User:Cleo 1776

The social media campaign called #Mamming aims to encourage more women to seek regular mammogram screenings for breast cancer. #Mamming is the act of laying ones breasts on a surface in the same position that one would assume in order to take a mammogram, this act is then captured by a photo. The photo is then tagged by the word #Mamming, and uploaded to Instagram. . Similar in nature to the phenomena known as #planking, the act has become extremely popular over Instagram, especially during the month of October, which is breast cancer awareness month. #Mamming as a social media campaign was created by two women, one of whom is a breast cancer survivor. Their mission is to create a campaign that embraces “the awkwardness of mammograms”. The campaign is modeled to ease women's tensions of undergoing a mammogram, by creating an activity that employs humor and individuality. .

This campaign joins the massive effort of various groups, organizations and individuals to raise funds and awareness for breast cancer awareness and prevention. This effort has taken many different forms throughout North American society. The spread of #Mamming over Instagram serves as just one example of the increasing presence of breast cancer activism taking place over social media sites. Although Instagram has come relatively late to the growing social activism now taking place over social media, it has the potential to be politically powerful. Christina Rowley writes on the political power of visual images. Rowly states that the use of visual images has the ability to be more meaningful then text, due to the fact that the viewer constructs meaning as an active process of viewing the photo. . Therefore if a social movement, such as the #Mamming campaign, depicts their cause via a picture, the viewer of the picture will have an immediate response, which creates some sort of understanding and connection to the movement the very second the image is viewed. Moreover, since many #Mamming photos have the potential to be perceived as humorous, they may motivate the viewer to participate or at the very least, share the photo with other individuals, which helps  spread the campaign.

With the emergence of this campaign there has also been criticism. Mary Michelle Williams, writer for Salon.com, states that #Mamming might do more harm then good. In an interview with Jian Ghmoeshi for CBC’s Q Radio, Williams argued that #Mamming is the latest offensive installment in a long stemming trend of activities stated to promote breast cancer awareness that have negative implications. The proportional amount of public dialogue around breast cancer compared to any other forms of cancer instills the idea that out of all the other organs that are at risk of contracting cancer, female breasts are the most worthing of societies concern. For example, Williams points out that breast cancer makes up only 7% of all female cancer deaths, whereas lung cancer, which makes up 27% of female cancer deaths, receives very minimal public dialogue. Furthermore, the #Mamming campaign, along with other campaigns of a similar nature, have been critiqued for trivializing breast cancer. Critics, such as Williams, state that various breast cancer awareness campaigns, such as #Mamming, promote a “fun” way to make a difference. However, in reality nothing about this illness is fun, light hearted or humorous. And that this type of campaign suppresses the narrative of those women suffering from the decease.