Benjamin von Duyke
For the environmental movement, a website is a way to mobilize supporters and to deliver information. The Internet is an extremely useful tool for ensuring that the environment is maintained and that businesses operate ethically. Movements against the Dakota access pipeline were organized through internet activism and BP was held responsible for multiple spills using Twitter and websites focused on environmental advocacy. On many environmentalist organizations webpages, they speak out for not only environmental activism, but political activism, encouraging voters to support the politicians who support the environment and to oust Donald Trump and his climate change denying cabinet. These movements use photographs to show how companies misuse public lands and to show images of protestors mobilizing and affecting change.
For my own website, I will be using images and videos for two distinct purposes. The first will be to show the natural beauty of the United States and the areas within which we must protect and defend. This will encourage people to act as proper stewards for the natural beauty we all share. The second use of videos and images will be to show people the consequences which arise when regulations are loosened or become lax, and to reveal how private interest group can abuse our shared Earth when left unchecked. These two purposes act to show what we have to gain from the protection of the natural American environment, and how people and the Earth at large suffer when we fail to regulate businesses.
I would also like to incorporate poetry as a medium in my website. I think that poetry is inextricably linked to the American Environmental movement. In my opinion, American Transcendentalism is one of the most important artistic movements in America and its writers chose to capture the natural beauty of the American landscape through lyrical lenses.