It didn’t take very long for the hashtag #MH370 to start trending.
And why wouldn’t it?
The tragic and inexplicable disappearance of over 200 innocent people is enough to demand the public outpouring of fear, distress and utter confusion that erupted across the world. Add the suggestion of evil and foul play? Incoming deep, worldwide curiosity.
Social media became obsessed and MH370 became the topic of the month. Maybe even the year.
So why did it take over two weeks for #bringbackourgirls to demand that same reaction?
Michelle Obama supporting #bringbackourgirls.
Image: Nina Matthews via Creative Commons
The facts are scarily similar. Over 200 young and innocent Nigerian girls disappear, without question at the hands of insurmountable evil. And for the best part of a week, the case was largely ignored.
Why?
Because how could we possibly relate?
It’s no secret that mass kidnappings are far removed from the kind of day to day happenings in the society we live in. Our fears and our worries are a little more ‘first world’ than that.
And so, in that tragic week, social media exposed one of society’s greatest flaws: Our ability to install an armoured, steel plated wall between us and the crime. Our inability to feel empathy for situations we decide we won’t magine.
Sure, news agencies didn’t do the kidnappings justice either. And we could absolutely hide behind that. We’re citizens in a suffocating vortex of mass consumption, and news arguably caters for stories we want, rather than need.
It’s also perfectly feasible to believe social media is only selective because media moguls are.
But the simple and blunt bottom line is that we aren’t media moguls. We don’t share those same motivations.
We are objective citizens. And social networks exist as tools to engage us. To empower us. To re-democratise our land.
Social media may not have directly saved those innocent Nigerian girls from being victims of extreme political violence. From becoming the smallest of cogs in one great terrorist machine.
But it may have been enough to expose very early on the failings of mass media, and the notion that they’re not the only ones who can call society to arms. To get government attention.
Bring Back Our Girls Campaign Organizer Hadiza Bala Usman spoke to the BBC:
“It is not clear why the rescue operation is not making headway”.
But it is clear. We had the power, much earlier, to make this a global issue.
And although #bringbackourgirls came. And saw. And spread.
Maybe it came too late.
Over a month since their abduction, the clock is ticking – every hour puts them more at risk #BringBackOurGirls pic.twitter.com/4gRgpjL1wn — UNICEF (@UNICEF) May 15, 2014
zaramcdonald 
It is certainly true that this story did not receive the social media attention that it deserved but I’m not entirely sure that was down to the media outlets themselves or an inability for the Western World to empathise. BBC radio and TV, the Guardian, and especially the always excellent World Service have been covering this story and its predecessors for months. It is perhaps the community at large’s failure to engage with a broader range of journalism that let down these girls, rather than the limitations of mass media. Of course we should demand that mass media cover such issues but perhaps the best way to do this is to reject the type of journalism they produce. Maybe then they will start to espouse a more worldly perspective on such matters and tales of such human tragedy will be raised more promptly in the future.
It is certainly true that this issue did not receive the social media attention it deserved but I am not convinced that was down to the media outlets themselves, or the western world’s inability to empathise. BBC radio and television, The Guardian and the always excellent World Service have been covering this story and its predecessors for months. It is more society’s failure to seek out a broader range of journalism that has let these girls down. Of course we can (and should) demand that mass media outlets report on such topics with greater speed, but perhaps the best way to do this is to reject the type of journalism they produce and look to more informed, more worldly, and more content oriented services when consuming news. Maybe then mass media will be forced to produce news with to a better standard and with a greater perspective, preventing such atrocities to go largely unheard and unnoticed in the future.
It wasn’t so much a lack of empathy for the Nigerian schoolgirls that failed to garner the same reaction as MH370. The inundation of news coverage and social media outpouring in Australia was because MH370 hit a little closer to home. There were six Australians on that flight. More importantly, the nations in the Asia-Pacific region are our neighbours and are within Australia’s realm of assistance, unlike in Nigeria where we don’t have nearly as much influence. I think the big problem was that Australian news outlets failed to see the abduction as a big issue because they underestimated their audiences. In this instance, I think social media played a great part in bringing people’s attention to #bringbackourgirls, which in turn prompted the mass media to re-evaluate its audience’s interest so that maybe next time it won’t be too late.
Sorry about the duplicate post! Don’t know what happened there haha