#NeverAgain MSD: from outrage to movement for gun control

Teens from Marjory Stoneman Douglas (MSD) high school, whose school was involved in a deadly shooting have ignited a movement known as the Never again MSD which stand for gun control that advocates for tighter regulations against gun violence. The movement which originated online as a hashtag #Neveragain and later made other hashtags such as #Marchforourlives has made its way offline and severely impacted the offline world.

The Never again MSD movement and the process of assembling massive protests against gun violence and for gun control online and offline will be analyzed. The analysis will consist of origins of the movements online and how it stimulated the offline world.  Furthermore,  the organizing and the movement of the MSD movement will be analyzed in respect to several concepts which are ‘message and issues’ by Silverstein (2003),  Blommaert’s (2005) ‘Ideology and Hegemony’, ‘Algorithmic activism’ by Ico Maly (2018) and lastly Gerbaudo’s (2012) ‘Choreography of Assembly’ which in this case is related to algorithmic activism. These concepts will also be analyzed in relation to the power of social media.

In what follows, I will look at social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, US news articles, and the main website of the movement, called March for Our Lives, in a search for information regarding the background and message of the movement.

#Neveragain: how did it start?

On February 14th, 2018, Majory Stoneman Douglas Highschool in Parkland, Florida was subjected to an open gunfire killing seventeen student and staff member as well as injuring seventeen others. The students who survived were severely traumatized, and a number of those students were so angered and frustrated with the lack of safety of school that they decided to vent their frustration on social media. One of the creators of the movement Cameron Kasky, for instance, tweeted “Can’t sleep, I’m not scared or nervous… I’m just angry” (Witt, 2018). Several other students did likewise.

Kasky was invited to CNN and other talk shows to talk about the shooting. Three days later, after a candlelight vigil, Kasky decided to invite a few friends over to his house, and the movement was born (Witt, 2018). The name of the movement was decided and shared, as Kasky wrote on his personal Facebook page “Working on a central space that isn’t just my personal page for all of us to come together and change this,” he posted. “Stay alert. #NeverAgain.” (Witt,2018). Thus, they launched their Facebook page Never Again MSD.

A few days after many other students started joining Never again MSD. Jaclyn Corin, a member who lost a friend in the shooting, met with the Florida congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Coryn's Instagram post urging people to contact their local and state representatives to have stricter gun laws got a lot of attention (Witt,2018). Meeting with many state representatives commenced until it led to a rally being held in Tallahassee, attended by hundreds of Douglas students. 

The members’ social media accounts garnered thousands of followers, and members became keynote speakers at several Florida rallies which were broadcasted nationally (Lowery, 2018). With the help of NGO Everytown for Gun safe, the students held a demonstration in Washington DC condemning gun violence on March 24, 2018. Many celebrities (including Oprah Winfrey and George Clooney) sponsored and promoted the event, Organizers estimated that the about 800.000 people attended the March For Our Lives (Reilly, 2018). Protests ensued nationwide.

What Never Again MSD stands for

According to Silverstein (2003) Message is a the communication of a whole brand;it is everything that embodies an individual or a movement from identity to style to image to standpoint on issues. Silverstein (2003) discusses in his book that standpoint on Issues is one of the things that contributes to the overall message of a politician or in this case a movement. Communication about issues is what leads to the formation of an identity - “they always rely on discussion of- as they are called in politics- ‘the issues’.” 

In the case of Never Again MSD, the issue is gun violence. We read on the movement's website “Not one more. We cannot allow one more person to be killed by senseless gun violence” (March for our lives, n.d.). This represents their unwavering standpoint on the issue of gun violence which started the movement initially. Furthermore, they aim to create a safer place for people of all ages, although the emphasis is on youth: "We cannot allow the normalization of gun violence to continue. We must create a safe and compassionate nation for our youth to grow up in".

The above quote not only portrays the position of this movement on this issue, but it also represents who this movement is for: it is inclusive and for all youth. During an interview with MSD student David Hogg, he called out the media for covering the school shooting inaccurately, saying “black students weren’t give a voice” (Hemedy, 2018). Antiracism is a consciously articulated stance within the movement, not only recongizing discrimination against black voices during the school shooting, but also showing support for “the communities who have always stared down the barrel of a gun” (Hemedy, 2018).

This illustrates how the Never Again MSD acknowledges the Black Lives Matter movement - a movement also sparked by accounts of gun violence against Black people. Another Parkland shooting survivor, Aalayah Eastmond, proclaimed in a speech in one of the rallies "Yes I am a Parkland survivor and an MSD student," she said. "But before this I was a regular black girl and after this, I am still black, and I am still regular, and I will fight for all of us" (Hemedy, 2018). The Never Again MSD stance on these issues is clearly demonstrated through this saying by Alex Wind (Hemedy,2018). "It's not about race. It is not about your sex. It is not about ethnicity. It is not about gender. It is not about how much money you make, What it comes down to is life or death".

Clearing out their stance on multiple issues not only gives this movement a certain identity but it clearly shows their Message. Furthermore, the representatives of the movements always stay 'on message'. Staying 'on message' is constantly producing a consistent image of one’s standpoint through time (Silverstein, 2003). The members of this movement maintain the consistency of their image: the main faces of the movement are always young students, and this is something that has been done from the beginning. Additionally, consistency in their image is upheld through talking about issues in their rallies and consistently bringing members from diverse communities to rallies.

Additionally, Social media contributes massively to the consistency of their image as well. After all, social media was the only way they could communicate with their audiences until they got access to mainstream media. Thus, their image and style was first and foremost established through Facebook posts and tweets.

Ideology of the Never again MSD and repelling hegemony

Every movement has an ideology. According to Blommaert (2005), an ideology is a perspective on the world, shared by a group of actors. It is often associated with a certain set of symbolic representations, such as discourses, images and stereotypes, as well as with certain behaviors and ideals. First and foremost, the ideology of the Never Again MSD movement clearly lies with the issue of gun violence and it’s complete eradication through gun control. Additionally, they strive for equality amongst different communities in relation to gun violence, and they see gun violence as something that brings diverse communities together.

They strive to create a society where no individual has to fear gun violence regardless of which community there from, but they do recognize the privilege that some members of society have. Not only do they recognize this privilege, but they actively try to fight it as well, through marches and by giving minorities a voice during rallies etc. Given the deep cleavages and inequalities in American society, the movement can be seen as anti-hegemonic.

The leaders of this movement have repeatedly said this movement is ‘nonpartisan’ relative to politics. However, the movement’s identity does lean more towards a progressive-liberal position within the political system. As we know, the National Rifle Association (NRA) is one of Donald Trump’s biggest supporters (Cummings, 2018). The Never Again MSD movement are clearly against the NRA, and members expose politicians who take campaign contributions from the NRA (McLaughlin, 2018). 

The role of Social media and algorithms in the Never Again MSD movement

Never Again MSD movement originated online and is a result of tweets and posts of members going viral. The Numbers of retweets and shares is what made the movement and the members of the movement gain popularity. Maly (2018) reminds us: “Numbers matter”. Due to popularity being a quantified concept in the digital world, it is prone to manipulability. This, Maly says, “gives birth to  a new kind of populism and new type of activism, algorithmic activism” (Maly, 2018). He further states that “Interacting with a post triggers the algorithm of the medium , which boosts the popularity rankings of this message and its messenger” (Maly, 2018).

The Never Again movement is a clear representation of algorithmic activism. Countless interactions with the post of the students encouraged the students to form the movement. Two three days after the school shooting at MSD the tweets of the students started going viral, with tweets generating from 2000 to 6000 likes and getting retweeted from 300 to 2000 times. Cameron Kasky and Emma Gonzalez, two of the founders of the Never Again MSD movements, can be used as examples here.

www.twitter.com/Emma4Change

Both tweets show large numbers of likes and retweets, but this is only part of what virality does. It also provoked increased mutual visibility for people and messages interacting with these tweets, creating a community. The more interactions a tweet generates, the more chance it will have to be featured as a Twitter Highlight, again increasing the chance that these tweets will reach potential new audiences (Maly, 2018). Therefore, the numbers of interactions from Gonzales and Kasky are not only crucial to creating a perception of popularity but also important in reaching new and bigger audiences algorithmically.

Kasky and Gonzales used the hashtags #NeverAgain and #MarchForOurLives in every tweet, creating a hashtag trend as their tweets generate massive likes and retweets. Furthermore, they both knew that they had to prioritize the time (since virality can be short-lived) and use hashtags that would keep the discourse frames continuing for several months. It leads to more people talking about the issue of gun violence with the use of these hashtags, and it allows other events to be tagged to the original ones through the hashtag, with even larger audiences as effects.

www.facebook.com/pg/NeverAgainMSD/ads/?ref=page_internal

As for Facebook, the Never Again page (shown above) was the first page made by the movement on Facebook on February 16, 2018, effectively launching it online. Since then it has gained more than 150,000 likes and around 165,000 accounts follow the page, which means that posts of this page can appear on the timeline of hundreds of thousands of people. However, it hasn’t been active in recent months.

Another Facebook page dedicated to rallies and marches of the movement called March for our lives was made on 18th February 2018, and this account is still active presently.  As seen above it has more than 280,000 likes and over 302,000 followers - a huge reach for a Facebook page.

A recent post made on 14th December 2018 which commemorates the students who died in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings six years ago. This post has around 3,800 reactions, 124 comments and approximately 1,700 shares. Here too, these numbers point towards high visibility of this post, since the number of interactions (especially shares) will have the viral effects described earlier (Maly,2018).  

The algorithms triggered by the numbers of interactions on these posts and tweets have led to the rapid growth of this movement online and increased its following and support. Thus, this encouraged the members of the movement to lead the movement offline by conducting marches and rallies through the help of social media. This shows the importance of social media and the role it has played in making this movement grow and gain support.

Mobilization of Never Again MSD

The Never Again MSD Movement started from the online public sphere but created a public space offline through the help of social media. It is a copybook example of what Gerbaudo (2012) calls a “choreography of assembly”: the construction of a public space which is made “visible through the use of social media by directing people towards specific protest events”. Therefore, Social media is used as a tool to assemble people “to choreograph collective action offline” - a form of mediation which informs people on what to do, where, when and how, while broadcasting any message by the members of the movement themselves.

Facebook according to Gerbaudo “is used to form groups, covert and overt - on order to establish those strong but flexible connections”. The Never Again MSD movement utilized their March for our lives Facebook page in creating an "event" for the marches. Those event pages inform people interested or intending to attend about the place and time of the happening. The event on March 24th was the first march against gun violence in Washington DC - an overwhelming success, as we saw earlier. 

Furthermore, there were many rallies and marches events held in the US after the first march; these marches are still ongoing presently which shows that these events were successful. Movements originating online are often thought to be ‘leaderless’ (Gerbaudo,2012). This is not the case with the Never Again MSD movement: the students are the leaders of this movement, and they can draw on the support of many people and organizations assisting them in setting up these marches in a structural and organized way around the country. What the table of events and rallies also shows, is that the movement is not a one-off phenomenon but has been able to consolidate itself as a public force over a longer stretch of time.

In conclusion, social media is the reason why this movement came into existence and why it has acquired the prominent position it has in US public life. The Never again MSD movement was able to stay 'on message' thanks to social media which gave them a platform and helped them communicate to their audience and maintain their image. Furthermore, it solidified their ideology amongst their target audience and media. The reason for the growth and massive support of this movement traces back to social media and its algorithm.

This is a result of the algorithms increasing the visibility of the posts of the movement and the clever use of hashtags by the leaders of the movement. Lastly, the algorithmic activism of this movement led to the choreographing collective action offline through creating events and using Facebook pages in support of such events, attracting many hundreds of thousands of participants. Never Again MSD is a splendid example of what loose and traditionally powerless groups can achieve when they exploit the potential of social media, have a clear message, and are determinated to go ahead relentlessly with their actions.

References:

Blommaert, J. (2005). Discourse: A critical introduction. Cambridge University Press.

Gerbaudo, P (2012) Tweets and the Streets: Social media and contemporary activism. Pluto Press

Ghorayshi, A. (2018, February 17) This Florida School Shooting Survivor Just Called Out Trump And The NRA. Buzzfeed News

Hemedy, S. (2018, March 25) The Parkland kids keep checking their privilege. CNN

Lowery, W (2018, February 18) He survived the Florida school shooting. He vows not to return to classes until gun laws change. Washington Post

Maly, I. (2018) Populism as a mediatized communicative relation: The birth of algorithmic populism. Tilburg University

March For Our Lives (n.d.) mission-statement.

McLaughlin, E. C. ( 2018, February 18) Parkland students say, 'We are going to be the last mass shooting'. CNN

Reilly, K. (2018, March 24) Here's the Size of the March For Our Lives Crowd in Washington. Time

Silverstein, M. (2003) Talking politics: The substance of style from Abe to "W". Prickly Paradigm Press Chicago

Witt, E. (2018, February 19) How the Survivors of Parkland Began the Never Again Movement. The NewYorker.