The debacle over the Susan G. Komen Foundation's decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood's free breast cancer screenings fueled rage and indignation on every side of many issues; abortion rights, free screenings for the poor (class-struggle), politicized-steering of charitable funds and more. It's a classic case of incendiary action in the middle of an incendiary issue in the middle of an election year. Everybody with an agenda is p-ssed. That's not always news, except this was different: the lightning speed in which the decision was publicised, rage was incited, and the decision was ultimately reversed is HUGE news. Susan G. Komen made a monumental underestimation of what appears to be (a) majority opinion and (b) the speed and impact of Social Media.
Will the Susan G. Komen/Planned Parenthood affair teach American business and government the same lessons about Social Media that the Arab Spring taught middle eastern despots?
Arab leaders traded on the inability of their people to communicate, but were taught just last year that technology changed the rules. The British learned a similar lesson a mere 235 years ago when Isaiah Thomas printed "The Massachusetts Spy", a notable example of a rabble-rousing "Patriot Printer" of the 18th century. With the advent of digital Social Media, it appears we still have much to learn out here in The Colonies...
The term "Silent Majority" is attributed ironically, to Richard Nixon referring to silent members of the US whom he believed supported the Vietnam War. It refers to the idea that the fanatic, the offended or the fundamentalist voice is the only one heard from. We don't hear from the majority, as they are less motivated to change what is often status quo. The noise from the offended party takes on the 'image' of a majority, as they are the the only ones with the drive to exercise a voice in the matter. Karen Handel, vice president of Susan G Komen and a devout anti-abortionist pushed hard and for weeks to ban Planned Parenthood. Leadership at SGK eventually gave in and it's not clear whether that leadership team had her agenda or not. The question here, however is whether they could possibly have imagined the fallout. No... they never saw it coming....
What happened? According to Derek Gordon's February 6th MediaPost article: "The Cautionary Tale Of The Komen Foundation, "The Twittersphere, blogosphere and punditocracy lit up like a Roman candle" and "These are pretty responsive political feed-back loops fueled by social media". Don't get caught up in demographics: yes, women of breast cancer age are very active Facebook users, but Twitter was just as powerful a force in this event and younger males dominate Twitter.
Make no mistake; the ease of which people can publish their opinions is now an order of magnitude faster than it was, but it's the lightning-fast viral effect of influencing and inciting like-thinkers that changes the game.
So... PR professionals, tell your leadership at government, non-profit and big-business to take note; the bar's been raised... Neither the majority nor the minority is likely to be silent ...any more.
* - Please note I purposely took no position here on the political issues discussed herein; only the effect media has on the outcome and dynamics.
The entire MediaPost article is here: http://tinyurl.com/6uj698u
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