WORLD IS WATCHING - MANIFESTO

THE LIVES OF INNOCENT BLACK CIVILIANS ARE TARGETED BY THE RACIALLY BIASED POLICE FORCE WHO USE UNJUSTIFIED LETHAL FORCE. WITH THE RISE OF SOCIAL MEDIA, THE VIDEO RECORDING OF THIS DAILY INJUSTICE HAS BE HIGHLY DOCUMENTED ON SOCIAL MEDIA, HOWEVER, EVEN WITH THE INCREASED VISIBILITY, THE STATISTICS OF POLICE BRUTALITY HAVE NOT CHANGED. WE ARE ATTEMPTING TO USE THIS AWARENESS TO CREATE A PLATFORM FOR PEOPLE TO LEARN ABOUT MYOPIC AMOUNT OF POLICE BRUTALITY, UNDERSTAND THE POTENTIAL POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND VIDEO, AND DEMAND CHANGE FROM OUR POLICE FORCE WHO ARE EXPECTED TO UPHOLD OUR HUMAN RIGHTS AND PROTECT EVERYONE.

OUR PROJECT

Beginning  with documentation of the Rodney King beating, our project highlights police brutality through the lens of social media. There are many videos of police brutality posted on social media and shared throughout the multiple platforms, however they do not always lead to direct change. We want these videos to have impact on the legal system and the prosecution of police officers. Although our project aims to create awareness and visibility to the injustices many people of color face with police brutality, we are hoping that the sheer amount of cases and violence represented through our virtual timeline will be a force to drive social change. Although visibility and awareness of police brutality is beneficial for learning, visibility doesn’t always drive change. Our goal is to get young people and social media users to create a dialogue and conversation about this issue and from there, take action.

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Demands & Goals

  1. Ask yourself “What images or videos make me upset?” Share them and explain why.
  2. Video should not be only a means of defensive action or evidence. It can be proactive and used for direct action.
  3. On social media, images, words, and ideas about police brutality can become lost in the chaos, however they are all related to each other.
  4. Social media is designed within the context of social relations, therefore relations of power and dominance inform all decisions concerning designs and algorithms.
  5. Conversations regarding technology and social media literacy need to begin at a young age in order improve interactions online and lead to social and political change.

OUR AUDIENCE

Although we hope to cross an audience of multiple generations and diverse demographics, our main audience is the younger tech savvy generation who are the majority of social media users. In order to enact change, we need to address younger generations who can be educated on social media and technology literacy early on. Our goal is to create visibility and awareness online in order to reach a larger young audience in hopes that it will create a conversation and organization for social change. With this goal in mind, we want to present our project in a clear, original way that does not become lost on social media.  

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Project Platform & Content

Our project is a visibility campaign, combining all these videos and events into a virtual timeline that will ultimately result in direct action. Similarly to the Facebook Timeline format, you will be able to scroll and click on specific cases every year with information and image/video content. In addition, we will be highlighting the thousands of cases that have gone unnoticed and undocumented every year by adding in numbers and statistics of those who were not mentioned in the mainstream media. Our virtual timeline can be shared and dispersed on social media in order to spread awareness.

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