Thursday, February 24, 2011

Making a Stand on Facebook

Facebook's been pretty busy lately, what with organizing rebellions and stuff. 


I don't know how many of you have seen the "Stand With Planned Parenthood" (in reaction to a Feb 18th 
 vote in the House to pass the Pence Amendment, which if made into law, will strip Planned Parenthood of all its federal funding) Facebook event page, but it has over 153,000 people attending. 


I don't know if this page will actually 
do anything, but it's interesting how people feel as if it will make a difference (especially post Egypt, etc.).

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Viva la InformaciĆ³n!

This is an interesting Wall Street Journal article about the commodification of Julian Assange/ WikiLeaks.  Assange has been turned into an icon for the preservation of free speech, and now you can wear him on your t-shirt, and can even have "Dinner with Julian"! 

We keep talking about the media being newspapers and television etc, but I think that the media, or form of communication in this case, also includes the websites, t-shirts, umbrellas and bags that are creating an entire WikiLeaks culture. 

Assange, through the help of these media outlets, has become a celebrity.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

News in 140 Characters or Less

This New York Times article discusses the way Andy Carvin of NPR used his Twitter to transmit real-time updates on the situation in Egypt.

Forget online newspapers-forget actual articles- the future of news lies in 400, one sentence Tweets.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Overcoming Through the Media


This picture, from a protester's sign in Egypt, proclaims "We Shall Overcome," a slogan that was frequently used by Civil Rights activists in the 1960s.  

In the American Culture and Politics of the 1960s class that I took last semester, we discussed the role the media played in changing the views American citizens held on civil rights.  

Specifically during the Freedom Rides, participants felt that despite the dangers involved, it was important for them to be involved because of how the public would react.  The more violent a protest became, the more likely the media would be there broadcasting events on television.  Americans who would normally turn a blind eye to the injustices would be forced to react to what they were seeing.  The involvement of the media put pressure on the government to enforce the segregation laws that were already in existence, and essentially enabled things to move a lot more quickly.  

Though America in the 1960s does not have so much to do with Egypt in 2011, the way the media is being utilized is pretty comparable.  And though the road will be bumpy, perhaps they too shall overcome.