Analyzing Digital Activism

#istandwithahmed In 2016, a boy by the name of Ahmed Mohamed entered school with a homemade alarm clock. This homemade creation was mistaken for a bomb. Bringing his project to school led him to be arrested by the police. People all over the country took to social media to voice their opinions, anger, and support. The hashtag #istandwithahmed was created for those to show support of Ahmed and encourage his dream to pursue robotics despite the newfound fear for what might result from his creations. Social media not only allowed Ahmed’s story and voice to be heard, but also revealed that the world wants to come together to call out injustice. On the day Ahmed was escorted, he was wearing a NASA shirt, reinforcing he is a student with a strong interest in science and robotics. The photo of Ahmed, paired with an article by Business Insider, has become iconic with this movement. #istandwithahmed is the story of a boy with a love for robotics and science whose dream was met with backlash by...

Combating Gun Violence with #Not One More Contributors: Morgan Crum, Jason Boomgarden, Carleigh Tessereau, Raymond Parott, and Madelyn Powers Date Published: September 28th, 2021 Introduction to the Task and Description of the Event           Group 5 of the Digital and Multimodal Writing course of the Fall 2021 semester chose to complete their blog on the activist hashtag #NotOneMore. In 2014, a shooter in Santa Barbara, California took the lives of six people near the University of California. The shooter was identified as 22-year-old Elliot Roger and prior to his rampage near the University of California, he stabbed three in his home. One of the victims of the rampage was 20-year-old Christopher Martinez who was a student at the university. The hashtag #NotOneMore was the result of a phrase that the father of Christopher Martinez, Richard Martinez, stated after his son was shot. Miles Kohrman of Fast Company reported that Richard Martinez said in ‘an emo...

Introduction The hashtag #ProVaccine has been in existence for quite some time but has gained more traction throughout 2020 and 2021 as it was repurposed for use in the fight to vaccinate everyone against Covid-19. As the pandemic ravaged the globe, scientists worked tirelessly to create a vaccine to combat this virus. Many people at the beginning of the pandemic were desperate for this vaccine because they wanted everything to go back to normal. Now that we have the vaccine, though, only 54% of Americans are vaccinated, after being desperate for the vaccine for so long. While that number is growing every day, the loud minority of those that oppose the vaccines have been spreading as much misinformation as possible and the silent majority’s patience is wearing thin. The provaccine hashtag has been spreading on primarily on TikTok and Twitter, and gaining support rapidly from those that are already vaccinated. When analyzing these posts it was easy to separate them into...