Introduction

Abstract

At the time of writing this book, the online campaign video Kony 2012 emerged and was watched over 90 million times and received more than 400,000 comments (now disabled) on YouTube alone (see Heather McIntosh’s 2012 blog, ‘KONY 2012: Analyzing the Viral Documentary Video’). The opening lines of the filmmaker, Jason Russell, conjoined social media and emotion:

Right now there are more people on Facebook than there were on the planet 200 years ago. Humanity’s greatest desire is to belong and connect and now we see each other, we hear each other.

‘Grandpa, I love you.’

‘I love you.’

‘Why, why won’t it take a picture?’

We share what we love and it reminds us what we all have in common …

And this connection is changing the way the world works. Governments are trying to keep up and older generations are concerned. The game has new rules. The next 27 minutes are an experiment but in order for it to work you have to pay attention. (Kony 2012)

It seemed to fall into our laps (or laptops) as a perfect example of ‘emotion online’ and it created emotional noise both horizontally (across e-mail, blogs, social networks and online video sites) and vertically (through journalism, television programmes, print media, and radio).