This week’s readings got me thinking about the different results you get from pressuring different actors. In the readings we have seen various examples of successes and also failures to organize and make change. The 21st centuries way of activism differs a lot from the traditional way of activism and one of the reasons is because of the tools we use to spread information and organize around certain issues.
Both Bennett and Juris highlights that the new for of activism and especially global activism has come as a result of the economic globalization and as a response to the neo-liberal capitalist market where the multinational and transnational corporations has got much more influence today.
One of the successes mentioned is the protest against corporate globalization at the World Trade Organization in Seattle where 50,000 people attended on November 30th 1999. The diverse coalition of environmental, labor and economic justice activists came together and succeeded to shut down the meetings. This was the start of the new form of global activism and quickly after the “battle of Seattle” people started to create decentralized all-channel forums. These mechanisms was to generate physical and virtual communication and communication in real time among diverse movements, groups and collectives. If we move a little bit ahead we will see where we stand today when it comes to global activism especially in regards to the internet and what makes it so unique. First of all the organization is decentralized which means that anyone can join and that the information exchange is relatively open.
In contrast to the success in the case mentioned there has been a social movement in Iran called the “Green revolution” where the public sphere got together and used twitter to form actions and spread knowledge and information on what happened during and after the election in 2009. People in Iran used twitter to try to organize the civil society for different protests and actions. What happened here was that the totalitarian government reacted to this movement in different ways, they put up fake websites with misinformation and the also monitored the planned protests and in that way scared people to take action. In other words, they let the people vent what they want and then they crack them down. But what happened was that the United States picked up on all of these tweets and the external attention made the “twitter-movement” become much bigger than it actually was. There were news coverage and the civil society in the US lobbied Twitter to keep it open so that the people in Iran were not troubled in any way. So in conclusion there was a movement that was closely monitored by the government and therefore it did not get the same effects as the “battle of Seattle” and another problem was that the connection/flow between the different nodes was not transmitting the same information.
What we can take from this is that global activism even though it works in the same way even though the matter is different it depends a lot on who you are direction it to and also the information flow between the different nodes.
I think that you can also tie your post into some things that I mentioned in my post as well. In terms of what makes a revolution successful or not, it all depends on the factors surrounding the use of these technologies and not just the act of using them alone. I think that it's interesting to look at your examples and others included in the readings and see what kinds of environments these technologies were used in and how that made a difference in the outcome.
ReplyDeleteIn the Battle for Seattle example, the use of the technology was proven useful for its coordinating purposes, there was a mass-decentralization in the environment, and there were no government restrictions because of the democratic processes of the US. People also found the technologies to be useful for that specific situation, and therefore many people came together through it.
Compare this to your example of the Green Revolution in Iran. In this example the use of Twitter and other technologies occurred within an authoritarian regime. There were factors such as Internet blockages, government surveillance, and restrictions on the ground for reporters and citizens' use of cell phones in rallies to name a few. This placed great strain on the effectiveness of the medium, and ultimately, it was not successful, nor much of a revolution at all.
It is really important to see these technologies as not just sudden fixes to a problem. They are ultimately just another tool.
What do you think about the role of film in global activism? Do you think they are more effective at spreading information in global activism than mobile phones? There are a lot of new organizations that use citizen generated or NGO generated media as a means of disintermediation of mass media. But I think that, like mobile phones, governments are going to find new ways to tap into the information flows. I wonder how the ritual of video technology is going to change as the medium evolves.
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