I recently came across an article, Kony 2012 Debate, in the Huffington Post.This article is a debate with two writers, Jenna Arnold and Mikaela Luttrell-Rowland, about whether the Kony 2012 campaign creates effective social change or not. Jenna Arnold, who owns a social media company agrees that this campaign is creating an effective social change. She explains that there have been numerous documentaries on the subject of violence and criminal activity in Africa,but no one really watches them. This video, created by Jason Russell does exactly the opposite. This short, simple documentary has become viral in a matter of months and is helping create awareness of what is going on in Uganda. The other writer,Luttrel-Rowlandfrom Clark University’s Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, disagrees and thinks that this campaign is not effective. She thinks the Kony film is too simplistic and not analytical enough. She considers this video to be like a “poster”, only to raise money for their nonprofit, Invisible Children.

Personally, I think the video is pretty effective even though it may not be perfect and contain some misinformation. But, overall they get their point across to their audience, the general public. People don’t want to watch long research, analytical documentaries. I think it’s best to keep it simple and to the point so that people of every age and background can understand the atrocities that are being committed in Uganda and other parts of Africa. Also, I feel that as Americans, we are living in a bubble and we are not exposed to what is going on in the larger world. It’s good for everyone to know about these things, to know that we don’t live in a perfect world and that most people can’t even come close to the “American dream.” We often take what we have for granted and don’t realize that the majority of people in the world have a lot less than we do.