appeal (stock in trade of nearly all journalism, toy shops and consumer advertising) has to be challenged just as forensically and wisely as any other.
Children’s early resistance can be encouraged, of course, through a sharing of stories and fun with caring adults. Roald Dahl, Phillip Pullman, even J.K.Rowling and The Wizard of Oz offer stories that will make sense of later disappointments.
Here are thoughts about previous US involvements in Africa, and Kony2012 naive approach… I do agree with this post.
http://bunny.gilgamint.com/cjuut/2012/03/09/invicible-children-kony-2012-review-and-tactics-recommendations/
The video is naive, reductive and naff, but I’m supportive of it. It would be good if this reaction lasts and people develop more of a humanitarian attitude rather than just consuming from cradle to grave, solely looking out for number one. I hope it all works out for the best.
It’s just irritating & worrying how problems like these are only acknowledged by the masses if they’re packaged in hip media format
we support you
i am defo gonna do this, it is not right what they are doing to kids. we have to fight for what is right. and if everyone had a heart they would join to. when my boyfriend told me i was heart broken how could they do this. we have the world in are hands. we can do something about it. we have to fight!
It had not been adequately explained, exactly what is inaccurate about the Invisible Children Video.
We agree with you Lindsey that it’s good that the Kony 2012 campaign has got people talking. It’s raised awareness about a long-standing conflict affecting thousands of people.
Extra attention is welcome but it must also be paid to the opinions of local people. They’ve been consistently calling on the international community to help protect their families from attack and displacement but they struggle to make their voices heard.
The campaign pushes for further military intervention but we urge a political solution that addresses the roots of the conflict and secures the safety of civilians. A purely military approach is not the answer – it requires a holistic and coordinated response that take the opinions of local people into account.
We’ve been working on the LRA conflict since 1997 and encourage anyone interested in perspectives of people affected by the conflict to read the results of our recent consultations with them: http://bit.ly/xtSUXX
The people living in the midst of conflict often have the greatest insights into its causes – we need to continue working with them to find a political solution
Joseph Kony is undoubtedly a cruel man, but lets look at some facts around the issue and the organisation Invisible Children (after you read what I wrote check out some of the links, especially the article from The Guardian which has scholars and experts expressing both sides of the issue and of IC):
The issue:
-The LRA is only 250 soldiers strong at this point.
-The LRA hasn’t been in Uganda since 2006.
-Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting.
-US Africa Command has been trying to stop Kony for years, which only results in failure and retaliation from Kony.
“In general, we’re concerned [about] the catastrophic consequences for the local population,” Van Damme said. “We’ve seen in the past, over and over again, how there’s been a lot of retaliation by the LRA, the burning of villages, maiming people, a lot of killings, with little military success.” – Steven Van Damme, Oxfam’s protection and policy advisor for the whole of eastern Congo
-The footage in the video and the framing of the issue are from 2004-2006.
-To get to Kony you’d have to ultimately kill some of his army…which consists of children…
I think the passion and support being seen from the public is a wonderful thing, but it worries me that people are acting without asking first. The sad truth is men like Kony exist all over the world, and we must look closer at the economic, political and social problems and inequalities that allow this to happen. Creating an international cyber manhunt will only distract from solving the real problems. Invisible Children charity funds military intervention which has only proven time and time again to make already unstable situations worse. I’m not saying don’t act, i’m saying use the passion and anger from events like this to act in the right places to help stop situations like this altogether.
Lindsey and all,
What I personally find extremely disturbing is the attempt of the Invisible Children as an organisation, in trying to change policy at a governmental level and very late. The LRA and Joseph Kony is clearly a military issue and has been so for over 25 years.
Today we have over 3 thousand children who have been living in Internally Displaced People’s camps created by the Ugandan government years back, who are now seriously affected by the Nodding Disease and in desperate need for help. Kony is no longer active in Northern Uganda regardless of the nature of the problem and so, such blanket marketing is misleading to young people who may not be very much aware of international politics. Please visit http://www.savethenoddingchildren.org and help this young war victims who are now very ill and suffering from the Nodding Disease, a disease with no cure and no one knows the source.
I am a school teacher in London. I was inspired the video as were my students. The video clearly tells us that Koni has pushed into the jungle. The reason why people are interested is because young children are being taken from families forced to kill, forced to rape and raped themselves. It’s something so horrific that no decent person wants to ignore. You who criticise, take the log out of your own eye before you try to remove the speck from your brothers. It makes me so mad to see this kind of intention in anyway criticised this world needs to change utterly!
Im looking for that evolutionary flip that endears me to Charles Darwin. That survival pull needed in the year 2012. our global species acts as little dumb children swallowing the proporganda of irrational and disbelief – the methodes of Nazi mass control manifests itself today by the modern fascist league – Globalization. The Kony 2012 is such propaganda feed to children and the minder’s of children. But we cannot afford to be stupid and live in the dark at our peril. The human gene is better than that. Lindsey and Vik 07, our species maybe predisposed to survival in a field of truth and inner-reconciliation. Despite the seeming ‘success’ of elite media propoganda, believe me, the ‘campaign’ of truth and science is on track and reconciliation will take the purile power of our elite out in a breath.
You have to ask yourself: is the best potential for life worth holding and respecting or is it a dispicable externality whereby one’s own inner confusion is more important?
KONY 2012! propaganda does not serve children anywhere.
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Ffeature%3Dplayer_embedded%26v%3DoNzzf76FV_c&feature=player_embedded&v=oNzzf76FV_c&gl=US
This is insane. while you adults are aguring another kid just became a child-soldier or got kid. and this is racisim, the saying “the nice white man has to save the poor black kids from the nasty black man” is pure bull i’m a black boy i’m 12 years old and when i saw this video all i could say was something has to be done.but some people could care less