In March of 2012, I was 17 years old and a senior in high school.  I remember sitting in class when as one of my friends, who was 16 years old at the time, was making a powerpoint presentation in front of the class on a man named Joseph Kony.  She talked for a while about the horrible atrocities Kony had committed and the thousands of children he had abducted and murdered.  She then proposed the solution to capturing Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) who had been raining terror on northern Uganda for upwards of 20 years: help our high school’s chapter of the Kony 2012 movement by selling bracelets, joining a facebook group and sharing a 30-minute video.

The Kony 2012 campaign was orchestrated by Invisible Children, Inc, a non-profit that had been working since 2004 to expose the atrocities committed by the LRA.  Their mission, was to make Joseph Kony famous so that he would have no place to hide and would be stopped by the end of 2012. Regardless of the effectiveness of the campaign, it was certainly a phenomenon that warrants studying.  Within 5 days of being released, the 30-minute launch video of the campaign received over 26 million views and became the most viral video to have ever been released (see figure 1).  Thousands of activists, most around the age of my friend and a little older, came together across the country and formed groups to figure out what they could do to stop this warlord.

Figure 1: Public Kony 2012 Video Stats

After the movement exploded, it also began to receive a lot of criticism.  The most salient of which made the four following arguments: (1) The campaign left out critical information like the fact that Northern Uganda successfully expelled Joseph Kony years before the 2012 campaign and the LRA was instead loosely operating in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, (2) the campaign provided no actionable solutions that help to capture Kony because he and the LRA were already well known among those in central Africa who would actually be doing the pursuit, (3) little of Invisible Children’s budget actually went to helping those in central Africa, and (4) the Kony 2012 narrative furthered harmful western which paint Africa as a continent which cannot help itself and therefore needs the western world to intervene and save the day.  Perhaps as validation to these criticisms, it has now been over three years since the Kony 2012 campaign, and the world is no closer to capturing Joseph Kony.

Yet, the speed at which this movement took hold is clearly fascinating and it is helpful to look at the movement through the lens of the five principles of organizing as outlined by Marshall Ganz: Building a public narrative, establishing relationships, building and empowering teams, forming a strategy and taking action.

Build a public narrative: story of self, us and now

Within this domain, the digital movement of Kony 2012 transformed into something that the world of political organizing had never seen before.  While the video constructed the public narrative similarly to organized movements in the past, it had a focus on something that was not possible in the pre-digital age: virality.  The video starts by priming people to share content by showing people sharing other videos online before even hinting at the message, and the rest of the narrative is very carefully constructed with virality in mind.

This adds a new dimension to the public narrative.  No longer is it only about the story of self, us and now as Ganz put it, but organizers now have the option of arranging all of those components as something that can go viral.  Whether or not they want to is an interesting question that warrants further study.  As Invisible Children’s CEO discussed in an NPR interview, their story grew so quickly that they were not ready to handle the consequences of such a large public spotlight.  While it may have backfired for Invisible Children, virality clearly is a powerful factor, for better or worse, that cannot be ignored when designing public narratives for a movement in the digital age.

Establish relationships: One on Ones

In this domain, the Kony 2012 campaign operated similarly to many campaigns before it.  They framed the issue in a way people can relate to with the spotlight on the filmmaker’s child and the message that “if this were to happen once in the US it would be on the cover of every single newspaper.” They went around talking to people about what was going on and they encouraged their followers to do the same.

A Team Approach: Build and Empower Teams

In this domain, Kony 2012 succeeded in cleverly packaging team-building around sharing Joseph Kony’s name into a digital product.  Their campaign sent out ‘action kits’ which gave activists posters and 2 bracelets, one for themselves and one to share, each containing a digital code.  This code gave them access to an online portal that would empower them to track the impact they were making on spreading the word.

Yet, at the same time the campaign failed in mobilizing people outside of the digital sphere or empowering them with the ability to do anything other than talk about the issue.  Lots of people shared and watched the videos, and many bought kits and donated to the organization.  Yet on the date of what was supposed to be the climax of the campaign known as ‘Cover the Night,’ people failed to organize in the real world. The teams that were leading the movement were not equipped or accustomed to being activists away from the comfort of their homes and their friends.  Followers of the movement would gladly share information, but the teams of activists were unable to motivate their followers when it came to taking as minimal an action as hanging up a poster. [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/21/kony-2012-campaign-uganda-warlord]

Form a Strategy: Learn and Adapt

Kony 2012 failed miserably in this domain.  They had a fantastically successful initial strategy which led to a viral explosion in interest.  Yet they were not ready for this viral explosion and they failed to adapt to the increased spotlight.  In 2014, Invisible Children, Inc shut down from the same causes which plagued the organization immediately after its initial success.

Take Action: Clear and Measurable Actions

In this domain, Kony 2012 was successful at creating clear and measurable actions for its followers, yet unsuccessful at aligning those actions with a strategy that would actually solve the problem.  They were certainly able to raise awareness, but awareness alone will not capture a warlord in central Africa.

The lessons of Kony 2012 are helpful for any organizer in the digital age.  Virality can be a double edged sword and if one attempts to unsheath it they should have some body armor ready to go.  On top of that, a campaign at this scale must also align the actions of its followers with meaningful progress that works towards solving the problem rather than awareness as an end of its own.