Protests of a Different Kind
This week the issues revolving around the networks and micro politics within social organisations were raised. The collaboration between communities and new media entities is extending cultural awareness and social movements.
The fact that communities are greatly impacted and reliant on new media is no longer a disputable claim. Without new media social organizations and movements would not be nearly as effective or influential. A recent example of this is the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York City. This movement spread rapidly through the use of social media. The corresponding media exposure that the social media ensured enabled the message to be heard throughout the world and resonated with people from all walks of life.
As expressed in the Coalition of the Willing (2010) blog protests have changed with the introduction of new technologies. As the current generation of protesters i.e. Generation Y, have grown up in a technologically saturated world, their techniques of staging a protest and getting their view across has developed.
The Coalition of the Willing’s (2010) video shows an example of how a revolutionary protest in the 1960’s differs from the modern day movements. These former protests were arrange and executed at a specific time and place whereas modern protests are able to take place simultaneously across the globe with people from all walks of life participating. (Manning, E, 2009). Manning (2009) suggests that the current form of protesting which aim is “shattering the status quo” (Coalition of the Willing, 2010) is much more effective then content driven political movements.
The human megaphone was employed in the Occupy Wall Street marches were by which a cry would be echoed row by row throughout the congregation show a level of collaboration reminiscent of earlier times. This was used to combat the laws prohibiting megaphones, it essentially collaborated human forces to make a powerful entity that at the end of the day gained monumental coverage.
Social media networks in many ways can be seen as an extension of a human megaphone though rather than human it is technological. The echoing of a message through posting, reposting and continuing media exposure extends the message that the movement wants to get across.
In this technological world it would be remiss not to assume that the future of protests will be conducted completely online. This echoing of a message can be also seen in the Kony 2012 campaign which utilised the social network medium to carry its message. Although not successful due to extenuating circumstances the campaign was an excellent example of how the power of social media through people can create noise about a cause. The rise of the new groupthink (Cain, 2012) is a demonstration of how technology has altered the way a congregation of people collaborate to make social change.
References
Cain, Susan (2012) ‘The Rise of the New Groupthink’, The New York Times, January 13, <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-the-new-groupthink.html>
Knife Party and Rayner, Tim and Robson, Simon (2010) Coalition of the Willing <http://coalitionofthewilling.org.uk/>
Manning, Erin (2009) ‘From Biopolitics to the Biogram, or How Leni Riefenstahl Moves through Fascism’ in Relationscapes;
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