[P2P-F] social media and political action

Thu Feb 3 15:27:08 CET 2011

http://technosociology.org/?p=263

 A debate has been raging on the role social media—especially Facebook and
Twitter— played in the apparently successful uprising in Tunisia. Most of
the
discussion seems to be centered around the use of the term “Twitter
Revolution.”

Zeynep:

"people will be using social media tools as an integral part of politics
during
those times that politics takes to the frontstage like uprisings and
elections.
Evgeny Morozov’s argument is that these tools are not the best suited for
promoting democracy, especially in authoritarian regimes, because they also
strengthen the surveillance, propaganda and censorship. As I argued in many
places, however, they also strengthen capacity for political action through
multiple means:1- Social media lower barriers to collective action by
providing
channels of organization that are intermeshed with mundane social
interaction
and thus are harder to censor.
2- Social media can help create a public(ish) sphere in authoritarian
regimes,
thereby lowering the problem of society-level prisoner’s dilemma in which
everyone knows that many people are unhappy but the extent to which this is
the
case remains hidden as official media is completely censored.
3- Social media helps strengthen communities as it is the antidote to
isolating
technologies (like suburbs and like televison) and community strength is key
to
political action.
4- Social media seems to have been key allowing the expatriate and exiled
community to mobilize and act as key links between rest of the Arab sphere
as
well as Francophone parts of Europe and ultimately the rest of the world
5- Social media can be a key tool for disseminating information during a
crisis.
As we saw in the case of Iran, Burma, Moldova, Tunisia and others, the world
had
a strong sense of what was happening not because there were many reporters
on
the ground covering the events but because thousands of citizens armed with
basic cell phones could record and transmit in real-time the situation on
the
ground. Yes, such reports are inevitably chaotic, and yes, the ability to
disseminate information is not a sufficient cause for success, but it is
surely
a necessary one.
In that sense, I respect Jillian’s sensitivity to any wording that seems to
take
the credit away from the accomplishment of the Tunisian people that came at
a
great human cost. However, as a material cause, as a key part of the media
and
information substrate in which the events took place, it seems clear to me
that
social media was crucial. About 20 percent of Tunisians have Facebook
accounts
which remained uncensored throughout the crisis.
I find it hard to believe that the ability to disseminate news, videos,
tidbits,
information, links, outside messages that easily, transparently and without
censorship reached one in five persons (and thus their immediate social
networks) within a country that otherwise suffered from heavy censorship was
without a significant impact.
To say that social-media was a key part of the revolution does not
necessarily
mean that people used GPS-enabled phones to coordinate demonstrations; that
is
simplistic and misses the point in which social media shapes the environment
in
general. What it means is that the people acted in a world where they had
more
means of expressing themselves to each other and the world, being more
assured
that their plight would not be buried by the deep pit of censorship, and a
little more confidence that their extended families, their neighbors, their
fellow citizens were similarly fed up."

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