Social media: Kids leverage online networks for civic engagement
Social media is a tool that enables kids to engage in issues they care about and bring about real change. Just ask Seventeen magazine and Universal Studios.
Julia Bluhm of Waterville, Maine, holds petitions to Seventeen magazine as she leads a protest outside Hearst Corp. headquarters in New York on May 2. Bluhm used Change.org to gather signatures and petition the magazine to be more transparent about how they retouch photos of models.
Leanne Italie/AP
I hope parents and educators have seen these two clear signs of how kids are using social media to 鈥渂e the change.鈥�
There鈥檚 14-year-old Julia Bluhm from Maine who noticed that friends in ballet class were always criticizing their bodies and spearheaded a protest in front of Seventeen magazine鈥檚 New York headquarters. She got 80,000-plus people around the world to sign her online petition at Change.org to get magazines to stop digitally altering models so that they appeared in photos 鈥渋mpossibly thin with perfect skin,鈥� an聽.
鈥淕irls want to be accepted, appreciated, and liked. And when they don鈥檛 fit the criteria, some girls try to 鈥榝ix鈥� themselves. This can lead to eating disorders, dieting, depression, and low self esteem,鈥� Julia wrote at聽Change.org.
Although the magazine said it had 鈥渘ever been guilty of the extreme airbrushing that takes place in some other fashion magazines and advertising spreads,鈥� it will publish a 鈥淏ody Peace Treaty鈥� in the August issue pledging, among other things to 鈥溾�榓lways feature real girls and models who are healthy鈥� and 鈥榖e totally up-front鈥� by posting pics from their photo shoots on their Tumblr,鈥� MSNBC added.
And there were Ted Wells鈥檚 fourth graders in Brookline, Mass., who launched a campaign against Universal Studios.
They found a glaring omission on the website about the studio鈥檚 film "The Lorax:" none of the environmental messaging that was in Dr. Seuss鈥檚 book of that name 鈥� 鈥淯nless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing鈥檚 going to get better. It鈥檚 not.鈥�
So they too started a petition at Change.org and got more than 57,000 signatures,聽. 鈥淎n executive at Universal Studios told Mr. Wells that development was already in the works, and that his class accelerated their plans,鈥� .
It鈥檚 exciting to see adults supporting and responding to what children seem to understand 鈥� how new media allow anybody to participate and make a difference now on a global stage. This is real-world civic engagement enabled by social media.
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