Digital Savior Complex
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The Digital Savior Complex is a phenomenon coined by Bhakti Shringarpure. The Digital Savior Complex was created as a play on Teju Cole's "White Savior Industrial Complex." In Cole's explorations of the dynamics of whiteness in humanitarianism, 'White' refers to the racialized subjectivities formed during colonialism and that continue to have an impact on life and politics in the postcolonial world while 'savior' refers to those engaged in humanitarian work with the more insidious intention of fulfilling sentimentalist narcissism, particularly as this savior simultaneously aids and bolsters corporations that exploit the third world and thus the people who are meant to be aided by humanitarian efforts for human and natural resources.[1]. The Digital Savior Complex contrasts with the White Savior Industrial Complex, and more broadly the White Savior Complex, because the savior relies upon the Internet and a vast array of technological tools and believes that these tools are not politically charged, inherently neutral, and overall progressive[1].
Digital Humanitarianism
The history of humanitarianism can be said to have begun with the age of imperialism humanitarianism from the late eighteenth century to World War II, followed by an age of neo-humanitarianism from the end of World War II to the end of the Cold War, and now an age of liberal humanitarianism from the end of the Cold War to the present[2]. The end of the Cold War ushered in a paradigm of globalization that expanded the boundaries of community and universalized discourses of humanity and human rights. Furthermore, the revolution of information and transportation technologies created a growing desire and opportunity to help the world's poor and vulnerable[2].
The term digital humanitarian was first used by Patrick Meier in his blog iRevolutions and particularly came to the fore in light of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, as Meier was able to create a digital crisis map using tweets, text messages, and emails to track population movements, the spread of aid, and real-time recovery of victims. Through this platform, he was also able to manage thousands of remote volunteers who aided in tracking and mapping humanitarian needs online. Similar technology has been employed in the face of other crises and has grown in use through the creation of Facebook's Safety Check feature that was released on October 15, 2014[3] and has since expanded to include Crisis Response, a permanent feature where people can mark themselves as safe, get information about an ongoing crisis, give or find help and resources, and raise money[4].
Role of Digital Humanitarianism in the Digital Savior Complex
Digital humanitarianism has been practiced and popularized through large social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, as well as more traditional mass media platforms such as emails and listservs and the spread of memes. Increasingly, newer, more innovative means have been deployed, such as crowdfunding and micro-philanthropy apps[1].
Crowdfunding is a practice where projects that may or may not be business-oriented are financed by a large number of individuals or crowd-funders who provide relatively small contributions through the Internet[5]. Crowdfunding is still in its infancy on the African continent, though, as it currently represents the smallest global region in terms of volume and the continent remains divided in the development of crowdfunding in various regions. Despite this, the continent has seen consistent growth in crowdfunding volumes, as in 2016 African crowdfunding volumes reached $181.27 million, growing 118% from 2015. Most of the crowdfunding volume on the African continent came from donation-based crowdfunding campaigns, which exhibited a volume increase of 342% between 2015 and 2016 and represented 35% of total volumes raised in Africa in 2016[6].
Micro-philanthropy apps use mobile device technology to solicit small, typically impulse-driven donations. Micro-philanthropy apps such as Global Emergency Overview, Relief Central, and Humanitarian Kiosk provide information on regions experiencing conflicts or natural disasters, while other apps like One Today leverages photography to inspire users to see how "just $1 can make an impact."[1]
Digital humanitarianism particularly targets younger audiences who are more likely to be "digital natives" and therefore have higher usage rates of the Internet and other digital technologies. As a result, video games have also been leveraged to raise awareness and promote humanitarianism. In 2005, the United Nations released the video game Food Force that aimed to teach children about global hunger. At the time, the game became quite popular, reaching one million players in 40 countries[7]. Since then, more humanitarian video games have emerged, such as the game ARMA 3 which was created by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) with Bohemia Interactive and successfully used in countries such as Myanmar, Philippines, Israel, China, Malaysia, Syria, and Iraq to educate members of the armed forces and non-state armed groups on the legal framework of war[8]. In the West African context more specifically, the ICRC and Bohemia Interactive created Argi, a virtual intergalactic goat explorer, to help American Red Cross efforts raise funds to combat Ebola[9]
The relationship between humanitarianism and the digital reinforces ideologies of cyber-utopianism in which the political dimension of crises that necessitate humanitarian intervention often get obscured and the particular design of interfaces, by using light language and having an emphasis on the individual consumer, reveals a deliberate de-politicization of the often politically volatile and sensitive issues at hand. Furthermore, digital humanitarianism invests heavily into the self as the protagonist of a digital media narrative, thus encoding and encouraging individualism, narcissism, and agency to spur humanitarian action.[1]. Studies have shown that digital humanitarianism has emerged "networked individualism," defined as a "social trend, facilitated by online and mobile communications media, in which individuals increasingly associate in diverse, unbounded social networks, often based on homophily, rather than in small, homogenous, tightly knit groups based on kinship or pre-established social relations."[10] Because the constant connectivity of the internet has de-privileged physical proximity and encouraged speedy communication[11], it appears that the rise of digital media technology and social network sites has decreased participation in physical, local organizations[1]
Examples of the Digital Savior Complex
The Save Darfur movement, although it predates the coinage of the term "digital humanitarian," is an early instance of where the 'digital savior' first emerged. The Darfur crisis first entered the American public imagination after the United States Holocaust Museum and American Jewish World Service hosted the Darfur Emergency Summit on July 14, 2004. The Save Darfur movement was unique because of a strategic combination of numbers, images, and a youth demographic was used to appeal to a humanitarian-minded public. Specifically, the movement became a digital phenomenon because of its dependence on and exploitation of numbers, such as the number of people displaced and the number of people abroad involved in the movement; the employment of spectacular images to spread the message; and the targeting of youth on school and college campuses[1]. The way that images were used in particular, however, is one reason critics of the Save Darfur movement point to it as the emergence of the Digital Savior Complex, as the bombardment of mega-posters on trains, bus stops, streets, campuses, and churches[1] as well as the use of Google Earth to display 3,300 destroyed villages[12] made it so that "defenseless virtual bodies [were] volunteered, if not for consumption then for benevolent appropriation."[1]
Another example of the digital savior complex within the context of the Save Darfur movement was the creation of the video game Darfur is Dying. Darfur is Dying, created by students at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of South California in 2006, is a 'web-based, viral video game... designed to raise awareness of the genocide taking place in Darfur and empower college students to help stop the crisis.'[13] According to critics, the video game reinforces stereotypes of starving African children, demonizes the Sudanese by calling them militias, and emphasizes the singularly rural dimension of the region. Through the use of such colonial symbolism, the video game "manages to reinforce and overtly express the relationship of power the savior exerts over the save. It also becomes an example of a crude depiction of the racialized subject who has no room for empowerment and becomes a static and unchanging figure of the 'victim.'"[1]
Resistance to the Digital Savior Complex
There is pushback and resistance to the Digital Savior Complex and broader digital humanitarianism by African and African diaspora scholars, bloggers, artists, and social media users, such as seen by the reaction to the Kony 2012 film[1]. Kony 2012 is a 30-minute film created by the non-governmental organization Invisible Children and aimed to save children from being abducted and terrorized by Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. The film garnered more than 100 million views within the first week[14]. Despite the popularity, criticism grew for the film early on. Prominent Nigerian-American scholar Teju Cole warned that success for Kony 2012 would mean increased militarization of the Yoweri Museveni government and therefore a worsening of the war in the Congo[15]. Ethiopian novelist Dinaw Mengestu critiqued the documentary, saying that it infantilized Africa[16]. Just as popular as the original video was its negative reception, as many argued that the campaign would do more harm than good.
The resistance to Kony 2012 was significant because it increased media participation by Africans and about Africa focused on talking back to the West. Such forums that have grown in popularity since include Africa is a Country, This is Africa, OkayAfrica, and African Arguments. Platforms for resistance have also emerged on Twitter and Instagram.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 Shringarpure, Bhakti (2020-04-02). "Africa and the Digital Savior Complex". Journal of African Cultural Studies. 32 (2): 178–194. doi:10.1080/13696815.2018.1555749. ISSN 1369-6815. Unknown parameter
|s2cid=ignored (help) - ↑ 2.0 2.1 Barnett, Michael (2011). Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism. Cornell University Press. p. 166. Search this book on
- ↑ "Introducing Safety Check". About Facebook. 2014-10-16. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
- ↑ "Crisis Response". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
- ↑ Lagazio, Corrado; Querci, Francesca (2018-09-01). "Exploring the multi-sided nature of crowdfunding campaign success". Journal of Business Research. 90: 318–324. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.05.031. ISSN 0148-2963. Unknown parameter
|s2cid=ignored (help) - ↑ Chao, Emmanuel James; Serwaah, Priscilla; Baah-Peprah, Prince; Shneor, Rotem (2020), Shneor, Rotem; Zhao, Liang; Flåten, Bjørn-Tore, eds., "Crowdfunding in Africa: Opportunities and Challenges", Advances in Crowdfunding: Research and Practice, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 319–339, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-46309-0_14, ISBN 978-3-030-46309-0, retrieved 2020-10-12 Unknown parameter
|s2cid=ignored (help) - ↑ "Surprise hit humanitarian video game reaches one million players – UN". UN News. 2005-06-01. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
- ↑ "Can Video Games Help Save Lives?". 27 April 2023.
- ↑ "World of Warcraft players raise $1.9m for Ebola relief adopting Argi the space goat". International Business Times UK. 2015-02-13. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
- ↑ Chandler, Daniel; Munday, Rod (2016). Networked Individualism. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-180309-3. Search this book on
- ↑ Wellman, Barry; Quan‐Haase, Anabel; Boase, Jeffrey; Chen, Wenhong; Hampton, Keith; Díaz, Isabel; Miyata, Kakuko (2003). "The Social Affordances of the Internet for Networked Individualism". Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. 8 (3): 0. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2003.tb00216.x. ISSN 1083-6101. Unknown parameter
|s2cid=ignored (help) - ↑ "United States Holocaust Memorial Museum". www.google.com. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
- ↑ "Darfur is Dying". Games For Change. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
- ↑ Kanczula, Antonia (2012-04-20). "Kony 2012 in numbers". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
- ↑ Cole, Teju (2012-03-21). "The White-Savior Industrial Complex". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
- ↑ "Not a Click Away: Joseph Kony in the Real World". Warscapes. 2012-03-12. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
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