Can Social Media Save Sudan?
These days, it is easier to find somebody who doesn’t watch or read the news than someone who isn’t on a form of social media. Years ago the rise of the social media phenomenon was criticised, belittled and formed a new abusive stereotype against young people; now, politicians, presidents and even the Queen are amongst its users. Its huge impact and influence is irrefutable in today’s Western society - but how does this impact the news?
News was once only available through the medium of TV, radio, or newspapers - now it is everywhere. A news story can spread across Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and the like in minutes so it is not that millennials are not seeing the world news, there has just been a monumental change on where they are getting it from. Is this an improvement in the reporting of news, or does this cause more problems than ever before?
Evidence of the role of social media in world news was seen recently in the sudden massive interest in the Sudan Crisis. For weeks the hashtags #prayforsudan and #blueforsudan were trending, people across all social media platforms were turning their profiles blue and prominent influencers were sharing this story to their millions of followers to raise awareness.
This sudden interest stemmed from activists and influencers, including online beauty influencer Shahd Khidir, sharing their personal stories and experiences from Sudanese protests. One video of Khidir’s was almost immediately caught up in this huge social media storm: her personal story of her close friend’s murder by the Rapid Support Forces and what she had been hearing from family and friends about extreme acts of violence against peaceful protesters.
The #blueforsudan movement had captivated so much attention that the Sudanese government shut down internet access across the whole country - it was up to people outside of Sudan to raise awareness and the public interest was only getting bigger.
This is a relatively new way to spread so much awareness about a story and now activists use their social media to share updates to their audience - like Negla Abdalla, a London based activist who has been posting updates consistently through the Sudanese revolution to her followers.
But, can hashtags save Sudan? Can this use for social media change the way the Western countries care about stories so far away from us?
Seemingly not.
The profile pictures aren’t blue anymore, #loveisland is the trending hashtag every week and it feels like this online revolt never happened. This is still happening right now. Protestors are still being killed but the attention has died out. It seems cold and I think that’s the problem with social media in the news. People will always jump on the bandwagon, that’s inevitable, they will share what Rhianna shares or retweet anything on their timeline like its a projection of their human empathy and sometimes these facts aren’t even true. Like anything in the world that causes a social media storm like this, people get so caught up in it they believe everything, they believe they are doing good and helping people.
And helping people, I still believe, is at the forefront of the retweets and online petitions. Social media is fickle and stories die out but sometimes it starts a spark. Someone is always watching and reading and just maybe they will be drawn in, inspired and given the tools to not just care about these news stories but to continue and continue to spread awareness - and awareness, in a fickle world like this, is powerful.
