In this day and age, social reform is largely dependent on social media. As a matter of fact it is is one of the most effective ways to facilitate horizontal communication rather than the carefully constructed and mediated information that comes with vertical communication. As I read through this article I thought of past social revolutions and reformations such as the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the documentary Burma VJ, and even Newsies. Honestly it baffles me that they were even able to coordinate movements with enough people to even be noticed. Technology has changed this in a massive way. Movements can be coordinated not only locally, but globally through the internet and social media. But before we can have movements we must have shared experiences that create the want and often times the need for change. In the quote above the very first line is essential to the rest of the text: "People can only challenge domination by connecting with each other, by sharing outrage, by feeling togetherness, and by constructing alternative projects for themselves and for society at large. " This is the first key step that social media allows. Instead of a solitary meeting with your friends to talk about how horrible you are being treated in your community, country, etc - you can get online and share it. Everybody that has access to a computer can get online and share it. And within a few hours you have hundreds of personal experiences that feed the fire. These people share it with their friends, both in person and through social media, who share it with their friends, who share it with their friends. It perpetuates and creates immense possibility for social reform. Once all of these people are on the same page and feel passionately enough about making a change, through social media platforms, they can schedule a movement to make that change. I believe that this is the last step that the author, Manuel Castells, was addressing as he referred to the use of the internet as "a necessary though not sufficient component of their collective action." It boils down to the people standing up and making a change, social media just facilitates that.
Kony 2012 is a prime example of using social media as a means to achieve social reform. We watched the video on class which was released on Youtube and currently has almost 99,000,000 views from people around the world. The Kony 2012 facebook page currently has 82,767 likes from people around the world, and their numbers have plateaued within the last year. What's fascinating is that because of the internet, like we've talked about, they were able to have a worldwide impact. The likes and views are coming from not only across the country, but from across the world. They called for social reform, really made a push for it through social media, and gained traction like I've rarely seen. Especially for a political cause. It's a testimony to the fact that it can work. It is something that people have used, and continue to use, especially as the providers of the platforms improve their product.
The more I have looked into the use of social media as a resource to push social reform, the more I ran into organizations and stories about when it was used. One of the most interesting ones I found happened in 2010-2011 in Egypt. Just to call back what was going on - Hosni Mubarak, the President of the Country, was an authoritarian and was basically running a dictatorship. The people wanted a greater freedom of voice and decided it was time to make a change. Using social media platforms they Egyptian people were able to decide on a date and time to meet in central Cairo and protest. Here is a short excerpt from an account of that movement:
"Tens of thousands of people have gathered today in central Cairo and other Egyptian cities for what they are calling the "day of departure" of President Hosni Mubarak."
Had social media not been involved as a major form in the coordination of this event, the magnitude of it all would have been majorly affected. I would be willing to bet that only a few hundred in any one of the cities would have turned up, and the majority of the population would have never known. I don't think I fully realized just how much social media has impacted the social reform organizations of the world today. And this whole time I've been talking about the positives of how people use social media to coordinate movements and advocate social reform, but I have to wonder how those in power influence it. If there's anything I've learned from Horkheimer and Adorno it's that everything is influenced by "the man" and what "the man" wants to think, feel, and do. I know we want to think that all social media is a means for "horizontal communication," but how much of that is true. Especially when a country's government is essentially a dictatorship and they control what is said and done. It's sort of tricky to know, but when there's a will there's a way I guess. In my opinion, it's better to have social media as a tool or resource, even if the oppressors have access to it as well.
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