When president John F. Kennedy saw the front page of the New York Times May 4, 1963, he said the images made him “sick.” Pictures and recordings of African-American children in Birmingham, Alabama being mauled by police dogs and hosed down by members of the local fire department were making their way across the world. The images were so striking that Kennedy praised the visual journalism as being more eloquent than words.
The visuals have since become iconic of the civil rights movement, and credited for shifting public perception of it–which was the intended outcome.
In fact, the protest in the photos was premeditated–planned by civil rights organizations and executed by hundreds of schoolchildren (whose parents couldn’t risk being arrested or losing their jobs). Civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. expected the kids to be arrested, which would hopefully overwhelm the system and pressure local officials to address segregation and inequality. But even more important, King and the organizers calculated the city’s aggressive response and wanted the national news media to capture it.
The media’s impact should come as no surprise. For years, the American press has been entrusted to use multimedia to document, broadcast and expose social injustices, from atrocities, like the gassing and starvation of millions of Jewish people in Nazi concentration camps, to the brutality and abuse of authority, as seen in the videotaped police beating of Rodney King in 1991.
But something has changed. What was once the almost exclusive superpower of the “Fourth Estate” has suddenly been mass-produced and shared with the public. Today, ordinary people are heavily armed with multimedia tools for documenting, broadcasting and exposing common injustices–tools that fit in their pockets and can be activated with a click of a button. Had the Birmingham protests happened today, the world would have reacted before the event was over. Prior to the demonstration, black Birmingham residents dealt with daily violence and hostility from many white locals, who championed segregation and supported an active Ku Klux Klan community.
But behavior like that is swiftly sanctioned today, thanks to the dawning of the Computer Age (the technology-driven time period from the 1970s to present, marked by rapid advancements in information technology; a.k.a. the Digital Age or the Information Age). The Computer Age has streamlined the fight for justice by weaponizing high-tech gadgets like smartphones. As a result, a growing number of blatant abuses and even casual exertions of bigotry and social dominance are being immediately exposed, and their perpetrators immediately punished.
Take Aaron Schlossberg. When the New York City attorney unleashed a verbal tirade against Spanish-speaking employees at a food court cafeteria in Manhattan, the video, captured by another customer, unleashed a flood of public outrage. Schlossberg was identified from the video in part by social media influencers like writer and activist Shaun King. They shared the video to their followers and crowd-sourced Schlossberg’s identification. Followers also dug up older videos of the lawyer engaging in similar outbursts. Ultimately, Schlossberg was kicked out of the office space he was renting for his practice and became the target of shaming and protest both in and out of the courtroom.
Just a few weeks earlier, a string of viral videos showing the aftermath of people calling police on African-Americans for doing innocuous things like waiting in a Starbucks, working out at the gym, moving into an apartment, moving out of an Airbnb or sleeping in a college dorm study room, exposed the everyday microaggressions that many people of color claim are normal parts of their life experiences—that is, being targeted by people who use their whiteness and/or the contentious relationship between police and black people as weapons of harassment, or to intentionally conjure micro-aggressive reminders of the unspoken skewed social dynamics that work in their favor. Some of these events were broadcast live, spreading across the world in real time, and in many cases the 9-1-1 callers lost their jobs. But the incidents seem to be pouring in by the week. In the last month similar videos have gone viral showing black people being confronted swimming in a hotel pool, swimming in a neighborhood pool and mowing the lawn.
Using social media to expose everyday injustice is not just a tactic in the United States. In Mexico, for instance, the “Lord y Ladies” meme set out to shame the country’s rich and privileged by capturing their outbursts and obnoxious behavior on video, then sarcastically nicknaming them Lord or Lady. In one case, a cyclist caught a young man driving an Audi in a narrow bike lane, intentionally ramming the cyclist. When confronted by police, the man fought with them before speeding off. He was dubbed #LordAudi. One woman was captured trying to bribe a police officer with 100 pesos (about $5 U.S.) after her drunk driving caused a pile up. She was named #Lady100Pesos. And #LordRollsRoyce was so named for hitting an off-duty federal officer with his Phantom and brandishing a gun before speeding off with an entourage of bodyguards. The Lord y Ladies meme spotlighted the corruption and privilege among the young Mexican elite, and how local authorities, sometimes allegedly accepting bribes, might let them get away with their crimes.
It looks as if people with power and/or societal privilege can no longer use those things to attack, lash out at or oppress the marginalized—at least not without answering to the digital court of public opinion. Documenting and broadcasting attempts to do so has become second nature to the people who often find themselves witnessing, or on the receiving end of them. As a result, people making claims of racism, discrimination or even self-defense are easily vindicated, while the wrongdoers are quickly punished.
When a white woman recently called police on an 8-year-old black girl and her mom for selling bottles of water outside her office building, the mom did not hesitate to capture the incident on her smartphone. When the woman tried to duck out of sight, the mom declared “you can hide all you want; the world gon’ see you, boo.” And it did. The mom posted the video to social media, dubbing the woman #PermitPatty, a reference to the white woman known as #BBQBecky for calling 9-1-1 on black people barbecuing in a local park. The #PermitPatty post went viral, causing the woman, a cannabis entrepreneur, to lose clients and partnerships before stepping down as CEO.
It’s not just digital recordings that land everyday bullies and abusers in hot water. The use of hashtags (a way to label and categorize social media discussion topics), for instance, has drummed up support against injustices, too. The #MeToo movement rallied women and brought to light the shocking prevalence of sexual harassment and assault in American workplaces. Hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter digitally remastered the age-old discourse surrounding police brutality. A hashtag even attempted to take down vicious international warlords when #Kony2012, arguably one of the first hashtag movements, albeit controversial, went viral.
Of course not everyone sees the good in social media culture, despite these movements. Think pieces about the dangers of society’s dependence on technology or social media abound. As tech companies fight to keep consumers glued to their screens as long as possible research is showing that the increased screen time is having a negative impact on people’s (particularly young people’s) mental health and relationships. Critics also say social media has created a culture of oversharing and self-centeredness.
Ironically, this trend of sharing every single detail of one’s life, or every thought in one’s head, is causing people with nasty dispositions to out themselves. Take Roseanne Barr: prior to the reboot of the comedian’s self-entitled sitcom, she amassed an online following by toying with bizarre and controversial ideology. On Twitter Barr would retweet conspiracy theories and post her own messages featuring racialized and anti-Semitic language. Though the behavior drew criticism when her career was stale, when Barr recently tweeted a statement comparing African-American Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett to an ape, a social media backlash ensued, and her newly renewed sitcom was canceled. Instead of being exposed by social media warriors, Barr, losing herself in micro-blogging, exposed herself.
While there are many Roseannes out there (some who will do, or are doing, worse), those people, along with their sexism, racism, homophobia, corruption and oppression, will be no match for technology. The Computer Age has reshaped justice and has empowered the public to participate in carrying it out, rapidly. Where nasty human impulses once thrived in the shadows of ignorance, they are now swiftly exposed and brought to light by digital technology.
But where does this leave the media, which once held exclusive control of this kind of power? Now that eyewitnesses can broadcast their testimonies to the world unfiltered and in real time, what role do journalists play?
One thought: For digital journalists and news media, it’s time to stop viewing social media and the web as a tool just for engagement and distribution, and more so as a tool for justice and exposure. Like the press’s historical use of the camera, tape recorder and videotape to keep people informed, its use of the web should do the same. Perhaps the media should be using its expertise in photography, videography and storytelling to create viral visuals, rather than simply reporting about the ones already done.
Take the images and audio of immigrant children being separated from their families at the U.S. Mexico border. Much of the multimedia that shocked and tipped off the nation regarding the White House’s controversial tactics to deter illegal immigration came from professional journalists. Their storytelling and access are things everyday eyewitnesses don’t always have.
In an age of “fake news” and Photoshop, the news media is also in a position to produce trusted, verified and accurate media. Anything can be doctored or presented out of context–in some cases, innocent people have been wrongly identified as wrongdoers and punished, doxxed (the act of publishing someone’s personal information online to encourage harassment) or cyber-bullied by digital lynch mobs. Unlike random people who post videos online and claim they are the real deal, journalists, by practice, (are supposed to) vet and verify.
Journalists can also advance the discourse, capitalizing on memes to drive the debate. Where everyday people expose everyday injustices, the news media can highlight the broader issues and add context. When two black men were arrested for sitting in a Starbucks, for instance, journalists wrote about the larger cultural issue at play (that implicit bias runs rampant in even the most common places for minorities in America). These extended narratives can then be turned into their own memes or hashtags. The news media has the tools and talent to turn these visuals into stories, data-driven stories, in ways non-journalists can’t, and that is powerful.
These are just ideas. Though, as the Computer Age continues to uproot and disrupt industries, including the news business, it’s also changing the way we as a society function. Things that were acceptable years ago are now analyzed, debated and judged by the community almost as soon as they happen. Reclaiming the news’ role in this exposure process might be a challenge, but is not impossible. After all, we originated it.