Throughout history, the press has long been known for its didactic approach to educating and gaining supporters of a cause. Written by a select few, newspapers and news broadcasts have been inadvertently biased in their deliverance of current events. However, with this increasing rich pool of information coming from a network of authors, the internet has become the new portal to current events – throughout the world. Particularly, new media, such as blogging or “tweeting”, has had a shockingly profound and lasting effect on non-democratic countries around the world, setting a firm foundation for revolutions. It has introduced a world far more informational and accommodating, setting up a fundamental basis to spark revolutions around the world. New media allows a brief glimpse into democratic societies and cultures formerly unbeknownst to a people, triggering curiosity and anger strong enough to overcome even the most oppressive despot. Specifically, social networking is a powerful tool prevalently influencing peace building and influencing individuals to leverage resources such as Facebook, Tumblr, or Youtube to further prevent violence and promote peace among a nation.
For example, young protestors in Egypt successfully harnessed social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, to plan protests and gain supporters. This new realm of information allowed an estimated 20 million Egyptian internet users to distribute material and rally followers, thereby increasing probability that a movement would produce positive and permanent consequences. Moreover, YouTube was widely used to broadcast public demonstrations and shed light on the despicable militia violence. News networks brought massive attention to demonstrations of solida...
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.... Hopefully, with the addition of such tools and compromise, war can be replaced with negotiable conflict management, leaving countries with less genocide or economic depletion and encourage positive government reconstruction.
New media has certainly had wide influence over the actions of citizens in revolution, and allowed them to proceed with peaceful and harmonious intentions rather than destructive and vehement actions. If harnessed correctly, new media can allow for peaceful reconciliation between two opposing forces, and hold despotic governments accountable for their injustices. Although there are drawbacks to new media, there is much more to gain. With the ability to influence an entire generation of peoples, new media can provide a positive way to resolve conflict and eliminate tyranny and gender-specific, racial, homophobic and religious discrimination.
“Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted” by Malcolm Gladwell is an article published in the Annals of Innovation, by The New Yorker magazine. Gladwell starts with an example of true activism. He opens the article with a depiction of how the Greensboro sit-ins contributed to the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. Then the author supplies two examples of protests that have taken place in recent years that some people have said were started and organized on Twitter. He then goes on to clarify why Twitter was not a factor in these events and how media and government can distort certain truths about social media’s role in protests. The author continues the article by explaining why communication and relationships were more efficient before the era of social media and then compares social networking from the past and now. He uses this strategy to illustrate social media’s effect on how we interact and our commitment towards one another. Gladwell goes on to explain the organization of activist groups of the past and its
The article named “spring awakening” wrote by Jose Vargas describes the impact of social media in converting the mentality of young Egyptian generations into bold and defend their inalienable rights as a citizen. This article justifies how social media can mobilize a tremendous number of people to stand up for their rights. The reasons that inspire my emotion is emerging of “Wael Ghonim” as a legendary vocal figure of action for change, revelation of social media as earthquake for change, and fundamental soci-political change.
The internet is a place where people can freely express their political or other views for people to see. A recent study, Freedom of Net, by the activist group Freedom House shows both the immense censorship of information around the world and the declining freedom of information around the world, “Two-thirds of all internet users, 67 per cent, live in countries where criticism of the government, military, or ruling family are subject to censorship” (APF & Bell). The report by Freedom House digs into the censorship of government criticism, military criticism, and negative views on the ruling family in two thirds of countries studied in the report with governments around the world are silencing the voices of people and their publications. By censoring the people's voices, the governments are able to control the population and their views on not only their own government, but also countries around the world. Governments around the world are stepping up their censorship of public information posted on social media by taking actions to suppress the publications before they even begin. The report by Freedom House shares how police around the world are arresting and punishing those who have taken to social media to complain about a topic that makes the country look bad. The report states: “Social media users face unprecedented penalties, as authorities in 38 countries made
Throughout his book, Dobson mentions several examples of the effect of social media and mass media on dictatorship. For example, Dobson thoroughly talks about how a large group of people around the world quickly came together to protest against the dictatorship. This incident arose from “an anonymous call for a Chinese Jasmine Revolution…over social media and the Chinese equivalent of Twitter” (Dobson 50). Dobson later mentions that China’s senior leaders had a meeting on how they should control China’s mass and social media on the events happened in the Middle East, so that such incident would not occur in the future (50). This effect of social media and the ...
These tools are social media websites allowing individuals the quick spread of information with the literal touch of a button. There have been instances, such as the Twitter Revolution where activism spread via tweets. Although tweeting was prevalent in the United States, there has been much controversy over social media’s actual aid in activism in Iran (401). Gladwell brings in prominent blogger Golnaz Esfandiari to support his claim that the Twitter Revolution in actuality did not occur. Esfandiari writes, “’Through it all, no one seemed to wonder why people trying to coordinate protests in Iran would be writing in any language other than Farsi” (403). Majority of the tweets were in English and posted in the western hemisphere rather than Iran or southeast Asia. Gladwell emphasizes how social activism is occurring more often via social
Citizens around the world are drastically influenced by the media around them. Every day life is constantly changing because of the new trends on what is popular. As Ms. Susie Orbach stated “Social media […]
Howard, P. N., & Hussain, M. M. (2011). The role of digital media. Journal of Democracy, 22(3), 35-
Humans’ advancement in technology has developed greatly over the years. From child to adult, much of the population in the U.S. has access to the Internet. For many people, the Internet is used to connect socially through sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. But while individuals are using the Internet for a social stomping ground, many activists are using it to expand their cause. Technology can bring about small amounts of social change; however, high risk and traditional activism are still needed to fabricate large amounts of social change.
Dr. Bennett's chapter offers discussions surrounding worldwide growth of alternative media that is challenging the power concentration in large media corporations. As Professor of Communication and Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington, Bennett has presented lectures worldwide on the significance of media and rapid information systems in society. Through well researched argument, Bennett suggests that the distinction between information producers and consumers maybe becoming convoluted and how the empowerment offered by widely available networks of digital communication may possibly warrant an important adjustment to media hegemony theories. Labelling the internet as a "never-ending world-wide conversation"
Presently, two hundred million users send upward of 140 million messages per day, 140-character musings studded with misspellings, slang, and abbreviations. Moreover, it includes harsh truths, memes and also lies. But it has become the most important public sphere for a global, inclusive audience. Therefore, social media sphere like twitter that has often been discredited or not valued as real public engagement has actually transformed itself into the most global, inclusive public sphere where the public is able to engage — whether truthfully or not — and to become more aware and reflective. The public informs the state and especially in a situation where the public is as polarized as in the case of the 2016 American elections, social media especially twitter can be a tool by which the public can still engage with each other to be better
In 2011 an extraordinary wave of mass demonstrations swept all over the Middle East. Enormous mass mobilization toppled leaders in Tunisia and Egypt, helped spark bloody battle in Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, and Libya, and essentially reshaped the regime in the area. Social media got a lot of attention during the Arab uprising. Some studies gave the social media major credit for being platform for starting, guiding the civil revolutions, and playing a significant role in the uprisings. While other studies proved that social media did not deserve glorification. this article discuss the two views and try to analyze the facts in order to reach a satisfied conclusion for whether Arab spring needed the social media to spark it or not.
The digital unarmed strategies in Arab Spring are not the substitute to the physical actions and insurrections, yet they worked jointly with the traditional insurgency methods to reach greater audiences and appeal more public support. Social media is not the strategy that sparked or guaranteed the revolution, but it vitally contributed to the spread of movements.
Public discourse is necessary for the formation of ideas and shaping and modification of thinking. Social media loses the personal interaction and protects those creating statements which may eventually become integrated into law by avoiding confrontation and criticism. Therefore, according to Ott, “Twitter breeds dark, degrading, and dehumanizing discourse; it breeds vitriol and violence; in short, it breeds Donald Trump”. Public discourse changes based on the contribution of different views. However, social media can “produce a uniformed, uncritical, and irresponsible electorate”. According to Ott,“the Age of Twitter virtually guaranteed the rise of Trump”. Therefore, ideas reinforced through twitter can give rise to real world political consequences and changes in government policy. Moreover, the age of twitter makes it ever more difficult for marginalized communities to overcome algorithm barriers and limited access to the internet. “Search engines are not egalitarian. Algorithms.,. are gatekeepers to their message.” Causes which gain attention go viral while others are silenced. Additionally, anchoring people to a territory traditionally facilitated easier processes to deliver rights to a particular people. With the emergence of online social movements, allocating rights becomes increasingly more difficult. Furthermore, twitter is rapidly becoming the accepted as a principle source of news and is being treated as newsworthy by the mainstream media despite featuring false information. Therefore, this new form of discourse will have serious consequences or marginalized
In mere minutes, any active user can access information and associations regarding various causes, such as the riots happening in Egypt and the Middle East. Teenagers, in the Middle East, used their Facebook accounts to campaign the “Day of Rage” in Saudi Arabia. Helping to set the Arab riots in motion, the event demanded elections, freedom for women, and the liberation of political prisoners. The activists’ goals to bring democracy to Egypt and removing Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s fourth president from 1981 to 2011, still continue and perhaps with the assistance of Facebook they will accomplish these ambitions. The causes campaigned through Facebook have served as a fundraise...
The number of revolutions in the last 3 decades has increased, and seems to keep increasing. Civil unrest and protests brought many victims including civil and political figures throughout the world. In the era where technology is at the peak of its success, especially in communication technologies, mankind suffers from lack of communication. Problem is not caused by the technology itself, the problem is in human nature. I will continue with an analogy. Man invented the knife, which is very useful tool in our daily lives. The problem occurs when one thinks about the purposes that knife could be used. Story repeats itself with Newspapers and News Media. Technology improved the speed and the size that news can reach anywhere in couple of seconds. In a few seconds we can reach our friend at the other pole of the globe and receive pictures and live videos in response. We can send information, receive it and even create it in the artificial world. Life has become easier with technology. We can control our cell phones with voice command and reserve a table in the closest restaurant for dinner. Technology is everywhere in our lives, but if we think for a second the purposes we could use them for then the danger begins. In this short essay I will be talking about the struggle of mankind for freedom and the stages it went through. There are 3 parts to my paper. In the first part I will discuss the birth of World Wide Web and how the purpose of it went through changes. In the second part, I will be talking about birth of newspapers in the Web, precisely how it developed into an intermediate body that transfers information to people. Ultimately, I will discuss the Ukrainian revolution and the role of the news media in it and ho...