Over the last year protest against
government corruption have broke out all over the country of Brazil. Social
media strategist, Lauren Moberst describes this movement as a social media
fueled revolution (Moberst, 2013). Citizens are using it to get information
out, establish demonstrations and strike awareness. They feel as if the public
media has misrepresented them as extremist with no cause and so they are using
tools such as memes,
gifs, and videos to accurately depict the reality. Memes are describe by
Knobel & Lankshear as viral marketing utilized to encourage social
phenomena (Knobel & Lankshear, 2007). These are posted to sites such as
Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine and YouTube. The videos posted give a
strong idea to the mass of citizens that these messages are reaching. Some
videos have literally thousands of people in the streets dissenting the current
administration. One representation even shows Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg
pictured on Instagram with a snipit for change. This really proves how far
reaching the hand of social media is. For people to rise even if not in direct
connection with the country is a great statement. As you can see in the stats
below Brazil is becoming a very amplified in social media use.
References
Knobel,
M., & Lankshear, C. (2007). Online memes, affinities, and cultural
production. A new literacies sampler (pp. 199-227). New York: P. Lang.
Retrieved from
http://literacyandtech.pbworks.com/f/Text.pdf#page=11
Moberst, L. (2013). Social Media Engages the World in the
#ChangeBrazil Movement. Retrieved from http://dashburst.com/change-brazil-protests-social-media/