Question: Color of Change: This is an online advocacy organization that focuses on using technology to empower Black communities and hold corporations and government officials accountable for their actions.

1. Black Lives Matter Global Network: This is the organization that was founded in 2013 by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. It is a decentralized organization that supports and coordinates the efforts of local BLM chapters.
2. BLM chapters: There are dozens of local BLM chapters across the United States and around the world. These chapters are typically run by grassroots activists who organize protests, direct actions, and community organizing efforts in their local areas.
3. Movement for Black Lives: This is a coalition of over 50 organizations that came together in 2014 to coordinate their efforts and advocate for policies that address police brutality, mass incarceration, and other forms of systemic racism.
4. Black Youth Project 100: This is a member-based organization that focuses on organizing and empowering young Black activists to create lasting social change.
5. Dream Defenders: This is a Florida-based organization that focuses on fighting for the rights of Black and Brown youth in the criminal justice system, and advocating for policies that address poverty and inequality.
6. Color of Change: This is an online advocacy organization that focuses on using technology to empower Black communities and hold corporations and government officials accountable for their actions.

Instructions:

Interest groups use social media for many purposes. Some of the site is intended to inform their members, give them alerts to new issues, and help support a position on an issue. Other parts are intended to keep members involved, so that you can find content related to many things. At times there are interactive elements, including embedded video games. Other parts are aimed at attracting new members or getting existing members to give more.

1.)   Choose an interest group in the US, or elsewhere, that has some presence on social media.  If you choose a group outside the US, be sure that it is an interest group and not a government organization or political party extension.  If you are in doubt, please ask me.

a.     You may choose a large group, or a small one.  It can be involved in international politics, national politics, or state or local politics.  Or all of the above.

2.)   You should examine its social media usage across multiple platforms.  The organizations web page in this case counts as social media.  Different platforms reach different audiences.

3.)   You will write one page describing the overall social media presence of the organization.  Please provide me with the urls of social media presences that you have visited.

4.)   For the rest of the paper you may explore some interesting aspect of the group’s social media presence.  I am happy to consult with you on this but do not leave this until the last minute.

I am leaving you free to explore a theme because there are so many possible papers about any group.

So for example, consider the National Rifle Association (NRA).

I have had 4 excellent papers about the NRA in the past few years.

Two explored its web page, which is vast and full of information.  https://home.nra.org/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIkLHjiMmN_QIV0ciUCR02AgjxEAAYASABEgJaX_D_BwE

One web page paper focused on the various ways that the NRA used this site to raise money.  It compared appeals for contributions for visitors who focused on hunting versus those who focused on 2^nd amendment or guns for safety.

Another web page paper just mapped out the entire website – not in great detail, but an overview.

Two papers examined the NRA presence on twitter.  One compared its tweets before and after a school shooting.

But there are many other types of papers that could be written about the NRA.  It has its own Youtube channel.

It once had its own television show, Relentless.  It covered issues such as the introduction of a Kenyan train engine in the children’s show Thomas the Tank.  https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nra-thomas-friends-kkk/

They have a presence of Tiktok Instagram, etc.

A more ambitious paper compared the tweets of the NRA and of Handgun Control, a group advocating for limits on guns, after a school shooting.  If you want to compare two groups please talk to me first, but it can make for an interesting paper.

So there are multiple papers to be written about any group, and I will let you choose one that sparks your interest.