As you said, my name is Karen McAllister. I'm a graduate student here from the Department of Communication, and I'm also UT Alum. I'll be talking about advocacy through social media. How many of you all use social media with a show of hands? Don't be shy. That's what I'm talking about. Those that use social media, how many values is a hashtag? Raise your hands again, don't be shy. One thing I want you to think about is, every time that you use social media, you're sending out a message. This message you're sending out depending upon what medium you use or social media platform, how ever you prefer to say it, says something. You're either saying something about an event going on, maybe it's the meal that you just ate. I'm talking about you're Instagram people, taking photos of your food. We all do it don't be shy. Maybe you're trying to get a job on LinkedIn, social media has been around, and it's been very important. But if you stop to think about the numbers behind social media, the numbers in the sense of looking at how many people use this, 90 percent of young adults, 18 to 29, use social media. Men and women for the first time in history, have equal usage online. That means there's equal representation for the first time online for men and women, and 50 to 60 percent in three categories of race, African-American and Black, Hispanic and White are online. Unfortunately, this study for Pew Research Center, did not look at any other races outside of these three. What I want you to think about is, these numbers they say something, right? Voices are being put online, things are being said that really matter. What I did is I looked at the top ten trending hashtags from 2014 and 2015, and I examine them and looked at them. Those are hashtags, what do they really matter? Well, this all plays into my passion. I love social media, I study it, I've written multiple papers for grad classes on social media. But also plays into human rights, so one of the passions that was given early on for my parents, who one had an English degree the other one had criminology, criminal justice, to talk about a diverse background. They gave me the understanding that when you are raised and you think about everybody else you interact with daily, you're interacting with other humans. They may have different identities, every single day [inaudible] different, but they are still equal, they all have rights and everybody should. What I did with these top trending Hashtags is looked to see how many of these expressed human rights issues. So 2014, great year to start with. Here are the top ten hashtags from 2014. Everything from AlexFromTarget, to BringBackOurGirls, to BlackLivesMatter and AllLivesMatter. There's a little bit something very up there. Now let's go ahead and remove the ones that maybe just don't really apply to human rights issues. Sorry TanSuit, you're not on the list. That leaves us with seven hashtags that have a discussion about human rights issues. What I'm going to do is I'm going to walk through a couple of these, so that we're all on the same page and totally get these. YesAllWomen. This is from a May 2014 incident, a violent attack in California were unfortunately six were shot and killed, and 13 were wounded. This really brought about a discussion about the injustices, and violence that women face on a daily basis. A perfect example of this is I walked to my car every single day from the parking garage to here back and forth. I have to have my keys out, my pepper spray out, why because I don't feel safe. It's nothing any different anywhere you go, I still have my keys and pepper spray out even to go get mail from a mailbox, because I'm a woman. BringBakOurGirls, in April 2014, 276 girls were kidnapped by the Boko Haram. This really put on the map and international issue, of human trafficking and once again, women's rights. Pictures, much like this one with Michelle Obama, were circulated across online, including how many days these girls were still missing. IceBucketChallenge, I'm sure many of you all have done the IceBucketChallenge, Y'all have that video, or maybe your favorite fail video. It's okay. This happened in summer 2014, it really brought about understanding Lou Gehrig's disease. It really led to a surgeon donation dollar in a disease that was not getting the same press is everything else. For once there was a discussion outside of something on cancer all timers. This disease was able to actually see much new research happened, because of this social media post. IAmMikeBrown. August 2014, Michael Brown was shot and killed. This really broaden the conversation to police misconduct and racism in America that is still going on currently today. BlackLivesMatter, and AllLivesMatter. I'm sure everyone in this room at this point has probably heard of one or both of these hashtags. Black Lives Matter brought about the discussion of understanding really, what does it matter in this world and day. Trayvon's Martin does really spurred a whole conversation of injustices that are still happening today. Even though we've already passed civil rights movement. We've moved pass forward by a couple decades now at this point, and there's still something going on. All lives matter came about after two police officers were shot point-blank and their patrol car. This really decided to have a conversation on the counter side that everybody's life no matter what matters. But when you do that, you're taking away from the whole discussion of Black Lives Matter, really being a conversation of injustices to one particular group of people. 2015, another ten hashtag to look at, that's right. GuacamoleWithpeas. New York Times put out a recipe, became a top one. Let's go and remove the ones that really don't pertain to civil rights issues. That leaves us with six hashtags up here. IStandWithAhmed. This started in September 2015 and Irving Team was perceived to have a bomb, but it was actually a homemade clock in his classroom. This led to a discussion about profiling and discrimination of Islamic individuals, something that is still also going on today. RefugeesWelcome, fall 2015. Syrian refugees, we're trying to find different places across the world to flee to. This hashtag was sent out by citizens of European countries to show support, to bring in these refugees, to support them in their time of need. However, they were countered with racism. LoveWins. On June 26, 2015, marriage equality became a reality in the United States. At this point 6.2 million tweets of praise and support filled Twitter. Facebook filters came a reality. Finally, something that was a dream for many people was real. BlackLiveMatter. This continues from the list of 2014 because this is still ongoing now. Additional cases of police misconduct and racism and inequality were being experienced at this time and had to be discussed. The top one for 2015, is actually a combination of two hashtags, JesuisCharlie and PrayForParis. This is after the Charlie Hebdo attacks on January 7, 2015 and multiple attacks in November 13, 2015 in Paris. This one has a personal spot in my heart because my husband and I were actually overseas during the first attacks in Charlie Hebdo. We actually left Paris just in about 24-48 hours prior to these attacks. We were over there and we experienced the power of social media and how necessary social media was to reach back out to our family members to say we're okay, that in Google video, when your parents want to see you. This also became a discussion about terrorism and international issues that are still going on today. That terrorism was not just a United States issue, but it's a worldwide issue. It opened up many people's eyes to see pass just their country. What do we do with all this information? That's nice Carinae, you showed us a bunch of hashtags and gave us a nice story. But I want you to do is be informed about these hashtags. Do not use these hashtags just for the sake of likes, re-tweets, or any favorites. Use these the create a conversation that is larger than yourself. Your voice in this time is just as important as anyone else's. But what if we're looking at these different hashtags at a larger issue. PrayForParis stands for terrorism, BlackLivesMatter, equality, BringBackOurGirls, human trafficking, RefugeesWelcome immigration and refugees and IStandWithAhmed profiling and discrimination. If we look at these as part of a larger conversation, we begin to see that each one of this hashtags stands for something larger than itself. If you look at those, many of those issues are actually becoming current issues in the presidential race. Many of these issues are what we're about to have to vote on in November when we select a presidential candidate. These issues are larger than ourselves. I understand that it might be a little bit daunting to think about that hashtag being part of a larger conversation, but when you tweet out support for Paris, Brussels, or any other city when they've had an attack, you're showing kindness, you're showing humanity. Don't be afraid to do that. I'm going to leave you with a quote, probably one of my favorite ones to be honest. It means a great deal to those who are oppressed to know that they are not alone. Never let anyone tell you what you're doing is insignificant. When you think that using that hashtag in a particular conversation is insignificant or it's not going to make a difference. It does. Those trending hashtags became top hashtags because each individual added to that conversation. Don't be afraid to add to that conversation. Use your voice to do good. Be an advocate for those who maybe do not have a voice at that time. You never know when you might need them to be your advocate. Thank you.
