Topic

Topic overview

Robinson Meyer’s article, “The Righteous Anger of the Parkland Shooting’s Teen Survivors” explores political activism among adolescents in the context of mass shootings and gun control issues in the US.

Consequently, the main topics of the article are political activism and gun control in the US.

Political activism among teens

Political activism refers to taking actions to support a political or social cause. These actions can include protests, boycotts, strikes, and raising awareness using conventional media or social media.

Meyer’s article looks at how teenagers are becoming activists for gun control. To explore this topic, the writer uses a recent event – the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school. His piece analyses how the survivors of the shooting reacted to the events by using social media to advocate for introducing stricter gun control laws in the US: “Tweets that were widely reported as coming from the students expressed grief for the victims, pushed against false reports, and demanded accountability.” (ll. 6-8)

Meyer includes various tweets in his article, in which teens argue that lack of gun control leads to such deadly events, and in which they respond to politicians and hold them accountable for not solving these issues.

The writer goes on to explain how today’s teenagers grew up with social media and saw how it was used for political goals: “The current cohort came to heightened political awareness during the 2016 election, meaning they have watched the logic of Twitter absorb the presidency while adopting and adjusting the language of Twitter – and Snapchat and Instagram – for themselves” (ll. 35-37). In other words, today’s teens are aware of the power social media has and know how to use it. As a result, when the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High were the victims of a tragedy, they immediately used social media to raise awareness about the cause of the mass shootings: “Their lives have been drenched in media, and they have made much of that media themselves. They are used to telling their story. And when their story suffered a catastrophe, they told it” (ll. 39-40).

The writer presents the case of the Parkland shooting as a unique event, because this was the first time th...