Last weeks class discussion about how social media may or may not be a form of live activism triggered my thoughts about a real good example. But first I believe it is important to know where I stand in the grand scheme of things. For me, I agree with the Biz Stone way of thinking and that there is not a division between social media and activism. However, it is more of an evolution from traditional activism or “keeping up with the times.” Live activism is great stuff and we like it even more because it is happening instantly.
About a week or two ago Yahoo! published a pretty controversial article titled: College Majors That Are Useless. The article states the #1 useless degree being Agriculture. When I first read it I had to refresh the page to make sure I was reading it correctly. For me this was a big slap in the face and I was certainly irate within a matter of .30 seconds. Prior to Ball State I acquired my Associates Degree in Agricultural Business from Morrisville State College of New York. I am very passionate about American Agriculture especially it has been in my family roots for as long as we can trace back. YOU should care about this issue because without Agriculture you wouldn't have the food you probably just ate, or the clothes you are wearing, or better yet that cup of coffee sitting next to you. Agriculture should be the #1 most U S E F U L degree and to read more check out the links to the articles throughout this blog post.
By the time I read the end of the Yahoo! article I had already shared it on Facebook, Twitter, and emailed it to several of my friends and texted thirty friends on my smartphone about it. I then begin to read my Facebook stream and found out I wasn’t alone…many of my friends had already started commenting and the media was buzzing!
Within a day hundreds of Agricultural related business’ and Universities began chiming in trying to reverse the bad PR for Agriculture. For example Purdue University put of some great press. Even the Government had positive things to say about the importance of Agriculture education.
In my opinion this is an excellent example of live activism. Those involved in the industry (which should be every human) began advocating for Agriculture education from a lousy, and rather embarrassing article written by some ignorant, uneducated, city guy in an office copywriter who has never even set foot on a farm is just trying to reach his or her word count so they can get paid for an article like this. This is probably partially to blame on the fact that sites like Yahoo! don't curate their content–they just want page views.
Check out some of the articles, blogs, and vlogs in response to the awful article Yahoo! published:
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