ems - summer i ’11 - t101 lecture 18: social media & social change part 1

Welcome to Summer

T101 Day 19!

Social Media and Social Change

Today-

Remember extra credit due tomorrow!

The rest of the week-

What is social change?

Social change refers to an alteration in the social order of a society.

It can mean:

•Revolution – US, France, England, Russia…

•Change in economic structure: shift from communism to capitalism. – East Germany

•Or social movements like Women’s suffrage, civil rights movement, etc.

Egypt

LibyaTunisia

Iran

Also…

Everyone wants to know: Do social media play a role in current social movements?

So, what role do social media play? Remember the midterm exam question:

“Based on what you have learned in T101 Media Life, are the protests that happened earlier this year in Tunisia and Egypt indeed "social media revolutions" as some journalists argued? Briefly explain your position on this issue, and indicate whether this is a society-centric or a media-centric point of view.”

They are not - media do not 'cause' revolutions, they are intrinsically part of it. This is a society-centric point of view (or better yet, this is not a society or technology centric point of view).

society centric vs. media-centric explanations of media life

Iran 2009 Moldova 2009

G-20 Summit Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 2009

Some history:

• 62.63

62.63 % to 33.75%

Iranian Protests June 13-16, 2009

Moldovan Protests April 5-7, 2009

G-20 Protests September 22-25, 2009

Elliot Madison – Arrested for Tweeting the Location of Police

Knowing what we know from T101 what’s wrong with the current debate about whether social media play a role in recent protests in the Middle East and/or northern Africa?

Yes No

Also, no ... A really LOUD no!

Those in this debate are asking the wrong question. In each case media play a different role.

“All revolutions write their own scripts, and their media are part of the process. In such contexts, communication and politics are not separate acts, for the altering of public affect, the mobilization of opinion, and the promotion of further participation are part of the revolutionary process”

If we see this problem from within the media life perspective what happens?

Media are not separate from life.

We make sense of the world in media

Media materiality matters.

This is different from this

Researchers tell us that by looking at how we use technologies we can see culture reflected back at us.

Technologies, to these researchers, are like mirrors for society.

Barry Wellman

Conclusions:

1. Space and place become part of the story that gets told about the events through media. They structure the story and the story structures our understanding of them.

2. The constellation of participation in protest events looks like a network.There is no leader, each node seems to have equal status and power

except those who occupy important positions in the network (switchers, programmers).

Activity:

IU just announced a tuition hike of 2.5% for this year and next. You are outraged. This hike will force many who can’t pay for college to start working right out of high school. You know this is bad for society. You convince your friends to fight this hike. Begin to develop a strategy for organizing a protest in Bloomington to take place during the first week of classes in the fall. What would you do?

•How would you incorporate social media into your plan?

•Who would you try to reach?

•What places are of importance to your plan?

•How long would your protest and social movement last?