Since 1919

The Prairie News

Since 1919

The Prairie News

Since 1919

The Prairie News

Blogging brings awareness to major social issues

Blogging+brings+awareness+to+major+social+issues+

Social media has played an integral part in the lives of Millennials, but it has also proven to play a key role in society. Social networks, such as Facebook, allow users to connect with distant friends and family while being able to keep up with local friends, businesses, brands and celebrities.
Twitter has brought about awareness and conversation on many various topics through the use of hashtags. Blogging allows internet users to express themselves freely and openly to the public. When using multiple social networking sites, individuals and organizations can bring about awareness and global conversation on certain issues. The internet has witnessed just that in the recent weeks.
Thea is a 12-year-old girl from Norway. She loves horses, One Direction and writing about her life on her blog. Since her first post on Sept. 12, her blog has gone viral and has become one of the most trafficked sites in Norway. It’s not just any typical 12-year-old girl’s blog; it’s Thea’s wedding blog.
On Oct. 11, Thea was set to marry her fiancé Geir, a 37-year-old man. Attention was brought to this situation by Thea’s wedding blog, “Theas Bryllup,” (Norwegian for “Thea’s Wedding”) that went viral. Thea, who was to be Norway’s first child bride, was told by her mother that she must marry Geir. On the blog, Thea documented the countdown to her wedding and posted several photos of herself trying on wedding dresses. Once she is a wife, she will stop attending school and soon after will have children with her husband-to-be.
In her first blog post, Thea wrote (translated from Norwegian), “I learned from Mom yesterday that I’m getting married…it is a bit strange, because I know he really is so grown up.”
The blog sparked outrage and disgust from readers in Norway and worldwide. For the past several weeks, Thea has blogged about trying out wedding desserts, dresses and her fear of having sex with her new husband. She had to look up the word “sex” online to find out what it was.
She went on to say, “My dream has always been that I want to be a vet, because then I can work with horses and stuff like that all the time. But, when I talked about it today, Mom said that I do not really need to work or go to school now that I’m marrying Geir.”
The blog sparked concern from many who left comments asking if she was really going to marry Geir, who is 25 years her senior.
Many of those concerned contacted Norwegian police, and the hashtag #stoppbryllupet (stop the wedding) began to trend on Twitter as concerns from blog visitors were voiced.
What most readers just learned, however, is that Thea is not really a child bride. The blog was a stunt crafted by Plan International, a women’s and girls’ rights organization. The organization created the faux campaign in order to bring awareness to the fact that 39 thousand children in developing countries are forced into marriage every day.
While this campaign was very successful in bringing global awareness to an increasing problem, the public was deceived in an in depth manner. Social media can be a big asset and play a key role in raising awareness on such things as this, but the public should not be deceived to such a great extent.
The idea behind the campaign was to raise awareness and bring about reactions. Audiences reacted. Readers were outraged that a 12-year-old child was being forced into a marriage with a man so much older. Concerns were voiced as phone calls to local authorities were made. The campaign accomplished its goal, but the execution should not have been that realistic. The reactions that were raised were so real and full of emotion and passion, so much that readers may have been offended when learning that it was a staged blog.
The reasoning behind the campaign is understandable, more logic behind the creativity of it could have been beneficial. Social media could have played a much different role in bring light to the issue at hand.

Leave a Comment
More to Discover

Comments (0)

All The PRAIRIE Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *