Nora's Narrative: A Journey Through Words

276 schoolgirls in Nigeria were kidnapped from their dormitory in 2014 by a terrorist group called Boko Haram (Seay, 2021). The hashtag #BringBackOurGirls went viral in a matter of days after protests in Nigeria began to attract national attention. It was thought that the kidnapped girls were going to be sold, and the Nigerian government was exceedingly slow to act (Parkinson, 2021). 

This tragic incident garnered immense support from communities all across the world, and eventually the U.S. and many other European governments sent resources to assist Nigeria in finding their 276 kidnapped schoolgirls. But, how did it even get to the point where other nations became involved? The protests in Nigeria had significant global reach, and the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag began trending on twitter, facebook, and many other social media platforms overnight. After Americans started realizing what was taking place in Nigeria, their outcries forced the U.S. government to help, and this in turn pushed the Nigerian government to act. Nigeria could no longer hide from this atrocity, and was forced to acknowledge their protesters after all of the global attention this hashtag had received.

Many of the schoolgirls were found due to worldwide assistance, but unfortunately less than half still remain missing to this day. What would have been the case if this awful kidnapping did not receive as much attention as it did? Would any of the girls have been found? 

The power of social media platforms in social activism movements is quite significant. The public truly does have the ability to create change, push for policies, and much more (even from countries away). Social media has allowed us to understand what is happening in different parts of the world simply by scrolling through our instagram feed, and it has become incredibly hard for injustices to be hidden with the ability to easily record and post (Murthy,2018). The #BringOurGirlsBack movement is just one example of how our voices were able to provoke change just by retweeting or sharing a post. So, imagine the potential there is to continue making change and in even bigger ways.

Citations:

Seay, L. (2021, July 23). Analysis | Seven years ago, #bringbackourgirls was a global campaign. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/23/seven-years-ago-bringbackourgirls-was-global-campaign-what-happened/

Murthy, D. (2018). Introduction to social media, activism, and organizations. Social Media + Society, 4(1), 205630511775071. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305117750716

Parkinson, J. (2021, March 2). How a hashtag went viral-and incited a military intervention. Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/bring-back-our-girls-international-rallying-cry/