[iDC] The Twitter Revolution Must Die

Mon Jan 31 01:27:38 UTC 2011

but why would you consider it "spurred" by communication technology - maybe
that is the only so-called spurring that we as western consumers of online
media can recognize and understand?

So if no one  reports a tree falling in Tunisia via twitter or facebook -
does it make a sound, eh?

Certainly doesnt make a loud enough sound for us to feel "a part of it"

On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 8:16 PM, Ryan Harrell <virtualender at gmail.com>wrote:

> Good point.  I would say rather that it is a series of political changes
> spurred by changes in communication technology.  I don't know why people
> have to have a catch-phrase for everything.
>
> ---
> Ryan Harrell
> 423-313-6405
> www.ryanfreelance.com
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 4:38 PM, Radhika Gajjala <radhika at cyberdiva.org>wrote:
>
>> thankyou for this!
>>
>> I've been quietly fuming over the "is it a facebook or a twitter
>> revolution" question!
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 11:32 AM, Ulises Mejias <ulises.mejias at oswego.edu
>> > wrote:
>>
>>> [for citation hyperlinks and images, go to
>>> http://blog.ulisesmejias.com/2011/01/30/the-twitter-revolution-must-die/
>>> ]
>>>
>>>
>>> THE TWITTER REVOLUTION MUST DIE
>>>
>>> Have you ever heard of the Leica Revolution? No?
>>>
>>> That’s probably because folks who don’t know anything about “branding”
>>> insist on calling it the
>>> Mexican Revolution. An estimated two million people died in the long
>>> struggle (1910-1920) to
>>> overthrow a despotic government and bring about reform. But why
>>> shouldn’t we re-name the
>>> revolution not after a nation or its people, but after the “social
>>> media” that had such a great
>>> impact in making the struggle known all over the world: the
>>> photographic camera? Even
>>> better, let’s name the revolution not after the medium itself, but
>>> after the manufacturer of the
>>> cameras that were carried by people like Hugo Brehme to document the
>>> atrocities of war. Viva
>>> Leica, cabrones!
>>>
>>> My sarcasm is, of course, a thinly veiled attempt to point out how
>>> absurd it is to refer to events
>>> in Iran, Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere as the Twitter Revolution, the
>>> Facebook Revolution, and
>>> so on. What we call things, the names we use to identify them, has
>>> incredible symbolic power,
>>> and I, for one, refuse to associate corporate brands with struggles
>>> for human dignity. I agree
>>> with Jillian York when she says:
>>>
>>> “… I am glad that Tunisians were able to utilize social media to bring
>>> attention to their plight.
>>> But I will not dishonor the memory of Mohamed Bouazizi–or the 65
>>> others that died on the
>>> streets for their cause–by dubbing this anything but a human revolution.”
>>>
>>> Granted, as Joss Hands points out, there appears to be more skepticism
>>> than support for the
>>> idea that tools like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are primarily
>>> responsible for igniting the
>>> uprisings in question. But that hasn’t stopped the internet
>>> intelligentsia from engaging in
>>> lengthy arguments about the role that technology is playing in these
>>> historic developments.
>>> One camp, comprised of people like Clay Shirky, seem to make
>>> allowances for what Cory
>>> Doctorow calls the “internet’s special power to connect and liberate.”
>>> On the other side,
>>> authors like Ethan Zuckerman, Malcolm Gladwell and Evgeny Morozov have
>>> proposed that
>>> while digital media can play a role in organizing social movements, it
>>> cannot be counted on to
>>> build lasting alliances, or even protect net activists once
>>> authorities start using the same tools
>>> to crack down on dissent.
>>>
>>> Both sides are, perhaps, engaging in a bit of technological
>>> determinism–one by embellishing
>>> the agency of technology, the other by diminishing it. The truth, as
>>> always, is somewhere in
>>> between, and philosophers of technology settled the dispute of whether
>>> technology shapes
>>> society (technological determinism) or society shapes technology
>>> (cultural materialism) a while
>>> ago: the fact is that technology and society mutually and continually
>>> determine each other.
>>>
>>> So why does the image of a revolution enabled by social media continue
>>> to grab headlines
>>> and spark the interest of Western audiences, and what are the dangers
>>> of employing such
>>> imagery? My fear is that the hype about a Twitter/Facebook/YouTube
>>> revolution performs two
>>> functions: first, it depoliticizes our understanding of the conflicts,
>>> and second, it whitewashes
>>> the role of capitalism in suppressing democracy.
>>>
>>> To elaborate, the discourse of a social media revolution is a form of
>>> self-focused empathy in
>>> which we imagine the other (in this case, a Muslim other) to be
>>> nothing more than a projection
>>> of our own desires, a depoliticized instant in our own becoming. What
>>> a strong affirmation of
>>> ourselves it is to believe that people engaged in a desperate struggle
>>> for human dignity are
>>> using the same Web 2.0 products we are using! That we are able to form
>>> this empathy largely
>>> on the basis of consumerism demonstrates the extent to which we have
>>> bought into the notion
>>> that democracy is a by-product of media products for self-expression,
>>> and that the
>>> corporations that create such media products would never side with
>>> governments against their
>>> own people.
>>>
>>> It is time to abandon this fantasy, and to realize that although the
>>> internet’s original
>>> architecture encouraged openness, it is becoming increasingly
>>> privatized and centralized.
>>> While it is true that an internet controlled by a handful of media
>>> conglomerates can still be
>>> used to promote democracy (as people are doing in Tunisia, Egypt, and
>>> all over the world), we
>>> need to reconsider the role that social media corporations like
>>> Facebook and Twitter will play
>>> in these struggles.
>>>
>>> The clearest way to understand this role is to simply look at the past
>>> and current role that
>>> corporations have played in “facilitating” democracy elsewhere.
>>> Consider the above image of
>>> the tear gas canister “fired against egyptians demanding democracy.”
>>> The can is labeled
>>> Made in U.S.A.
>>>
>>> But surely it would be a gross calumny to suggest that ICT are on the
>>> same level as tear gas,
>>> right? Well, perhaps not. Today, our exports encompass not only
>>> weapons of war and riot
>>> control used to keep in power corrupt leaders, but tools of internet
>>> surveillance like
>>> Narusinsight, produced by a subsidiary of Boeing and used by the
>>> Egyptian government to
>>> track down and “disappear” dissidents.
>>>
>>> Even without citing examples of specific Web companies that have aided
>>> governments in the
>>> surveillance and persecution of their citizens (Jillian York documents
>>> some of these
>>> examples), my point is simply that the emerging market structure of
>>> the internet is threatening
>>> its potential to be used by people as a tool for democracy. The more
>>> monopolies (a market
>>> structure characterized by a single seller) control access and
>>> infrastructure, and the more
>>> monopsonies (a market structure characterized by a single buyer)
>>> control aggregation and
>>> distribution of user-generated content, the easier it is going to be
>>> for authorities to pull the
>>> plug, as just happened in Egypt.
>>>
>>> I’m reminded of the first so-called Internet Revolution. Almost a
>>> hundred years after the
>>> original Mexican Revolution, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation
>>> launched an uprising in
>>> southern Mexico to try to address some of the injustices that the
>>> first revolution didn’t fix, and
>>> that remain unsolved to this day. But back in 1994, Subcomandante
>>> Marcos and the rest of
>>> the EZLN didn’t have Facebook profiles, or use Twitter to communicate
>>> or organize. Maybe
>>> their movement would have been more effective if they had. Or maybe it
>>> managed to stay
>>> alive because of the decentralized nature of the networks the EZLN and
>>> their supporters used.
>>>
>>> My point is this: as digital networks grow and become more centralized
>>> and privatized, they
>>> increase opportunities for participation, but they also increase
>>> inequality, and make it easier
>>> for authorities to control them.
>>>
>>> Thus, the real challenge is going to be figuring out how to continue
>>> the struggle after the
>>> network has been shut off. In fact, the struggle is going to be
>>> against those who own and
>>> control the network. If the fight can’t continue without Facebook and
>>> Twitter, then it is doomed.
>>> But I suspect the people of Iran, Tunisia and Egypt (unlike us)
>>> already know this, out of sheer
>>> necessity.
>>>
>>> [Ulises A. Mejias is assistant professor at the State University of
>>> New York, College at
>>> Oswego. His book,  The Limits of Nodes: Unmapping the Digital Network,
>>> is under review by
>>> publishers.]
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Radhika Gajjala
>> Director, American Culture Studies
>> Professor of Communication Studies and Cultural Studies
>> 101 East Hall
>> Bowling Green State University
>> Bowling Green, OH  43403
>>
>> http://personal.bgsu.edu/~radhik <http://personal.bgsu.edu/%7Eradhik>
>>
>> "I am not young enough to know everything."
>>  Oscar Wilde<http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/o/oscarwilde103675.html>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>

-- 
Radhika Gajjala
Director, American Culture Studies
Professor of Communication Studies and Cultural Studies
101 East Hall
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, OH  43403

http://personal.bgsu.edu/~radhik <http://personal.bgsu.edu/%7Eradhik>

"I am not young enough to know everything."
 Oscar Wilde<http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/o/oscarwilde103675.html>
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