Submitted by

Shruti parate

2nd semister

ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) is known as MND (motor neurone disease) in Australia.

On 10 August the Ice Bucket Challenge reached Australian shores when Rod Harris, CEO of MND Victoria was nominated to complete the challenge by Rachel Patterson of the International Alliance of ALS/MND Associations.

Since this first Australian drenching, staff members from MND Australia and the state MND associations as well as MND researchers and members of the MND community have taken up the icy challenge.

In Australia the Ice Bucket Challenge started to gain widespread publicity when Hamish McLachlan, host of Channel 7's Game Day completed the challenge on live to air TV.

IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO TAKE A DRENCHING FOR MND. THE ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE RULESMandatory:1. Fill a bucket (or larger container) with water and ice

2. Tip it over your head3. Challenge three other people to take the Ice Bucket Challenge within 48 hours4. If nominees don't take the Ice Bucket Challenge within 48 hours they make a donation to an MND charity.

2. Of course you can take the challenge AND make a donation and ask the people you nominate to do the same!Optional:1. Add your own personal touch by using a helicopter like Paul Bissonnette or creating aice bucket tipper like Bill Gates.2. Post your video/photos on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. Use the hashtags #icebucketchallenge and #MND.3. Post your video/photo on MND Australia's Facebook timeline or use @mndaustraliaon Twitter.2. Make a donation as well as taking the challenge like Taylor Swift.3. Make a donation for each of your nominees who complete the challenge like Kevin Russo.

HOW TO GET INVOLVED

Take the Ice Bucket Challenge and challenge your friends and family to do the same.

Help support people living with MND and MND research

MND Australia, the MND Research Institute of Australia and state MND associations

can only continue thanks to the generous support of donors. We really on donations

for research and to provide information, awareness, advocacy and care for people

living with MND. Donations of $2 and over are tax deductable.

Using the Ice Bucket Challenge to raise awareness of MND

Remember, the Ice Bucket Challenge is all about raising awareness, so don't forget to

mention MND and share with your friends and followers! Below are some facts that

you might like to include in your video.

FACTS ABOUT MND

MND is a progressive, terminal neurological disease

There is no known cure and no effective treatment for MND

Each day in Australia two people die from MND

Each day in Australia two people are diagnosed with MND

People with MND progressively lose the use of their limbs and ability to speak, swallow and breathe, whilst their mind and senses usually remain intact

Average life expectancy is 27 months

An estimated 1,900 people have MND in Australia

For every person diagnosed with MND it is estimated that a further 14 members of their family and their friends will live with the effect of MND forever

WHO HAS TAKEN THE CHALLENGE?FamousJust some of the famous people who have been ice bucketed: Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook Challenging Bill Gates

Bill Gates

Ophray Winfrey

Justin Timberlake challenging Jimmy Fallon

Jimmy Fallon challenging the New York Jets

Conan O’Brien

Andy Murray

NHL Player Paul Bissonnette

Eddie Redmayne and Jamie Dornan

How much has the ice bucket challenge achieved?

The media is reaching saturation point in its coverage of the ice bucket challenge. But what has actually been achieved?

The format is simple - somebody has water, often full of ice cubes, dumped over their head. They then nominate people they know to undertake the same challenge.

There have been in excess of 2.4 million ice bucket-related videos posted on Facebook, and 28 million people have uploaded, commented on or liked ice bucket-related posts.

On image sharing website Instagram there have been 3.7 million videos uploaded with the hashtags #ALSicebucketchallenge and #icebucketchallenge. Justin Bieber's has been the most popular - with about one million "likes".

The stunt is typically intended to raise money and awareness for the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Association. Its British equivalent, the Motor Neurone Disease Association, has also benefited.

From 29 July to 28 August this year ALS received $98.2m - compared with $2.7m donated during the same period last year.

Pre-ice bucket, the MND Association would receive on average £200,000 a week in donations. From 22 to 29 August, it received £2.7m.

In the UK, other charities have benefited with Macmillan Cancer Support raising £3m from challenges. Water Aid has seen a spike in donations, including £47,000 in one day -50% higher than it ever received in a single day before. The money came in part from people bemoaning the water wasted in the challenges.

But the other purpose of the campaign has been in raising awareness.

"Do you think Anna Wintour, Kate Moss and Victoria Beckham were talking about ALS a few months ago? No, I very much doubt it," says Shannon Murray, an actor, writer and

disability rights campaigner.

"It's been very celebrity-orientated and it plays into our culture of putting everything about ourselves out there on social media. Some people have chosen to do it in a bikini, some have chosen white T-shirts, some people have obviously done it to raise their profile and that's up to them. Personally it makes me a bit uncomfortable, but actually the bottom line is that people weren't talking about MND two months ago, and now they are."

A crude measurement can be found in Google searches. Searches for both ALS and Lou Gehrig's Disease, an alternative name in the US, rose sharply from 13 August to a peak on 21 August. Since then they have been declining. The term MND rose sharply from 20 August, reaching a peak on 26 August.

From 1 August to 27 August this year, the ALS Wikipedia page had 2,717,754 views. This compared with the 1,662,842 people who had visited the page during the whole of the preceding 12 months, according to data company Dataviz.

Average daily visits to the ALS association website were about 17,500 before the ice bucket challenge, compared with the peak of 4.5 million visits on 20 August (of which 83% were new to the site). During the past month there have been about 30 million visitors in total.

Average daily website visits to the MND association have risen from 1,400 to 153,000 on its biggest day - 26 August.

And as of 29 August the ice bucket challenge had 4,483,726 Twitter mentions. ALS Twitter followers had increased from 8,975 in early July to 21,100, while MND had over 6,000 new followers.

So it's probably safe to say that awareness has been increased.

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)

Also known as motor neurone disease, and - in the US - Lou Gehrig's disease, after famous baseball player who was thought to have died from the disease

Rare condition where parts of the nervous system become damaged, causing progressive weakness, usually with muscle wasting

Occurs when specialist nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord called motor neurones stop working properly; as condition progresses, sufferers find basic activities such as walking, speaking, swallowing and breathing increasingly difficult to do

Life expectancy for about half of those with ALS is three to four years from start of diagnosis, but some can live 10 years or longer - Prof Stephen Hawking (pictured) has had ALS for 51 years

But there has been cynicism, particularly about the fundraising element. It's been pointed out that just one cause is benefiting for the most part.And some argue that donations from ordinary people may result in them reducing their giving to other causes.

In other words, our mental budget for charity is finite.

And not everyone donates. In several versions of the challenge, if someone goes under the ice bucket they do not have to donate. Or they make a lesser donation if the challenge is accepted, and the full $100 only if they refuse the challenge, as Barack Obama and some others have.

And what about the millionaires and even billionaires who have been at the forefront of the craze? Should Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates - who all have wealth measured in the billions - still be giving just $100. They have in most cases not made public their donations. Charlie Sheen is a notable example of a celebrity who has - he donated $10,000.

There has been criticism. Daily Telegraph journalist Willard Foxton described the challenge as "a middle-class wet T-shirt contest for armchair clicktivists". Bloomberg writer Leonid Bershidsky called it a "narcissist's bonanza".

But while the nature of the celebrity involvement can sometimes lead to raised eyebrows, most have not questioned the wider merits of the cause.

MND for 10 years now and for anyone affected by this disease the ice bucket challenge has been the most wonderful phenomenon," says Euan MacDonald, the founder of Euan's Guide, a website that features information and reviews about disabled access around the UK.

"It is rare for MND to get this much support and I can only be grateful to those who have taken part. Selfies and social media being used for charitable causes are no bad thing. It is worth looking at the ends not the means and for people facing this brutal disease it has given a bit more hope and a spring in our step."

It has comfortably been the quickest spreading charity phenomenon on social media. That spread has been so quick that finding the genesis of the challenge is not easy.

Some believe it grew out of a similar "Cold Water Challenge" in North America from last year. And it has been widely reported that a golfer in Florida was the first to undertake the challenge and link it to ALS, on 15 July this year. On 12 August Justin Timberlake's challenge appears to have been a major driver.

"No one at ALS or MND sat down and planned this, it wasn't their idea, it's something that has happened to them because of social media and the internet", says Joe Saxton, director of not for profit communications company Nfpsynergy and the former chair of the Institute of Fundraising.

"Social media is extraordinarily powerful for charities but it's not something they can particularly control - campaigns like this are always a bonus."

It's not without precedent in the organic nature of its growth.

In March, #nomakeupselfie saw women posting barefaced pictures of themselves online while also donating to charity. Cancer Research UK, which did not start the campaign, raised £8m in six days and had 221,488 mentions on Twitter.

"Social media is about friends talking to friends," adds Saxton. "It's become a really important part of running a charity and fundraising.

"Not everyone is going to donate - that's a shame. Not everyone who did donate will donate again, that's to be expected. But the huge amount of extra money and publicity means it's the charities that are benefiting."

The ice bucket challenge may soon have run its course, but the lesson it provides about the nature of 21st Century charity will live on.

the ALS Association, to research the motor neurone disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. In Britain, the money goes to Macmillan Cancer Support.

HistoryOrigins

The origins of the idea of dumping cold water on one's head TO RAISE MONEY for

charity are unclear and have been attributed to multiple sources.[

The most commonly accepted origin credits Pete Frates, a Boston College student who was diagnosed with ALS in March 2012.

Pat Quinn, a friend of Frates who was diagnosed with ALS in 2013, is also credited with creating the challenge

From mid-2013 to early 2014, a challenge of unknown origin often called the "Cold Water Challenge" became popular on social media in areas of the Northern United States.

The task usually involved the option of either donating money to cancer research or having to jump into cold water.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Ice Bucket Challenge was begun by professional golfers as means to support various pet charities.

One version of the challenge, which took place in Salem, Indiana as early as May 15, 2014, involved dousing participants with cold water and then donating to a charity, for example a local child diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.

In another version, the Auckland Division of the Cancer Society of New Zealand was the beneficiary. As with similar challenges, it was usually filmed so footage can be shared online.

The National Fallen Firefighters Foundation popularized the "Cold Water Challenge" in early 2014 to raise funds as an unsanctioned spin-off of the polar plunge most widely used by Special Olympics as a fundraiser.

On May 20, 2014, the Washington Township, New Jersey fire department posted a video on YouTube participating in the "Cold Water Challenge" with fire hoses. Participating members of the department were subsequently punished for using fire department equipment without permission.

Shifting focus to ALS

The challenge first received increased the media attention in the United States on June 30, 2014, when personalities of the program Morning Drive, which airs weekdays on Golf Channel, televised the social-media phenomenon, and performed a live, on-air Ice Bucket Challenge.

Soon after, the challenge was brought to mainstream audiences when television anchor Matt Lauer did the Ice Bucket Challenge on July 15, 2014 on NBC's The Today Show atGreg Norman's challenge.

On the same day, golfer Chris Kennedy did the challenge, then challenged his cousin Jeanette Senerchia of Pelham, New York, whose husband, Anthony, had ALS for 11 years.

Kennedy's challenge was the first documented instance of the challenge being connected with ALS

At this time, the challenge was not connected directly with ALS.[23]Participants would donate to a charity of their choice.[23]

The Challenge's success The Ice Bucket Challenge has been a successful campaign. Its combination of

competitiveness, social media narcissism, and low barriers to entry have led to more than 2.4 million tagged videos circulating Facebook.

Even though 40-50% of the new donors are likely to make one-time gifts only

the Challenge instigated large numbers of people, videos, and donations. The challenge also benefits from a unique balance of mass interest and individual identification

In using social media as its platform, it accessed many people worldwide; in having its participants individually identify potential candidates – calling them out by “tagging” them – it felt personal.

Furthermore, the videos are often entertaining. Some celebrities have indulged in longer videos to name-drop, show off their vacations, their homes, their humility, and some even advocate for their own organizations.

Impact In mid-2014, the Ice Bucket Challenge went viral on social media, particularly in the

United States, with people, celebrities, politicians and athletes posting videos of themselves online and on TV participating in the event.

According to The New York Times, people shared more than 1.2 million videos on Facebook between June 1 and August 13 and mentioned the phenomenon more than 2.2 million times on Twitter between July 29 and August 17.

Prior to the challenge, public awareness of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) was relatively limited; the ALS Association stated that prior to the challenge going viral only half of Americans had heard of the disease, often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's disease", after the famous baseball player Lou Gehrig, who publicly revealed his diagnosis in 1939

After the Ice Bucket Challenge went viral on social media, public awareness and charitable donations to ALS charities soared. Hits to the English Wikipedia's article on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis grew from an average of 163,300 views per month to 2.89 million views in August 2014, and similar increases occurred in the Spanish and GermanWikipedias.

Within weeks of the challenge going viral, The New York Times reported that the ALS Association had received $41.8 million in donations from July 29 until August 21. More than 739,000 new donors have given money to the association, which is more than double the $19.4 million the association received during the year that ended January 31, 2013.

On August 29, the ALS Association announced that their total donations since July 29 had exceeded $100 million.[50] The ALS Association is just one of several ALS-related charities that have benefited from the challenge:

OrganizationAdditional funding

reported

ALS Association $100m

Motor Neurone Disease Association £7m

ALS Therapy Development Institute $3m

ALS Foundation Netherlands €1m

Project ALS $500k

While the Ice Bucket Challenge has raised much in donations, studies show that the majority of participants do not actually donate

In the UK, one in every six people has participated, but only ten percent of the participants have donated, according to the Charities Aid Foundation.

The percentage is higher in the US, but the majority still do not donate.

Several other challenges have been created and publicised as a result of the publicity of the Ice Bucket Challenge.

The My Tree Challenge is an activity launched in Kerala which consists of planting a tree sapling and challenging others to do so.

The My Tree Challenge was preceded by a Book List Challenge, started by Facebook users, where users post a list of books that they have read and liked the most.

The Rice Bucket Challenge, that started in India in late August 2014 and later spread to other South Asian nations, was also partly a response to the Ice Bucket Challenge's wastefulness of water.

The "Pie In The Eye Challenge" challenges the nominated person to receive a pie in the face. The Rubble Bucket Challenge, started by Jordanian comedian Mohammed Darwaza, involves dumping a bucket of sand and rocks over one's head.

This challenge was further popularised by Palestinian journalist Aymal al Aloul, and aims to increase awareness of Gazans who have lost their homes in the ongoing conflict with Israel.

The Love Bucket Challenge, started by Kerala newspaper MalayalaManorama encourages people to fill a bucket with items to donate to orphanages.

The Kaapi Challenge uses coffee, and is a challenge done primarily by the Chennai Super Kings to commemorate the 375th anniversary of the city of Chennai.

Criticism

A number of criticisms have arisen relating to the campaign, accusing it of being self-congratulatory

focusing primarily on fun rather than donating money to charity, and substituting a trivial activity for more genuine involvement in charitable activities.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Willard Foxton described the challenge as "a middle-class wet T-shirt contest for armchair clicktivists",and the Evening Standard Magazine said that "it has become less about raising funds and all about showing off your star-pulling power".

On August 28, 2014, it was reported that the ALS Association had filed an application to trademark the term "ice bucket challenge".However, it was retracted amid criticism a day later.

Importance of the cause

William MacAskill, Vice-President of Giving What We Can, an organization that advocates for people to engage in more effective altruism, was critical of the Ice Bucket Challenge, citing two chief objections.

First, he argued that the Ice Bucket Challenge resulted in "funding cannibalism": "for every $1 we raise, 50¢ would have been donated anyway"

Relatedly, MacAskill argued that the challenge encouraged moral licensing, whereby people who engage in one act they consider good may feel more licensed to engage in bad behavior.

MacAskill's piece met with considerable critical pushback, and he published a follow-up a few days later suggesting an Ice Bucket Challenge for causes he considered more important and cost-effective to support.

Citing research from GiveWell, MacAskill gave the example of donating to the Against Malaria Foundation to endmalaria.

Belluz noted that funding for diseases was often not proportional to the number of deaths caused by the diseases.

She also noted that donating to developing world health causes could provide much greater healthcare value than donating for the treatment of rare diseases, an observation that is common in the effective altruism movement.

In the BBC's More or Less podcast, economist Tim Harford discussed the Ice Bucket Challenge and how to select the best charities, referencing work by GiveWell

He himself participated in the Ice Bucket Challenge, donating to the SchistosomiasisControl Initiative

Use of donated funds

Retired professional wrestler Lance Storm declined the challenge despite being nominated twice, and posted a note on his official website stating that most of the money that is donated goes towards promotional and advertising of the ALS Association while the remaining amount (at most 25% of what is donated) "is going into the pockets of Big Pharma", which is already doing ALS research and is therefore inflating their already-high profits

Storm went on to comment that it would be better to actually help someone with ALS and donate money directly to ALS patients

The ALS Association responded to similar criticisms by saying that 79% of their annual budget went toward programs in the past year.

Members of the pro-life movement, such as Lila Rose of Live Action, criticised donations to the ALS Association, because it uses embryonic stem cells in its ALS research.

Related organisations such as the Family Research Council suggested that people participating in the Ice Bucket Challenge instead donate money to Midwest Stem Cell Therapy Center, Mayo Clinic, and the John Paul II Medical Research Institute, all three of which run clinical trials with adult stem cells, rather than embryonic ones.

The Archdiocese of Cincinnati, with its 113 schools also recommended individuals participating in the Ice Bucket Challenge to donate to such groups, but not to the ALS Association "saying the group's funding of embryonic stem cell research is 'in direct conflict with Catholic teaching'."

PETA criticized the ALS Association’s Ice Bucket Challenge, saying that money raised through the fundraiser would be used to fund “archaic and painful tests on animals.”

among other celebrities, also criticized the ALS Association’s fundraiser for its support of animal testing

Health risks

On August 22, 2014, Dr. Brian O'Neill, a physician at the Detroit Medical Center, warned that the challenge may have adverse health effects on participants, including potentially inducing a vagal response which might, for example, lead to unconsciousness in people taking blood pressure medications.

A number of participants have sustained injuries, and at least two deaths have been linked to the challenge, with another thought to be from a variation on the challenge, jumping feet first into water

Misuse of water

Criticism has also targeted the waste of water, especially in California, due to that region's ongoing drought.

Sexuality in the Challenge

Social media, as inherently self-advertising, encourages the videos in the Ice Bucket Challenge to have a performance-like quality.

Celebrities and average citizens alike have increased their personal takes' popularity by doing the challenge in interesting locations, with comical props, or in some cases, in skimpy clothing.

There are several lists of "The Sexiest Ice Bucket Challenges"and comparisons between it and wet T-shirt contests.

Focus on the stunt rather than donations

American stunt performer and TV personality Steve-O questioned the campaign, suggesting that celebrities' videos generally forgot to share donation information for ALS charities, and that the initial $15 million in funds was insignificant, given the star power of the celebrities participating.

He noted that, of the videos he viewed, only Charlie Sheenand Bill Gates mentioned that the point is to donate money. A similar criticism was made by Jacob Davidson in Time Magazine and by Arielle Pardes in Vice.