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Liberation Technology: How Social Media Empowers Activism
- 1. INFORMATION
- 4. NEDA SOLTAN june 2009 PRESIDENT OBAMA “dramatically toughened his criticism of Iran’s crackdown on election protesters”
- 8. INSPIRATION
- 9. VISIBILITY
- 10. MOBILIZATION
- 11. • 37% of the world is on Facebook • A sample increase in users between September 2011 and May 2012, • Bahrain – 15.35% • Egypt – 21.06% • Yemen – 104.03%
- 15. What is real?
- 16. Surveillance
- 17. Not immune against censoring
- 18. Can't always be relied upon
- 19. Can be used by regimes to fight back
- 20. Discussion • What do you think: In the future, will Social Media more likely be a tool for liberation or for repression?
Editor's Notes
- To spread information widely, in the past you had to overcome issues of money (£20million to set up a newspaper), distance (how to spread it across the world) and time (broadcast slots and publication dates). The internet has overcome these three issues – now all you need is an internet connection and a mobile phone.
- Larry Diamond describes the internet and social media as “liberation technology”, enabling citizens to monitor and scrutinise governments, expose wrong-doing, express their opinions, expand their horizons, mobilise politically, get involved and participate, and, crucially, even to report the news.
- Mainstream media are increasingly reliant on ‘citizen journalists’ who, armed with smart-phones, laptops and cheap internet access are able to create and generate the news themselves.
- http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/president-obama-calls-iranian-martyr-neda-death-heartbreaking-article-1.374476
- This is particularly evident in the case of the Arab Spring, where direct access to unfolding events was often denied or impeded. Interestingly, in 74% of cases when the BBC broadcast UGC, no caveat was mentioned in relation to the content.
- Numbers may not tell the whole truth, but the certainly do not lie.With over a third of the world population on Facebook, one of the most powerful networks ever built to connect mankind has taken shape. And largely without realisation.The period during the Arab Spring saw a sharp increase in the penetration of this network in all the affected countries.
- This level of networking has, more than ever, made us much like Bacon. Connected to everything, everywhere.It has brought the different corners of the world closer than before, further reducing the degrees of separation between various people.
- When such a network of people are given a strong cause they all closely associate and identify with, the potency of the network is increased drastically.News of what happened in Tunisia reverberated and resonated with the people in neighbouring countries as deeply as it did because of this.A “critical mass” of people armed with camera phones and twitter feeds ensured that the news reached the people it was most relevant to.
- Pics or it didn’t happen. An adage for the social networking age, it would seem. And there was no shortage of these on the networks which in turn ensured that the other corners of the world knew what was happening as well.These pictures, while not necessarily more authentic than those from conventional media sources, carried with them the poignancy of material personally generated by people in the thick of it.Reaching others and making them empathise like they were “there”
- Such an effect demonstrates the changes in temporality and spatiality of our experiences in a world warped by a social networking reality.While it brings people from different corners of the world closer than ever before, does it also tend to make us less tuned to our local and actual realities?