When I first started hearing about the influence of Facebook/Twitter/Youtube on these events I immediately thought of that infamous Facebook party. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about here's an article Teen's Facebook party cancelled as 200k threaten to show up . Basically a young girls 16th birthday party attracted thousands of Facebook attendees after she created the event which was 'open house' and 'open invite.' Now obviously this event is much less serious than those in the Middle East, but it still does show the potential of these networks for mass communication and organisation. In a matter of days thousands of people had knowledge of the party, said they were going to attend or began inviting their own friends. The speed of this mass communication is phenomenal, particularly in comparison to how information was spread before the internet or even the telephone. Would mass protests like those in the Middle East have been organised with the speed and efficiency that they were? Of course not. Months and Months of organisation would have gone in to not only plan but stage and manage that type of event. Although Morozov has argued that there probably was indeed much planning and organisation, there is no question that these Social Media Newtorks magnified the situation enormously and their influence on these revolutions is undeniable.
What do you think? Have Social Media Networks made these revolutions possible...or have they simply provided a new faster and easier platform to organise?
References
Morozov, E. (2011) ' Facebook and Twitter are just places revolutionaries go' The Guardian, 7 March.
[URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/07/facebook-twitter-revolutionaries-cyberutopians]
Grubb, B. (2011) 'Teens Facebook party cancelled as 200k threaten to turn up' Sydney Morning Herald, 15 March. [URL:http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/teens-facebook-party-cancelled-as-200k-threaten-to-show-up-20110314-1btsl.html]
Totally agree with you in the way that social media allows for events and revolutions to be organised with extreme speed. This makes me think that if this kind of speed wasn't possible, would these revolutions still go ahead? People tend to get bored of an idea if there isn't hype about it and the speed of organisation means there is a huge level of hype and excitement, I also wonder if government officials and the like would have an increased chance of shutting down any revolution attempts if they were organised using older, slower technologies. Many governments (or dictators) would have been in shock and under prepared for the sheer numbers of people turning out to protest and voice their opinion and approval of the revolutionary efforts.
ReplyDeleteAlso enjoyed your analogy to the facebook party - I was attending Kate's party in Adelaide earlier this year on facebook just because I wanted to be involved in such a huge joke and demonstration of how networks can get out of hand so easily if you let them.
I think you've raised some interesting points in your post for this week. I think that people need to remember that it isnt the social networks faults for the massive turnout of activism events and rioting... Due to the fact that they simply operating as how they were created - to facilitate user communication. It is upto the digression of the users to control the content they post, and then in turn it is upto facebook to monitor the content deemed appropriate to share between their users.
ReplyDeleteI guess it is a fine balance with social networks, so I always remember to set my events to private and hide the attendees, so 200,000 party goers don't show up on my doorstep...
Great idea to illustrate network multiplier effects with the Facebook party analogy. Arguing, as Morozov does, that SN are just a tool would then be equivalent to saying that all those people would have turned up to the party anyways.
ReplyDeleteFacebook has definitely only sped up and made revolutions easier. I read an article for the research project which supported this idea, and said that social media has four characteristics which aid in revolutionary activity, however, I believe they are just demonstrative of social media. Off the top of my head they are findability, virtuality, education and expansion.
ReplyDeleteI think the 'Kates party' situation is a great demonstration of how social media is used to expand information, as it was used to spread the idea around to many people. I believe this is what also happened around the British Riots.
At the end of the day, the willpower of the people had to be there to initiate the Arab Spring revolutions, it's not like one guy was like "I HATE GADDAFI, LETS GET HIM".
I agree with all the aforementioned posts, in that social networks have become a platform for communication and organisation of revolutions, however they are not the cause of them. Arab Spring and even the Occupy movements have indeed been aided by the ability to coordinate and communicate through cities, countries and globally, but as previously stated, I believe they would have still occured without them. However, it is important to note that the speed of which people were reached and sheer amount of people who attended are good indications of how useful the tool of social media can be.
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