Guilty until proven innocent, and maybe not even then: Craig Thomson and public perception (Annotated Bibliography)

Mass media is undoubtedly influential in the public’s perception of individuals, in particular of politicians. Media coverage of potential candidates affect voters’ evaluations and public support (Druckman & Parkin, 2005). This Annotated Bibliography will explore current news stories concerning the claims against Federal Member of Parliament Craig Thomson, referring to articles by James Druckman and Michael Parkin, Herald Sun, ABC: The Drum and Dylan Malloch. It aims to illustrate contrasting and collaborative views concerning the supposed misuse by Thomson of a union-issued corporate MasterCard.

Druckman, J. N., & Parkin, M. (2005). The Impact of Media Bias: How Editorial Slant Affects Voters. Journal of Politics, 67, 1030-1049.

The authors, James Druckman and Michael Parkin, are equally credible academics. Druckman is a Political Science Professor at Northwestern University and has been recognized with 12 best paper awards. Parkin is the Assistant Professor of Politics at Oberlin College and his research has appeared in a number of journals including the American Political Science Review and The Journal of Politics. The article focuses on the effect media has on public perception of politicians. Druckman and Parkin (2005) explained that the public often base their opinions of politicians on the amount of news coverage media outlet’s give them and the tone of that coverage. The article defines this quantity and tone of a media outlet’s coverage as “editorial slant” and suggests it is based on the outlet’s editorial position (Druckman & Parkin, 2005). In relation to the claims against Craig Thomson, Druckman and Parkin’s article (2005) give a theory as to why, despite no legal charges being laid, the Australian public has already passed a guilty verdict. The media circus surrounding Thomson has been daily and undoubtedly negative, as illustrated in the articles by Herald Sun and Dylan Malloch below.

Hudson, P. (2012, May). Tearful Craog Thomson tries to create doubt. Herald Sun. Retrieved from http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/tearf/story-fnddzlu4-1226362409374/

The author, Phillip Hudson, is a national political editor for the Herald Sun newspaper and has gained his reputation through years of opinion writing. The Herald Sun is a tabloid paper based in Melbourne, Australia and is a subsidiary of News Limited. News Limited, controlled by Rupert Murdoch, is a publically traded company and is dependent on profit as a result. Herald Sun is profit-driven and therefore is more likely to print stories to sell rather than unbiasedly inform. Phillip Hudson insinuated that Craig Thomson’s parliament speech was insubstantial, and described evidence against him as “damning”. Hudson also provided quote rebuttal for Thomson’s claim that union official Marco Bolano set Thomson up. The article title itself “Tearful Craig Thomson tries to create doubt” is a dig at Thomson’s credibility. The article’s webpage even had a public poll asking if they think the MP was set up and did nothing wrong. Ninety percent of voters said No. Phillip Hudson has created an article to coincide with the public’s demands. It will sell and Druckman and Parkin (2005) suggest it will further ingrain the “guilty” verdict against Craig Thomson.

Cassidy, B. (2012, May). The alarm bells ring, but precious few heed them. ABC News: The Drum. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-25/cassidy-alarm-bells-are-ringing/4031494/

Author Barrie Cassidy is one of Australia’s most experienced political journalists and is the presenter of ABC TV’s programs Insiders and Offsiders. His knowledge and experience has gained him credibility in Australian politics and as an influential media veteran. Cassidy’s take on the mass media coverage surrounding Craig Thomson was somewhat different to Hudson’s in that he focused more on the potential harm the negative media has on Thomson as a person more than a politician (Cassidy, 2012). Cassidy (2012) started his campaign to great effect with talking about the media’s responsibility for Victorian Labor MP Greg Wilton who commited suicide, and daughter of former NSW Labor leader Paula Wriedt and her attempter suicide. Cassidy (2012) compared this to the Craig Thomson media circuit and calls for a ceasefire with “judging guilt or innocence of potential criminal charges is not on, not for the media or the politicians”.

Malloch, D. (2012, May). Craig Thomson: please go home. [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.dylanmalloch.com/2012/05/craig-thomson-please-go-home.html

Dylan Malloch’s blog, dylanmalloch.com, has some notoriety as Malloch is a known writer for a number of publications including The Punch, ABC Online and The Spectator. Malloch’s opinion on the claims against Craig Thomson are on par with the findings by Druckman and Parkin (2005) in that public perception is reliant on information and tone of events given by the media. Malloch explains that whether or not the courts find Thomson guilty doesn’t matter to the public because they have already made up their minds about him (Malloch, 2012). Malloch coverage of the story is similar to Phillip Hudson’s article (2012) as Malloch, too, sees Thomson as a liar who should resign from office. However, Malloch also considers the mental health of Craig Thomson like Cassidy (2012) did, but puts the responsibility on PM Julia Gillard’s shoulders, claiming that she should prioritise the wellbeing of her MPs over the majority in parliament (Malloch, 2012). The blog post adheres to public opinion that Craig Thomson is guilty of misusing union money. 

Behind the Mask and Inside the Criminal Mind (Factual Storytelling)

I’m a cheerleader, so I must be a slut. I’m an emo, so I must cut my wrists. I’m rich, so I must be conceited. I’m Asian, so I must be smart. Stereotypes are everywhere. It is so easy to assume things about people even knowing so little about them. Someone who is no stranger to stereotypes is Chris, a current resident at Mid North Correctional Centre. He knows the label ‘criminal’ intimately.

“If I could take it all back, I would. But that’s not the world we live in, is it? I made my choices and now I have to live with the consequences. I live with them every single day”

Chris was born to be a star. As a young teenager he was as handsome as he was talented and could charm even the Queen out of her panties. He performed in various school musicals, captained the basketball team, and kept his parents happy with top grades. He was never low on friends, but always found time for his family, especially his little brother and sister. At sixteen, Chris even had his own fan club! It was also at the delicate age of sixteen that things started to go wrong.

Chris’s sister was only eight years old at the time but recalls the look of disappointment on her mums face when her and her brothers walked in from school one day. “She sat at the kitchen table asking how our day was, but you could tell something was off. I racked my brain trying to think if I’d broken something or forgotten to do something. It didn’t take long to realise her attention wasn’t on me but on Chris.” Turns out Chris had stolen over seven hundred dollars cash from his mother’s bank account. And she had found out.

Majorly busted, the iron bars came crashing down around Chris. He was essentially grounded. His parents had lost all trust in him and his brother and sister wouldn’t look at him.

When teenagers find themselves under lock and key with no foreseeable escape, they will either accept their fate meekly or they will rebel fiercely. Chris was in the later category.

“I started sneaking out and hanging with friends that probably weren’t the best sort. … they got me into drinking and weed.”

This carried on for a year or so. The family knew he wasn’t himself but didn’t know the specifics. Not until a Sunday afternoon when Chris’s little sister came home from a sleepover and found the house empty. Empty except for a high and drunk brother lying on the living room couch. He lay starring up at the ceiling with an open bottle. It took a while for him to notice her starring at him. He tried talking to her but she couldn’t understand his slurred words. He tried walking to her and found himself stumbling, spilling his drink all over the white carpet. The girl got scared and ran away to lock herself in her room. He didn’t follow her. Not too long after, their parents came home. By that time Chris was in his room, but the girl couldn’t still told of everything that happened. The confrontation was an explosion. Chris was caught drunk and his parents found worse evidence in his room. Weed wasn’t the only drug he was doing. The confrontation was explosive.

“I can’t remember too much of it. Like I know there was a lot of fighting and I think I might’ve put a hole in the wall, but there’s only one thing I remember perfectively.”

He threatened his mum with a machete knife. She tried to stop him from leaving the house so he pulled a knife on her. No bodily harm was done but the knife was enough for her to step out of the way.

A few weeks later they saw Chris again; this time on the front page of the state newspaper. The heading read, “Where Are The Parents?” and a large photo of Chris and two others doing drugs on the street was directly under it. His face was blurred but his tattoos gave him away. People assumed that because he was on the street, he didn’t have another place to go to. That he had a hard even abusive upbringing.

Since then Chris has done it all. He continued with heavy drug abuse and drinking. His named featured in newspapers frequently and he was in and out of prison for years with charges like theft, assault, drug possession, and other petty crime. His parents bailed him out every time.

“I put them through hell. I would take everything they’d give me while I was in, and last a few weeks back home before I was off doing my own thing.”

He has been serving his current sentence since 2009 for armed robbery and assault against a police officer and isn’t expected to go for parole until 2013 at the earliest.

I asked Chris what he plans to do after he gets released. Will he go back to crime?

“I can’t think too much about the future, you’ve got to take every day as it comes here or you’ll go insane. But I never want to be back in here. I’ve been clean for a long time and I think I’ll be okay. …[I’m] getting too old for this and I want my family back.”

His brother and sister have started building back their relationship with Chris and visit him often with their parents. He calls with news of new songs he learnt on the guitar and receives letters of encouragement weekly.

Chris is not your stereotypical criminal. He is still a very smart, very talented, and very charismatic person. He also has a strong support system on the outside. He has huge potential to change the world for the better. Whether or not he chooses to is the question. Only time will tell.

Week 7: Public Media

"The difference between commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting is the difference between consumers and citizens" – Nigel Milan    

After my rant about commercial media, it's nice to sit down and write about something I like and support: public media. Unlike commercial media, public media's main mission is to serve or engage the community. Public media may be used to generate a profit so long as it's ultimate purpose is to serve the public and not to turn a profit. 

Also, an important thing to remember is that public media is in support of public and democratic processes. So even though, in my opinion, it has great news and I'm a supporter of democracy, outside news sources should still be investigated to compare, just incase there is too much governmental influence.

In Australia the major players (but not all) in public media are ABC and SBS. Their four main functions are:

1. Nation building
2. National heritage
3. National identity
4. National conversations

Many people hesitate to engage in public media because they think it's too serious or 'boring'. With such a movement towards news as entertainment (such as The Project), many people see ABC news or SBS news as a yawn in comparison.

I personally don't subscribe to this. It feels good to be able to watch the news and not pick up on story biases and have to listen to personal opinions of the news anchor. That's just me, but I would encourage anyone interested in current affairs to slip some ABC news into their daily news diet. 

Week 6: Commercial Media

"Commercial = corrupt; lack of quality; profit over-rides social responsibility." - John McManus

What is commercial media?
     - Profit-driven media production
     - Not government funded (or license funded)
     - It survives or fails on business success
     - Its business is generating 'audiences'
     - Creates audiences to generate profit though selling advertising to them

The major players in commercial media, as pointed out by Dr Redman, are News Limited, Fairfax Media, WIN Corporation, Seven West Media, Ten, APN News & Media, and Nine entertainment co.

Basically, commercial media is the epitome of everything I despise in journalism. Everything is profit orientated and lacks real substance and style.

"In this regard, one thing stands out above all others - the view that the very nature of the commercial equates to a corruption of the social. In other words, as media becomes more commercial, they do so at the expense of their social function. This is seen as a zero-sum game. Profits come before quality." - Prof. Michael Bromley

I couldn't agree more with this statement. I view Australia as a particularly sheltered country when it comes to world news. All you have to do is look at the Courier Mail. The first page will dedicated to the One Direction fan fair, and you have to look thirty pages in to discover anything about the impending war in Syria (which of course only gets a single paragraph in the whole section). But a war far away that has little to do with Australia won't sell papers, so they slap a giant picture of five teenage heartthrobs on the front page to make sales, and call that "current affairs". It's infuriating.

"The ‘first duty [of the media] is to shun the temptations of monopoly. Its primary office is the gathering of news. At the peril of its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted. Neither in what it gives, nor in what it does not give, nor in the mode of presentation must the unclouded face of truth suffer wrong. Comment is free, but facts are sacred."                   - C.P. Scott

I truly hope people learn to rely more on good internet news sources than the 7pm project or The Courier Mail. I think it's great to watch and read these things as long as additional news is read and watched to contrast and compare. Dr Redman introduced us to the news site The Global Mail and I've been in love with it ever since. I also like The Age, New York Times, an american YouTube journalists called Phillip Defranco, and the Global News podcast. 

Week 5: Sound & Radio

"Radio is the theatre of the mind."

Steve Austin

This week's lecture was a bit different as it was given to us in an mp3 sound bite (shown above). The lecture comprised of two interviews: one with Richard Fidler, and the other with Steve Austin, both ABC broadcasters. I was already a huge fan of Richard Fidler and Steve Austin had a lot of great info about radio broadcasting too.

For one, radio is massively different to TV... and not just in the obvious way. Radio is more intimate than TV in that people are often multitasking when they're listening, so the radio is more like a little voice in your head than a distant entertaining box. This means the listeners want to feel included in the conversation and being a good broadcaster means that you facilitate this.

Richard Fidler

Steve also spoke about the importance of enunciation and a broad vocabulary. A broadcaster is trying to communicate to the masses so it's important to be able to 'break down the walls' and be understood by the listeners.

Both Richard and Steve talked in depth about giving an interviewee space to talk and being a good listener. I've been interested in radio broadcasting for a long time and I always thought that above everything, silences are to be avoided. But Richard squashed that by saying that silence is powerful. Not the awkward gaps when nothing's going on but during an interview and the person in collecting themselves or something like that, they can really add human experience and emotion to the interview.

I also learnt that the best way to get answers from the person being interviewed is to give them respect. Respect them by being empathetic in the tone of your voice when it's appropriate, give them space to answer and listen more than talk. People don't respond well to probing so it's important not interrogate them or they'll just get defensive.

Another thing to remember when doing radio interviews is watching out for body language. You can learn a lot about how someone acts and take cues for questions from that.

I really enjoyed this lecture and am planning to look deeper into the realm of radio very soon.

Week 4: Picture Stories

"If it makes you laugh, if it makes you cry, if it rips out your heart, that's a good picture." - Eddie Adams

As a dabbler in photography myself, this week's lecture was especially interesting to me.

What makes a good photo?

1. Framing
2. Focus
3. Angle & Point of view
4. Exposure/light
5. Timing (shutter speed)
6. Capturing "the moment"

All the pictures shown in the lecture were amazing and the photoshopped models were a hoot, and I found a few others to add the collection.

And for all those who crave a celebrity body, don't look at jenny craig, tony ferguson, or weight watchers. All you need in photoshop CS5. Take a look...

Hope that boosted your self-esteem as much as it did mine!

Week 3: What is TEXT?

This week we were lucky enough to have established journalist Skye Doherty lecture us on text and how to best use it in the news.

A lot of what she told us I already knew but it's always good to have things reiterated and gone over with a new eye. But one thing I found especially helpful was the inverted pyramid of journalism.

When you think about, it really makes sense. When you pick up a paper, you don't want to read three paragraphs to get the story. You want the short story first and if it's interesting, continue to get the whole back story and details.

I also learnt that when you look at a newspaper page, the eye will naturally start in the top left hand corner  and finish at the bottom right. It has also been proven that it is the headline on the page, not the image, that draw the eye initially. So having a good capturing headline is crucial.

Sky went on to tell us about the difference in paper text to online text. The difference online is hypertext. Links links links everywhere.

One word can lead to a whole new article, which has links to twenty other pages, which link to hundreds of other pages. Everything is interconnected so the user has the power to control what they want to read about. It's interactive and user generated.

You can also find a lot of hypertext on blogs and such that then lead to news articles.


Overall, a very informative lecture! Thank you, Skye Doherty.

Week 2: NEW News

This weeks lecture focuses on web iterations: old media, Web 1.0 - "Information web", Web 2.0 - "New media", and Web 3.0 - "Semantic web". A lot has changed for the news realm since the internet was made.

Web 1.0: Information Web

This refers to online content full of advertisements (banners, surrounding ads, etc.) and focuses mainly on companies. It's seen as very brochure like with the web being used as just another platform to chuck up the same as what was already in print or on radio.

Web 2.0: New Media / The Social Web

What once was purely newspapers, magazines, radio, and television sending news to the masses changed into an interactive, user generated type of experience that focused more on social media and social groups.

There's so many social media platforms these days and people are on them constantly. There's YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, Pinterest, and the list goes on. The difference here is that the user is also the producer of the content, adding a whole new dimension.

Web 3.0: Semantic Web

The semantic web revolves around the idea of being mobile on smart phones and tablets and focuses on individuals more than companies or social groups. It looks at meta-tagging as multi-layered questions and can make a profile on you from your searches to target you specifically for advertising. In relation to the news, there is a shift towards hyperlocalisation, as in all your news will be very specific to your interests and your area. This specific content delivery means you get all the news you want, true, but what about all the news you miss out on? General knowledge suffers and it's like you're stuck in your own little bubble unless you purposely venture out of it.

New news is all about tablets, smart phones, and getting what you want when you want it. It's definitely a lesson to remember for an upcoming journalists.

Week 1: YOU are the journalist

JOUR1111 started off with a bang! The very first lecture was a broad introduction of the course and left me happy with the choice I'd made to join the journalism field. Dr Bruce Redman started with the course philosophy "YOU are the journalist", but what does this mean? And what is journalism exactly? Here are a few schools of thought...

All of these statements are valid, but I most of all relate to Phillip Graham's take,

"Journalism is the first rough draft of history."

This is why I want to be a journalist, to be a part of a bigger picture and shed light on things that need to be addressed. We can learn so much from our history already and we should make the same available to future generations. 

I also love Dr Redman's philosophy that YOU are the journalist. Journalism is so subjective and easily biased and has such a huge potential for damage if reported wrong. Because of this people have lost a lot of faith in journalists and journalism all together, claiming it all to be "organised gossip" or skewed to profit a certain party. In some ways I agree, like when it comes to publications like the Courier Mail or TMZ, but there is a lot of amazing journalism happening out in the world and to generalise isn't fair to those who care about their story.

All in all, this lecture made me super excited for the semester ahead. Dr Redman is a great lecturer and I look forward to next week!

Media Use Diary and Analysis

The consumption and production of my media usage was logged over ten consecutive days and the data above shows the raw results. My first impression looking at the figures was that I used a hell of a lot more media than I assumed. Altogether I logged a total of 65.8 hours of media use in those ten days, an average of 6.5 hours a day (wowzer!). The majority of that comes from listening to music with a whopping 11.5 hours, 7.9 hours of reading and watching online news, and spending 6.4 hours blogging on tumblr. That's a lot of time in front of a computer screen with headphones in. On the other side of the scale, I haven't yet become a twitter addict like so many others with just an hour spent. I also only used about 40 minutes on Instagram. Maybe I'm not a total media junkie just yet.

Let's have a closer look at my news media intake, specifically in comparison to my peers of JOUR1111. Note that 88.5% of these students are aged within two years of my 19 years, and 75.7% are female like me, so whether the survey's results can be projected to everyone's media usage or just young female adults is debatable. I, for one, am pretty sure my granny isn't listing to 11 hours of music in a week.

The majority of my personal news awareness comes from either the television or online news sources like The Guardian website, ABC website, Facebook, and youtube journalists. This is reflected in the peer survey which shows almost half of students getting their news from TV and/or online newspapers. 

I believe my personal news consumption and how I get it is a pretty accurate model of how larger society will soon consume their news, if it's no already there. Two decades ago the only source of news was on paper and TV, but now we have so many other platforms to explore. Have a look at these graphs of how I and my JOUR1111 cohort get our news in relation to "old media" - traditional media that's given to the masses, such as TV, magazine, and radio - and "new media", media that focuses on social groups like Facebook, twitter, online papers, etc. 

The graphs show very similar stories. Old media consumption still outweighs new media, but only by a fraction. Many people think that the internet will overthrow old media like newspapers altogether, but I disagree. We live in a world now where people want everything mobile and on demand. The survey showed 80% of students had smart phones and 15% owned tablets, all of which news can be accessed by. Newspapers are already pushing everything they publish onto twitter and Facebook. And it's just a matter of time before TV news shows start streaming online or through YouTube. So of course online newspapers and Facebook news applications are becoming more popular. But this won't destroy Fox News or ABC. At least 70% of those surveyed are still getting their news from TV. It's just there are now new platforms for the same content. The only thing left to devise is how to increase profits from online content, but we'll leave that to Uncle Rupert and his paywalls. 

POVERTY AID MERELY AIDING CORRUPTION & HOPELESSNESS

Just last week I was surfing through YouTube when I came across a clip of a man named Andrew Mwenda. Mwenda is a Ugandan journalist, founder of Uganda's premier news magazine The Independent, and one of Foreign Policy magazine's Top 100 Global Thinkers. But he is most famous for his active critic of Western aid to Africa. In the YouTube clip Mwenda speaks at the 2007 TED Conference about the negative effects of foreign aid in Africa.


Mwenda argues that aid makes objects of the poor -- they become passive recipients of charity rather than active participants in their own economic betterment.

"...Africa is likely to get better with less meddling in its affairs by the West, not more -- whether that meddling is through aid, peacekeeping, or well-written speeches. Africa needs space to make mistakes and learn from them. The solutions for Africa have to be shaped and articulated by Africans, not outsiders." - Andrew Mwenda, Foreign Policy 2009

Mwenda confronts the common western belief that the problems in Africa are a direct result of bad rulership. Instead he says "it is not the individual behaviour of Africa's rulers that demands our closest attention... It is the structure of incentives those leaders confront -- incentives that help determine the choices they make.", implying that the aid western countries give the governments and leaders force them to make decisions they may not have made without. I can't help but agree with Mwenda.


I have a lot of family living in the third world country of Samoa. My father was born and raised in the tropics of Savaii and though he moved to Australia, his brothers and sisters still remain on the Island. I've visited Samoa many times and have seen first hand the effect financial handouts can have on a country.


As Mwenda mentioned, government corruption is a massive factor when large amounts of western aid is administered and I've seen it. The current Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi has been in office since 1998 and is well known in the community for giving leadership roles to family members and friends just for being so. Also, the transparency and accountability of financial aid is something left to be desired. The exact percentages of how the aid has been split is yet to be given.


But what's even more interesting is the effect financial aid has on people's attitudes towards the idea of earning money. I was taught the value of money as a kid. Every cent I got was earned from doing something like washing the dishes or vacuuming the house, and I'm grateful for the lessons because I now know how to be financially responsible. But what if you weren't given that chance as a kid? What if the only source of income you've ever known was handouts from the government or family overseas?


The people in Samoa suffer from a lack of opportunities. There are hardly any jobs so they aren't earning an income. Luckily, most family have land they can cultivate and use to feed themselves but there is still a need of money for school, clothes, and other essentials. That's where they rely on handouts from family working overseas and government aid. They aren't learning new skills or gaining self fulfilment from earning their own money or learning how to be financially responsible. The people have entrepreneurial ambitions and career aspirations but they lack the opportunity to express them. The economy suffers and every generation is the same. If western countries were to continue helping there poorer ones, they need to focus on creating these kind of opportunities.


The governments should invest in local businesses. Encourage small business owners to expand and employ more people, and large working companies should be incorporated too. People are getting education but have no where to use it. Bring in law firms, science and agriculture centres, and company engineering. But more than that, the Samoan government should take the lead in everything. Samoa needs to come into it's own and that can only happen if western countries stop babying it.


It will take many years, generations even, to change third world countries from being dependent on handouts to being active participants in their own economic betterment. They need to be supported but not so much that corruption and passive recipients of charity are encouraged.

KONY 2012: ADVOCATES VS CRITICS

The Kony 2012 documentary and movement has absolutely swept the western world. The Kony 2012 film was posted by an activist organisation called the Invisible Children on March 5th and was viewed by over 25 Million people across the globe in under 48 hours. The tag #stopkony is trending world wide on twitter and celebrities Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Oprah, Ryan Seacrest, and many more have all declared their support to the cause.

If you haven't heard of Joseph Kony, don't worry, neither had most people until the YouTube clip appeared on their Facebook or twitter this week. To summarise, the documentary is a call to the public to make a warlord -Joseph Kony- famous. Joseph Kony is the leader of a guerrilla group in Central Africa named the Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA. The LRA are a militant group known for brutal crimes against civilians including murder, rape, mutilations, and torture. Kony and the LRA are accused of abducting over 30,000 children from northern Uganda. The Invisible Children wrote the following:

Joseph Kony’s tactics were—and remain—brutal. He often forced children to kill their parents or siblings with machetes or blunt tools. He abducted girls to be sex slaves for his officers. He brainwashed and indoctrinated the children with his lies and manipulated them with his claim of spiritual powers. (source)

Most of the LRA's leaders have never been held accountable for their crimes, though some efforts are going into bringing them to justice. Kony and two of his key commanders are currently wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Kony himself
has 33 charges, 12 counts of crimes against humanity and 21 counts of war crimes.

Clearly Kony and the LRA need to be apprehended, but what is interesting is why, when the LRA have been committing these atrocities for 26 years, does the Kony campaign now have so much traction and public support? Obviously the documentary ignited a lot of passion for the cause. With it's powerful images, emotive music, and interviews of blonde toddlers, how could it not? But the bulk of the credit has to go to social media. The twitter trends are covered with Kony 2012, Facebook friends have been non-stop sharing the film and creating events to "cover the night", and YouTube first hosted the documentary with 300,000 comments on the clip to date. It created such a fan fair on the interwebs that it even hit TV news. Co-founder of Invisible Children Inc. and director of the Kony 2012 film Jason Russell has been doing interview after interview on TV to not only raise more awareness but to defend his organisation.

When it comes to charity, especially high profile charities like the Invisible Children Inc., there are always going to be critics and skeptics. These are the top 5 criticisms:

1. The Kony 2012 campaign is a simplistic approach to solving a complex issue.
   Scholars and policy makers have laboured over trying to solve the problems in Africa for decades. Sharing a video and raising money for more awareness is doing nothing to actually reduce the conflict.
2. The Kony 2012 campaign is misleading.
   The documentary failed to show that Kony hadn't been in Uganda for up to 6 years. Also, the LRA has dwindled over the years to just a couple of hundred. Kony is already on his last legs.
3. Invisible Children work closely with the Ugandan Army in planning to bring down Kony.
   The army of Uganda have been implicated in their own human rights violations including rape and the murder of civilians. Working with them only encourages what they do.
4. Charity Navigator, the top charity evaluator in the US, gave Invisible Children just 2 out of 4 stars for accountability and transparency.
5. Invisible Children only used 37% of the money raised to help people on the ground in Uganda. Most of it should have gone to the people in the most need.

Invisible Children address the critique on their website and maintain that what they are doing and working toward is of fundamental value to the world. They released their annual financial report and their breakdown of expenses is particularly interesting. It shows that they spend most of their funds on Central African programs (37%) like the legacy scholarship program and rehabilitation centre. A large bulk of funds also goes towards awareness programs in the western world (26%). Jason Russell addressed this in an interview on the Today show.

"We believe in the power of educating the western world...It's hard for people to understand how you can both educate the western world while you're educating and rehabilitating war-torn children...We split the money into both our advocacy and awareness [programs] and it is also going into our rehabilitation programs." (source)

At the end of the day, whether you believe in the Invisible Children or not as an organisation, it is undeniable that their documentary has brought to light the incredible power of the internet and of social media. People are now aware of the difference they can make just by pressing a 'share' button. One day we will look back on this Kony 2012 campaign and see that this is when the evolution of social networking began and the power of the internet was fully realised.