For example, the ‘Feminist’ account is run by two businessmen,” she said. “I am pretty skeptical when I see these posts because I know a lot of big activist accounts are shady. ![]() “I think it’s dangerous to fall into the trap of getting your news from Instagram where the infographics are typically made by unqualified or heavily biased people and are often left un-sourced.” “I have a couple of news apps on my phone that I get headlines from, and I read newspaper articles online,” he said. Senior Ian Juras thinks that because of this danger, receiving news or information through Instagram-particularly through these graphics-is a bad idea. Posts with false information, extreme bias, or incomplete data visualization also gain a false air legitimacy if an Instagram user sees that they have been widely shared. These social justice slideshows are not only easy to make, but they also typically forgo sourcing, and it can be difficult to find out the exact person or organization behind their creation. Vox writer Terry Nguyen also warns that the uniformity of style “could give posts that have been poorly written and shoddily researched an air of false legitimacy.” That means that an infographic is far easier to digest than paragraphs of text, or non-visual data. The visually appealing graphic might seem discordant with the heavy topics posts explore, but on a cognitive level, this kind of image makes it easier to influence an audience into agreement.Īccording to a study conducted by Project Hope, a global health nonprofit, almost 50% of the brain is devoted to visual processing, and that the human brain is capable of understanding a visual scene or image in less than one-tenth of a second. According to Vox writer Terry Nguyen, the posts have soothing color palettes or simple images with large minimalistic text in the center-think Glossier beauty or Casper mattresses. There is also a style uniformity among these posts that coincides with the online advertising strategies of many brands. A Medium article written in 2020 on the science behind Instagram infographics details how they “consist of numbered lists, use questions as headings, lean heavily on definitions, employ the imperative voice frequently, and encourage you to consume more of their content with arrows guiding you through each post.” ![]() ![]() To do this, posts utilize techniques traditionally used in search engine optimization and clickbait. ![]() The goal of social justice infographics is to disseminate information to as many people as possible, and therefore to be shared as widely as possible over the internet. Hundreds of thousands of these infographics circulate at a time, on topics as broad as a century-long movement, to ones as narrow as the definition of a word, and many students at ARHS re-post these infographics on their Instagram stories.Īre these posts effective activism? Or do they induce apathy and oversimplify issues? If not, check out the site’s page, which will instantly pull up a slew of educational infographics on everything from Black Lives Matter, A U.S History of Imperialism, Attacks on Abortion Access in the U.S, What you can do to Support Palestinians, Qualified Immunity, Anti-Asian Hate, Gaslighting, and much more. Anybody using Instagram this past summer during uprisings for racial justice in the wake of George Floyd’s death probably knows what a social justice infographic looks like.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |