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BlogComm
COMM 3030 - Communication and Social Responsibility
Missing: Writing and Social Responsibility
Posted posted by HeidiH @ 12:29 PM
Writing is one of the oldest tools for social responsibility. In my freshman LEAP class we looked at the writings of Benjamin Franklin, Fredrick Douglas, and Wilma Mankiller. All three lived in different time periods and had different issues to face. But all three writers had something important to say. All three experienced injustice they had to stand up against. There was a need to move others to support their cause. Whether their cause was opposing tyranny, slavery, or in Wilma Mankiller’s case governmental abuse of Native American citizens in the 60s-80s; all three used writing as a tool for change.Before the invention of mass media-internet, podcasts, television, radio-humans used narrative and writing to communicate with each other. Writing is one of the oldest ways to effectively and clearly communicate an idea. The influence of writing is not limited only to the author’s lifetime, but has the ability to influence the generations that follow.
Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics,” Machevelli’s “The Prince,” Martin Luther’s “Ninety-five Theses,” Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” Anne Frank’s “Diary of a Young Girl,” Harriet Beacher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” Eli Wiesel’s “Night,” the Koran, the Gita, the Bible are just a few of countless examples of the power of writing for social responsibility to have impact on our world. We continue to be influenced by writing long after the writer is gone.
The impact of today’s writing has changed. Countless opinions, ideas, facts, and questions are thrown at us everyday. Causes, such as Wilma Mankiller’s continuing fight for the rights of Native Americans, are overlooked in favor of flashy pop culture headlines. Voices are lost. We’re missing the writing that needs to be read.
