PR in a Social Media Driven World

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The public relations eco-system has dramatically changed. In the 19th and 20th centuries mass communication and mass media, through one-way communication, were the norm. Organisations controlled the message.  The public didn’t have much choice of what, how and where they got their news from, and … Continue reading PR in a Social Media Driven World

The Women’s March was triumphant but not in every aspect.

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This blog post was originally meant to be solely about the impact of the Women’s March and how celebrities actions whilst at public events don’t always help a cause, since Trumps busy first few days in office I have changed the content accordingly.

Of course, the Women’s March will go down in history hopefully for all the right reasons in making a stand and ensuring that with Trump in the White House, Women’s Rights won’t take 100 steps backwards.

Unfortunately, President Trump has already added to inequality issues by cutting funding for International Planned Parenthood making it less accessible for women to get specific medical care including abortions. It is baffling that just with one signature a woman has lost heavily relied on health care support and the right of her own uterus. The most ironic thing was that all the witnesses were male when he signed. Pro-life or pro-choice the decision should go down to the individual, not those who can’t even bear children. And how can it come down to a religious factor when Trump who doesn’t want to help living breathing children who are currently displaced because of war in their country, in fear of them being apart of a terrorism group.

President Trump is also going ahead with his proposed plan to build a wall along the Mexican border. Its understandable that all the Americans who don’t side with his policies are unhappy and shocked but there won’t be a repeat vote. He is there to stay for the  immediate future. That’s easy for a privileged British person to say as its not happening here. It will all unfold before our eyes in the coming weeks, months and years. Its astonishing that the man is obviously sticking to his word, which is a little scary after all the things he promised to do during his campaign.

How does a nation and a world deal with the most powerful man in the world who is also slightly on the misogynist, racist scale and doesn’t believe climate change is a real thing? What  probably first comes to the majority of peoples minds is protesting.

Protesting is defined by the Oxford Dictionary (online) as, ‘an organized public demonstration expressing strong objection to an official policy or course of action.’

The Woman’s March protest in Washington was of a peaceful nature in terms of there being no arrests, but some public figures took the protest to an unacceptable level. I don’t agree with much that the infamous Piers Morgan puts on Social Media, however his tweet regarding Madonna’s statement (even though she claims it was blown massively out of context) is true.

“Madonna just said she wants to blow up the White House. Any ordinary person who said that would be arrested, charged and jailed.”

I re-tweeted this. For all the good that the march did for unity, keeping and building on equality, Madonna’s inappropriate words could’ve been taken literally by some. She was unintentionally promoting violence.

Very few protests are as peaceful and incident-free as the Women’s March which had huge attendance and international backing. Which is why I am weary of them. Mother Teresa never participated in protests and anti-demonstrations, “as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I’ll be there.”

The Women’s March triumphed in bringing solidarity it just wasn’t enough to deter a man with too much power from defunding Planned Parenthood. Recent anti-Trump protests haven’t been so calm.

The unrest and impact of Trumps reign is something all  in journalistic and media orientated fields will track constantly for the next four years. Lets just hope that Donald Trump isn’t history repeating itself.