Teens use digital voice to drive gun-control debate after Florida school massacre

Teenagers use social media to build a national network of gun control activists.

David Hogg interviews fellow shooting massacre survivor Kelsey Friend outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Picture: AFP

Two days after 17 people died in the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, teenager David Hogg feared interest in the massacre was waning.

He trained a camera on fellow students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, began broadcasting live on Twitter’s Periscope app and asked them to describe life after the carnage. The segment drew more than 33,000 viewers, some chiming in with comments such as: “Keep speaking out. Be the change.”

“I started live-streaming so people could see, to reignite the interest,” said David, 17, who has become one of the most prominent gun-control activists since the February 14 shooting. “I was getting worried — like this is over, people do not care.”

The students at Stoneman Douglas are not like those who witnessed previous mass shootings at schools such as Columbine High School in 1999 or Virginia Tech in 2007. They’re digital natives, at one with the language and power of smartphones and social media. That is one reason the movement they started, dubbed #Never­Again, became a US phe­nomenon in a few days and shows signs of the kind of campaign success that a company or politician can only dream of.

In particular, they used Twitter to build a grassroots network of activists, leading to school walkouts around the US last week by students protesting gun violence.

They came up with a hashtag that has been picked up by celebrities around the world. They are tweeting directly at President Donald Trump and at their critics. They have made powerful speeches for gun control that have gone viral. The messages are expressed in genuine, teenage voices — alternating between lighthearted selfies and posts about how they are coping with trauma.

For many younger millennials, social media is woven into their daily routines as a way to communicate and express themselves. Even during the shooting, students instinctively took to social media to share photos and videos as they hid from the gunman in their classrooms, giving the US public a chillingly close-up view of the horrors of school shootings.

In four days, they raised $2.2 million ($2.8m) in an online fundraiser for a rally next month, and people like Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg have pledged millions more. At a CNN town hall, the students on national television confronted Republican senator Marco Rubio, who softened his position by saying he would support certain gun restrictions. They took buses to Tallahassee to meet with Republican Governor Rick Scott, who announced a series of proposals at the weekend, including a ban on the sale of firearms to people younger than 21.

That pressure has created a potential opening for the sort of significant legislative action, in Florida and in US congress, that proved elusive after previous mass shootings.

“One of their greatest sources of power is their facility with social media,” said Elizabeth Matto, a professor at Rutgers University who studies youth political participation. “These students in Florida are not just using social media to raise awareness, but they’re actually trying to influence the makeup of government.”

The movement reflects the new way young voters are asserting themselves in the democratic process to cut through traditional ­bureaucracies. Experts say millennials have been unreliable in turning out to vote, but they exceed babyboomers in population, potentially wielding great influence.

The day after the shooting, a small group of students at Stoneman Douglas gathered to grieve and decide how to respond. Cameron Kasky, 17, proposed using “Never Again” as a hashtag to project a short, clear message. The group created a Facebook page, Twitter handle and Instagram account. They set up a private chat group to plot strategy.

On social-media platforms, they urged the more than 3000 students at the school and people across the country to tweet #Never­Again at 3pm on February 16. The hashtag has been shared at least 500,000 times.

The next day, Emma Gonzalez, 18, made an impassioned speech at a gun-control rally in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a video that has been viewed millions of times on social media. Her Twitter following has grown to more than 360,000.

The students met at a house in the Parkland area that became their nerve centre, working on laptops on a kitchen counter. Many of them knew each other from the school’s drama or broadcast journalism programs — activities that honed their ability to speak publicly and passionately.

“We know how to use social media,” said Delaney Tarr, 17, an aspiring journalist. “We realise that so many movements, so many activists have gotten such large followings” with digital tools. But, she said, “I don’t think we expected it to blow up.”

Having seen the success of the Women’s March last year, they decided to organise a march on Washington on March 24. “We knew that we needed to do something big,” said theatre aficionado Alex Wind, 17. “If we didn’t, we would go out of the news.”

To build support, the group tried to respond personally to the offers of help that flooded in from students across the US. “We don’t want it to be a blanket response because that feels insincere,” said Ryan Deitsch, 18.

The students act like typical teenagers, which has encouraged people to engage with them. They share photos of themselves hanging out. They show how starstruck they get when celebrities offer support. They tweet about the challenges of organising a movement. “Its currently almost 1.30am and I’m working on a speech at the moment. I NEED LATE NIGHT INSPIRATION,” Sarah Chadwick, 16, wrote to 150,000 followers.

The students also used social media to engage elected officials and critics. David Hogg, an aspiring broadcast journalist, and his peers responded to conspiracy theorists who claimed he was a paid actor. His Twitter following now numbers more than 170,000.

Natasha Martinez, 17, a photographer for the school yearbook, started a chat group with her friends where they share online research on Florida’s gun laws and legislators’ positions. She said those chats spurred her to tweet about gun control, including a viral post about congress members who have received donations from the National Rifle Association.

She and her classmates also tweet directly at the President. In response to Mr Trump’s call for reflection on Presidents Day, she wrote: “Reflect? reflect on WHAT sir? that my community lost 17 bright innocent people?”

“Trump is so prominent on Twitter, and the students are climbing out onto that playing field and engaging in this hand-to-hand combat with their critics,” said Regina Lawrence, a University of Oregon professor who studies media and politics. “I don’t know if we’ve ever seen anything like that before.”

The Never Again activists have embraced traditional tactics as well. Some wanted to confront state legislators in person about gun-control measures. After they met Democratic state senator Lauren Book, she organised three buses to drive about 100 Stoneman Douglas students to Tallahassee, the state capital, last week.

The night before, they stayed at a civic centre in Tallahassee crowded with cots and sleeping bags. They stayed up most of the night writing speeches, discussing gun-control policy and researching legislators’ backgrounds. Senator Book and others counselled them on how to approach legislators on such a polarising topic.

“You cannot come in screaming and yelling,” Senator Book said she advised. “You have to have respectful discourse.”

On Wednesday, they broke into groups of 10 and held about 70 meetings with officials. Stoneman Douglas students also participated in a rally before the State Capitol that drew thousands.

Theatre student Diego Pfeiffer, 18, said he realised the importance of their lobbying efforts when one state senator paused in a meeting to grab a pad and take notes.

For the campaign to have lasting power, the group will need to come up with a concrete list of goals, such as getting a certain number of students registered to vote before November’s mid-term elections, said experts who study social movements. Stoneman Douglas students say some of their goals include lobbying legislators to pass more restrictive background checks on gun purchases.

Mr Kasky said Deena Katz, a leader of the Women’s March in Los Angeles, is helping the group recruit pro bono lawyers to form a non-profit deal with march permits and find a treasurer to allocate the millions of dollars they have received in donations.

The students are receiving messaging help from 42West, a marketing firm that typically handles public relations in the entertainment industry. Mr Kasky said the firm helped students with “what we wanted to say so that it wouldn’t come off as too offensive, so we wouldn’t get into trouble”.

The group plans to smash unloaded AR-15 rifles with a sledgehammer at the March 24 rally and squat in front of the White House for 17 minutes to honour the 17 victims. But they also are preparing to return to school this week.

“It’s surreal,” Mr Pfeiffer said. “It doesn’t feel like I’m a teenager any more.”

The Wall Street Journal