Social Media As A Platform For Police Brutality - 1646 Words

It has been documented and filmed that many rioters have demanded the streets to riot recent fatal police brutality of unarmed African American teenagers, but what has caused the most publicity is how these incidents spread so widely through social media. The article Ferguson: Digital Protest, Hashtag Ethnography, and the Racial Politics of Social Media in the United States by Yarimar Bonilla Jonathan Rosa studies the affects social media has on a modern political issue and explains how â€Å"hashtag activism† can unite a group of people globally. The controversy the article presents is whether social media can be considered a platform for police brutality, and on a greater outlook, â€Å"activism†. It concludes that reports on the shooting, the†¦show more content†¦The authors, Yarimar Bonilla and Jonathan Rosa chose disciplines with the background in communications, sociology, and public affairs. These three disciplines are not only present in this article b ut also represent the issue as a whole. Social media reflects communication, society’s behavior portrays sociology, and the political viewpoints symbolize public affairs. Key concepts like ethnography, police brutality, social media, and activism are all exercised in the article to help determine if a hashtag could become a field site. Research methods such as communication research and content analysis are evident throughout the article. For example, the article discusses a numerical description by stating, â€Å"during the initial week of protests, over 3.6 million posts appeared on Twitter documenting and reflecting on the emerging details surrounding Michael Brown’s death† (Bonilla Rosa 2015). The article does not directly state any key thinkers nor key theories but Black Lives Matter founders Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi all encourage the content of the article and the supported sources. According to the motto Black Lives Matter is not a moment, but a movement. Communication has become the face of Black Lives Matter. Social media as a form of communication has allowed the fatal incidents of unarmed young black men to have a voice. It all started with the death of Trayvon Martin.