This year Iowa Republican John Mathis sponsored HB187, legislation which will outlaw undercover video in food production facilities. Animal rights and animal welfare activists are up in arms because undercover video is often the only way to collect evidence in criminal animal and human abuse cases. Unfortunately, despite the use of social media to campaign against the bill, Iowa governor Terry Brandstad signed the bill last Tuesday after it passed the House and Senate.
Below are some examples of how concerned citizens utilized the internet to protest against HB187, also known as the "Ag-gag' bill.
Many groups and individuals used Twitter to pass information using the hashtags #AgGag and #StopAgGag. Those tweeting about the bill include:
- Farm Sanctuary, a well-known animal welfare organization with farm animal sanctuaries in New York and California
- Writer, blogger, and public personality Ari Soloman
- ABC News
- An animal rights group called Mercy For Animals
- An animals rights group called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
Blogs
Activists also used blogs to spread information. Below are some images from the Mercy For Animals, Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), and PETA blogs.
News
News websites such as ABC, the Huffington Post, and the Associated Press also carried coverage of the bill.
News websites such as ABC, the Huffington Post, and the Associated Press also carried coverage of the bill.
News organizations also aired video regarding the bill, such as this one from CNN.
Facebook
Facebook also played a role in the debate as organizations discussed the debate and "events" and "groups" cropped up to campaign against the bill.
The visual impact of a video is also greater than a page of words. One cannot miss the message in Mercy For Animal's video about the Ag-Gag bill, and it's hard to think a compassionate person could watch that video and vote for the bill.
Because videos are so useful within the constantly changing world of social media, I would certainly spend a good deal of time creating videos if I were running a social media campaign.
The horrible thing about the Ag-Gag campaign is that it failed. All these fancy social media devices did not succeed in convincing enough people to vote against the bill. Getting the message out in non-internet venues is important, and I do not think that happened to the extent it needed to crush the bill. Billboards, bus banners, and television ads capture eyes. Any type of campaign needs to use social media in addition to more traditional media outlets, at least for now.
I agree with you that video has a very relevant place in social media, and that the ability of the average person to make increasingly good-quality video and spread it via a variety of social media networks is a powerful thing.
ReplyDeleteI don't think this was a failure of video, but probably one of perception (I don't have a lot of knowledge about the background here). I would imagine that the video reached an already motivated base, but may not have had a lot fo mainstream crossover beyond the news reporting. In other words, the video probably inpired those already aware of the issue, but may not have swayed the average person who doesn't follow the players in the topic.
Great use of pulling and linking examples so that readers such as myself can go and get more background information.
This is a far more thorough post than mine, and quite logically constructed as well. The trick with video is it can be used to aggregate all of that data, like newsy.com does. You can take tweets, blog entries, etc. and broadcast it in a short newsy style segment.
ReplyDelete