Facebook Link

Below is a link to my newly created Facebook page. Thank you all in advance for your support!

https://www.facebook.com/supportforchurgstrauss

Facebook Campaign

  Facebook campaign: "Support for Churg-Strauss"

With an average of only two people per million diagnosed a year Churg-Strauss or “eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis”, is an extremely rare, uncomfortable, and potentially life threatening disease... without any known cure.

 Never heard of it? 

Neither had I until someone very close to me was diagnosed. This inspired my Facebook campaign idea. I hope to gain awareness, track the progress of potential breakthroughs and post advice or resources for anyone also dealing with the disease.

Mission statement:

Churg-Strauss syndrome is an uncommon disease that deals with the inflammation within blood vessel walls, and it currently has no cure. “Support for Churg-Strauss” is an outreach page dedicated to raising awareness to this rare issue. By providing information, highlighting resources, and tracking updates on potential breakthroughs we hope to make this issue better known to the public.  Effectively uniting anyone who is interested in the cause. 

Personas

Persona #1) Stephen is a 42 year old man, a little under 6 months ago he began deal with severe issues pertaining to his sinuses and asthma. Finally after giving in and going to a doctor, he was diagnosed with Churg-Strauss syndrome. Stephen now is browsing the internet for information and resources so he can better understand this rare issue. 

Persona #2) Lacy and Travis are young parents with a 6 year old son who was diagnosed with Churg-strauss. They have exhausted all of the resources they could find, but hope to track any developments pertaining to finding a cure. Even more so they hope to find someone else impacted by this syndrome to talk to their son. They feel having someone who is also dealing with the syndrome would be great for their son to ask questions and see, that with proper care, it is a manageable disease. 

Persona #3) Sarah is a 24 year old who spends a lot of her time on Internet, especially facebook. Always looking for new stories to read she always finds her way to interesting articles on the internet. She also browses the articles her friends posts of Facebook. Through this she has become aware of several organizations and been a part of several volunteer projects that have happened throughout her community.  

No media, No voice? The unfair coverage of terror in the media.

Acts of terror as seen recently in Paris seem to rock the world. Though as stories like this flood the media, it seems to create extensive doors to the topic of terrorist groups and what can be done. It even unties thousands of people from several countries as all reach out in aide, and rightfully so.

However, while attacks like the one on Charlie Hebdo become known hours or even minutes after it happened, there are hundreds of attacks that never even get noticed. Thus, it is becoming clearer that more attention needs to be paid to the severely unbalanced reporting done on terrorist attacks.

A tragic example of this comes from the recent gruesome attacks in Baga by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram. These attacks went unnoticed even to me until I was alerted to a story covered by Brooke Gladstone. Even the Nigerian government, who reached out to Paris remained silent on the horror inside their own country. This seems to be a tragic but perfect example of gatekeeping the media. What is presented on National news about this issue is being kept from putting forth the whole story, or as stated before with the Nigerian government’s silence, putting forth the story at all.

Another good point that came up in the interview was that these depictions of terror are not even really considered news anymore. One reason Charlie Hebdo garnered so much attention was that acts of terror are not prominent in Paris. Yet attacks in war stricken areas such as Baga are almost commonplace, thus not even considered a new story to report. With so much to report inside of war torn areas like this, people are too desensitized to the idea of violence and terror regardless if it cost more lives than in those lost in attacks in less common areas, like Paris. This is the main problem that needs to be addressed in media coverage on terror. Keeping the information out of the mainstream media because it happens too often seems like an even better reason to encourage more coverage. This way the public can become more informed of the frequent acts of terror, and those impacted by it can be heard. Then, possibly aide or actions to stop can begin.

Media coverage leads to not just news websites but rocks social media, the attacks of Charlie Hebdo created two hash tags on twitter that spread the word and support about the attacks like wildfire. Yet there is no social media movement to show support or promote awareness to the attacks in Nigeria. This could be partly due to the digital divide, where those directly impacted to not have the means to connect to the digital world and spread information first hand. This is another aspect we should be paying attention to, not only that attention is not being paid to these areas stricken by terror, but those living in it have no way to connect to the world that’s outside their door.

Gladstone interviews a reporter named Alexis Okeowo, and she mentions:

The story itself is incredibly dark and depressing and it takes a toll on you because you are reporting about the situation that never seems to get better, that seems to be continually ignored by people who could make it better, the Nigerian government, and so it feels really hopeless.

Clearly, if the Nigerian government refuses to help this issue, it’s clear that media coverage in several forms needs to be altered from the mindset “It’s too common to be real news”, to “It happens to often, we need to help make a change”.  This way people can become truly informed of acts of terror. Yet not only that, but to also give all of those affected by it a voice.