Media Writing Lab

NICK AND NIKE  By John Pasch The 30th anniversary of Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign has already sent shockwaves through the world of mass media. Since 2016, when Kaepernick decided to first kneel for the playing of the National Anthem, he has been the face of the modern day civil rights movement. As of late, Nike, a major sportswear company, which has recently signed a contract with the National Football League (NFL) (Somers, 2018) agreeing to supply game day uniforms, made this controversial man the face of their well-known ad campaign. This controversy has been driven primarily by social media. Even though the actions themselves were demonstrated physically, a lot of the repercussions and feedback have come through different media outlets. A prime example is twitter, with a large online movement combatted by President Donald Trump and company. Colin Kaepernick first began his personal crusade against police injustice in the fall of 2016, igniting...

by Helina Samson People of color have played an incredibly active role in debates that erupted in both mainstream media, as well as in our everyday lives. How the media frames these movements on these social media sites however, impacts the ways in which America views these activists. Although the platform that is Black Lives Matter is heavily centered around progressive, modern day civil rights, many have turned this movement into a racial nightmare. This struggle to form discourse around race and racism is evident in popular forms of media like twitter for example. Focusing in on twitter, the ways in which “tweets” impacted the movements in the “streets” (Kidd, 2017) are greatly attributed to the immediate reaction of #AllLivesMatter. When #BlackLivesMatter first came to trend on twitter, it was a call to action. A way of saying Black lives matter, too. However, conservative media got a hold of the hashtag and attempted to silence Black voices out of reasons of co...