More than a million viewers on social media might not know how to find tiny Lipscomb, Ala., but videos of a tense exchange and arrest of three teenage girls there have generated attention far beyond the small town’s border.

The videotaped arrests of girls, age 14, 18 and 19 on Aug. 31 were viewed more than a million times and spawned demands for more details, social media debate and dueling statements from city leaders and a lawyer for the teenagers.

The few minutes of security camera video and cell phone footage is the latest example of the power of social media to catapult a local issue to a national spotlight, said Paul Isom, a senior lecturer at North Carolina State University.

“They see something that resonates, and once a million people have seen it it’s a national or internation

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