The Post Cold War Era

The cold war started in 1945 and ended in 1989. It was a war between the United States and the Soviet Union. This war took place right after WWII and it is called the cold war because there were no real battles such as with tanks and bombs.

Today, people seem blinded by their outsized enthusiasm for social media. According to them, a few clicks can change the whole world and accomplish wonders such as curing cancer. Good intentions become sufficient on their own, as if there were no need for medicine and scientific researches anymore. Well, this is pure nonsense. Facebook’s likes cannot save African children from starvation, the same way Twitter’s 140 characters will not put an end to acts of terrorism. This notion is not even remotely debatable. For instance, the project Kony2012 had a perfect starting point; inspiring video, moving story and most importantly worldwide spread. Unfortunately, the terrorist is still at liberty, and the lack of thorough investigations is to blame. Instead of focusing on the real problems of war and kidnapping of children, the so-called activist related to the obvious and spent all of his money and energy on his movie. Ultimately, due to the predominance of weak-ties, the project was not successful. More importantly, certain tools of social networks, especially “likes” and “retweets”, encourage people to feel good about themselves, when actually they should incite them to put their efforts and means in the cause they supposedly defend. As Gladwell wrote, “[current] activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that

Daisaku Ikeda, a spiritual leader for Japan once commented, ‘Japan learned from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that tragedy wrought by nuclear weapons must never be repeated and that humanity and nuclear weapons cannot coexist.’ The world has experienced the bombings of Japan, of Pearl Harbor and the conflict of the Cold War, but even with these conflicts present in our history, warning us of the effects, these meaning have not carried through into society today. Currently in the Middle East, we are witnessing the elements of a modern day cold war starting to appear. Israel and Iran have been in arguments and disagreements about nuclear weaponry since 2012. Their different religious view and ideologies has flourished into more than a religious tension but that of a modern day cold way.

Europe after the capitulation of Nazi Germany and the subsequent Allied victory in World War II was in ruins from years of fighting and bombing. Cities and infrastructure lay flattened and shortages of vital consumer products of food and fuel persisted across Europe. The economic situation of Europe was also in tatters; many countries suffered from severe inflation, debt, trade deficits, and depleted gold supplies. The United States having remained virtually untouched by the destruction had emerged from World War II stronger than ever before both an industrial economic, and military powerhouse. The Soviet Union though also suffering from the wounds of the war began to establish pro-Soviet communist governments in the Eastern European countries

Everyone should have the right to live a stable life with all the necessary essentials, which include food, shelter, and medical care. Unfortunately, not every individual in our world has access to either one or all of these essential life elements. In Peter Singer’s essay, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”, Singer emphasizes the importance of giving back to those who are less fortunate. Singer in particular claims that those who are affluent individuals should feel morally obligated to donate to humanitarian causes.

With the recent advent of social media we are now more aware to the plights of the less fortunate. Former Vice Provost of Duke University Cathy Davidson, author of the essay “Project Classroom Makeover”, discusses the rise of our interconnected society through the use of social media in her essay. In tandem with Davidson is Maggie Nelson, whose essay “Great to Watch” explores the violence that is so entrenched in our society. The advent of the internet created social media platforms for previously unheard of connection. Giving everyone an equal voice, this platform was prime for being used for activism. However it is not that simple, being an activist for human rights will expose a complex world of parallel and sometimes contradictory ideas. Well used is social media for activism, and for good purpose, it is the most powerful tool for exposing the oft overlooked humanitarian issues of our world.

Post World War II, both the United States and the Soviet Union were fearful of fighting each other directly from fear of nuclear weapons and mass destruction (D. Johnson, P. Murray). Instead, they fought each other by participating in wars on separate parts of the world. Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union constantly fluctuated due to both sides trying to influence political and economic developments around the world (D. Johnson, P. Murray).

Occasionally, a major disaster strikes people with whom the viewer in an industrialised country can personally identify without difficulty. Jonathan Benthall (1993) suggests that Western media can at times be preoccupied by the fate of a ‘single, identified person such as a boy who has fallen down a well in Italy, or examples such as hostages, hijack victims, or small children whose lives could be saved by expensive advanced surgery’ [p.196]. Although the literature on what motivates charitable giving is relatively sparse, a series of recent studies in decision psychology have produced some interesting findings that support Benthall’s statement. Small and Lowenstein (2007) conducted a field experiment that demonstrated when asked to contribute

The Cold War lasted from 1947 to 1991 and changed America completely. The United States broke away from isolationism and began participating in world politics through organizations such as NATO and the United Nations, as well as many other coalitions and alliances. The Cold War pitted the U.S. and the Soviet Union against each other in a bitter rivalry, and some even went on to say the United States and the Soviet Union were reorganizing the world into what some called “a new world order”. The policy of communist containment caused the U.S. to become entangled with the development of many nations around the world. While today the Cold War conflict has ended and considered by many as resolved, its legacy still has lasting

With the rapid growth of social media it is becoming very effortless to determine the type of characteristics someone holds based off of what they post and with whom they interact with. In Maria Konnikova’s The Limits Of Friendship, she furthers her readers knowledge about the use of social media and why it is important for organizations to have them. Generally, every person and organization obtain some form of a social media account that outlines what values they promote. Make A Wish Foundation is a very prominent worldwide organization which enhances the lives of sick children with serious conditions by giving them a wish. Looking over their twitter will give a great insight on how they enrich everyday lives by posting tweets and photos which also display the ambition and size of this organization which makes that possible. Make A Wish promotes giving happiness and a sense of life to an unfortunate child in an attempt to have its organizational values support it’s name.

The co-ordinated terrorist attacks induced fear in civilians within the zone of the attacks, many people were wounded and looking for shelter. However, through the use of the social networking website twitter, users began hash tagging ‘#PorteOuverte’ which translates to ‘door open’. Facebook also placed a ‘safety check’ on the website so that people who lived in france would be able to mark themselves as safe. Many users who used the hashtag #PorteOuverte were using the medium to speak out to people near the attacks and even posted their address in order for people to come for shelter. This shows that through social media, communication has increased and arguably improved social solidarity. However, this hashtag was also being used by people who were not living in Paris, offering their homes but by people who were touched by the kind acts shown among Parisians. This caused a difficulty as the hashtag began trending worldwide and would have caused more confusion, which illustrates that the modern medium of communication has faults which could have cost people their

Boos echoed throughout the streets of Harlem, New York in great waves of disapproval. Hippies holding up signs supporting peace, and posters opposing the Vietnam War, otherwise known as the Cold War, greeted the tired and injured soldiers. The familiarity of their hometown created a sense of peace and warmth, despite the angry cries of protest from the enraged nonconformists. As loved ones embraced their fighters, chants of outrage broke out from the hippies, and the soldiers, relieved to be home, wondered why they were being jeered at. In their eyes, they were fighting for what was right, just like the hippies and everybody else in the world. Many of the soldiers thought back to the times when they fought for their lives and surrendered themselves to the harsh world of mother nature, a profuse amount of them wondering, “Was this all worth it?”

The Cold War was an era in which nuclear power was just beginning to be used to its full potential. It was still a fresh, new idea that mankind had not yet learned how to completely harness. Due to that, there were many mistakes made that were detrimental to the environment and humans themselves. One such situation in which that occurred was in Greifswald, East Germany. A nuclear power plant was built in Greifswald to power the surrounding area. It provided East Germany with ten percent of its power. That power plant had many problematic occurrences. Greifswald, East Germany was changed in the events that took place while the nuclear power plant was operational due to the chemicals used and what happened as a result of the disasters.

Unintentionally, Invisible Children demonstrated “ Slactavism”, the act of supporting a cause by demonstrating social media engagement ( likes, retweets, shares) , assuming that if there is enough digital exposure Kony could captured and America could be Uganda’s saviour. Although this strategy may work for geographic based social issues ( Morozov, 2011) with global issues like Kony 2012, that dealt with ‘saving children’, too much western narrative was emphasized and with lack of

I will then discuss the role of social media during 3/11 and how the exchanging, combining of information and the finding of relief services each minimized precarity and established solidarity. In this section, I use information from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, a study on the functionality of social in the aftermath of the earthquake, and example tweets regarding relief services. Next, I will focus on the role of social media after 3/11, again analyzing how the exchanging, combining of information and the finding of relief services each minimized precarity and established solidarity differently than that of during it. To discuss social media role after 3/11, I will again used the United Nations as a source, in addition to the testimony of a writer from the popular newspaper Asahi Shimbun in Japan and a Bavarian writer’s research on the emotional effects of images in social