Ugandans pan the video:
Charli Carpenter draws lessons from the social media controversy:
The video's value is its ridiculousness. While every single critique of Kony2012 is valid, this is precisely what makes it such a remarkably effective teaching tool both about Uganda and about critical media studies – and part of what made it, so far, an effective awareness-raising tool. Part of why it went viral was precisely because of the backlash. Invisible Children would have been less effective had they aimed for nuance – both because the message would have been lost on the uninformed and because it wouldn't have provoked the backlash. What is heartening about this episode is the rapidity with which educators and pundits – not to mention human rights claimants - responded to the video with correctives, satire and clarifications. If we read this video as a catalyst rather than as the message itself, it served its purpose brilliantly.
Ari Kohen bashes the backlash:
Also to blame [for the video's failure] are all those who gleefully tore apart Invisible Children in the wake of the video’s virality, especially those with real expertise in the region and in the fields of human rights and conflict. The reason I say that they share some of the blame is because of the way they reacted to the “Kony 2012” video and campaign. It’s one thing to critique the organization and to discourage people from buying merchandise as a way to deal with grave violations of human rights. I have no problem at all with that; indeed, I agree with it. But it’s quite another to offer precious little else by way of an alternative.
Previous Dish coverage of the phenomenon here, here and here.
The Dish 