ARE TWITTER AND FACEBOOK WHERE REVOLUTIONARIES GO?
I think so, I believe that social media is an effective way for activists to broadcast and endorse their protest. However, social media is not the ONLY platform for protest. There are different tools available for sharing news globally and discussion. Social media is effective as it simply enables news to travel faster, there is many-to-many communication in which a larger audience is targeted and thus creating a larger basis for protest. Basically, what is a protest without protesters (even if that means they are online). If you consider recent international news, for example the death of Muammar Gaddafi, there facebook pages dedicated to the support for Gaddafi . Through this it is evident the level of power the media has, especially social media in which society is able to interact on matters of the world.
In the article "Facebook and Twitter are just places revolutionaries go" Morozov (2011) argues that social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook are not the main reason for revolutions. However, I believe it is not as extreme, social media is but a mere catalyst for protest. Online activism uses social media as a tool for protest rather than the means for protest. There are many other ways to protest online, for example video hosting websites such as Youtube. Again, protest videos from Youtube are taken and shared through Twitter and Facebook. This further supports the fact that there are other forms of media that support protest and activsm.
Reference:
The Guardian, 2011, Facebook and Twitter are just places revolutionaries go, accessed 19/9/2011,http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/07/facebook-twitter-revolutionaries-cyber-utopian
Image sources from: http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Uploads/Graphics/387-0307203921-egypt-twitter-facebook-revolution.jpg
According to the case which provided in the lecture, it seems like social media as an important tool for society to started revolution. In a sense, social media is very important, whereas we can not say there has sort of direct relationship between social media and revolution. Social media may has influences on the revolution, but media is not the only reason leads to revolution. Personally, I think social media empower audience power to challenging authority on propaganda, in other words it can improve democracy within domestic, it however can not construct threaten to government.
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