Students were yelling across the room with intent to force their point home with a final anecdote. Interruptions were not off limits, just put your your hand up and start talking louder and faster. I found my self put back by this just in awe of how intense this argument became. The students were heated. You might think this argument was about abortion, or gay marriage to be this confrontational. No this debate was about how new media effects protest. It is a question of does new media effects protest in a positive or negative way. How doe’s new media effect active versus passive protest?
First we have to distinguish between active protest and passive protest. Active protest suggests being out on the streets being active whether you’re marching or participating in a sit in. You are being active. Passive protest would be sitting at home on twitter or blog spreading the word about your cause. Passive protest would also be participating on a sight donating money or just adding your thoughts.
We also need to be specific about whether you are under the rule of a dictatorship or a democracy. I think we all can agree that protesting under a dictatorship is much different than under a democracy. Under a dictatorship passive protest really becomes an active protest. Under a dictatorship you will be imprisoned or killed actively protesting against the government. Passive protest can help with this because “Most dictators don’t have social media strategies.”(Casey) The dictators have a lot of trouble trying to find people who use social media to protest making it safer. This has been proven throughout the Arab spring. “The number of tweets from Egypt went from 2,300 to 230,000 in the week leading to the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.”(Casey) Social media is a good way to get people together to fight for their cause.
In a democracy it is a lot different because the reasons for using social media to protest are different. The reasons for using a passive protest in say America would be because you have a job and a family to take care of. That’s a much less significant reason than fearing death or jail time. Although the reasons for use are drastically different passive and active protest really benefit each other. Passive protest is a good way to put the word out there while active protest makes a statement.
--TPM “Study: Twitter Played Pivotal Role in Arab Spring” by Tina Casey
--“#Riot: Self-Organized, Hyper-Networked Revolts—Coming to a City Near You” by Bill Wasik
1 comment:
Great job; you make an important distinction between protest under a dictatorship versus protest in a democracy. I think you're absolutely right: that people living in an authoritarian state use social media because they have no other choice, whereas Americans have so many other choices that they're too busy to actually get out on the street. You certainly captured the intense nature of our debate as well!
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