The affordances of new information and communicative technologies have allowed the organisation of uprisings, protests and global activists to break geographical boundaries, increase the speed of information delivery, assist in the growth and flexibility of the people involved and challenges the power that tradition media and hierarchies hold. Jeffery S. Juris concurs. He states that “Facilitated by the greater speed, adaptability, and flexibility afforded by new information technologies, decentralized network forms are out-competing more traditional vertical hierarchies.” (Juris, 2004 page 341). In this essay I will discuss the historical shift from broadcast media era to the networked media era has effected social-political movements, how
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The government nationally and even more so internationally have a history of taking advantage of commercial media, television, radio and newspapers, as a medium for Propaganda publishing. Before the Internet, people relied on the newspapers, televised news and radio for updates on the world and their nations political stance in the world. Before the Internet, becoming part of a social-political movement or a global activist movement was difficult, as the media often shed a bad light on the protestors by focusing on the violence rather than the cause …show more content…
Governments cannot control what is on the Internet, organisations and groups can be arranged and no one can stop this from happening. Events, protests and rallies can be organised and this has been shown in contemporary examples. Castells articulates the idea that millions of people who want their voices to be heard are able to come together because of Internet social networks. “The Internet social networks, as these are spaces of autonomy, largely beyond the control of governments and corporations that had monopolized the channels of communication as the foundation of their power, throughout history.” (Castells, 2012, page 2)
The example I am going to focus on for the rest of this essay is the “Occupy Wall Street” (OWS). An American social-political movement, which has used social media and the Internet to gain followers, inform the nation of the cause and attract the mass media. OWS managed to gain a huge amount of supporters, including the Internet group “Anonymous”, who encouraged people to join the movement. The protest officially began on the 17th September 2011. The aim of the movement was to peacefully protest for balanced distribution of money, less political corporation influences, better jobs and
The government nationally and even more so internationally have a history of taking advantage of commercial media, television, radio and newspapers, as a medium for Propaganda publishing. Before the Internet, people relied on the newspapers, televised news and radio for updates on the world and their nations political stance in the world. Before the Internet, becoming part of a social-political movement or a global activist movement was difficult, as the media often shed a bad light on the protestors by focusing on the violence rather than the cause …show more content…
Governments cannot control what is on the Internet, organisations and groups can be arranged and no one can stop this from happening. Events, protests and rallies can be organised and this has been shown in contemporary examples. Castells articulates the idea that millions of people who want their voices to be heard are able to come together because of Internet social networks. “The Internet social networks, as these are spaces of autonomy, largely beyond the control of governments and corporations that had monopolized the channels of communication as the foundation of their power, throughout history.” (Castells, 2012, page 2)
The example I am going to focus on for the rest of this essay is the “Occupy Wall Street” (OWS). An American social-political movement, which has used social media and the Internet to gain followers, inform the nation of the cause and attract the mass media. OWS managed to gain a huge amount of supporters, including the Internet group “Anonymous”, who encouraged people to join the movement. The protest officially began on the 17th September 2011. The aim of the movement was to peacefully protest for balanced distribution of money, less political corporation influences, better jobs and