Beanblossom Seminar Papers
From digmovements
Contents |
[edit] Seminar Paper 1
We the Media: Response 1
The internet has become a generally free news source, is not necessarily controlled by “The Man”, and is considered by many to be a wonderful, democratic shift into the future. Many, however, consider it to be the downfall of humanity, an almost anarchist intervention, what with information no longer being controlled and posted by absolutely anyone. It is not always a system of checks and balances, unless it is understood to be communal information, where many people have access to edit a bank of information, but many also have the power to edit each other’s contributions. Credible voices are swamped by uninformed, opinionated voices that know HTML and can post at will - this is the anarchy media, the anarchist internet. The difference between this and grassroots media by the people (which is kind of confusing) is that grassroots movements are more interested in making sure informed, experienced voices are heard and not stifled by those voices that are more prominant and popular. I thought Dan Gillmor’s summed-up account of how technology has changed the way his feild functions in information dissemination. Simply with his description of the cable’s influence on technology, it’s easy to see how the function of a cable has changed the way we catalogue, access, and share information with each other. Serving as a pipe of condensed energy and information, the cable has, firstly, powered the electricity to radios, then TVs, then the internet possible. Then, after mastering the concept of radio and television waves, the cable then became and information sender. However, because they were corporatley owned, cables, in a way, were also limiting. Or, at least, cable information remained limited to those who owned it, while simulatneously expanded the capacity of information. It’s hard for me to understand just how influential technology and the internet has changed access to information. I remember not ever having contact with the internet until I was probably thirteen, and not understanding, yet being enamoured with, a compact disc was when I was about nine. When I needed to find something, I immediatly went to my family’s outdated encyclopedia collection from the early eighties, which I now realize has more of an aesthetic effect rather than an informative one. Now, I can’t remember the last time I’ve consulted such an archaic form - I check the internet first, if not for information, than at least to access call numbers for books. “The downfall of humanity!” says my father. Probably not - just a new form of journalism with all of its ups and downs.
[edit] Seminar Paper 2
Social Movements 1768-2004: Response 2
I was unaware that the term "Social Movement" has only been coined since the later half of the eighteenth century, and it's interesting to note that the organized political risings originated out of North American and Western Europe. As the book Social Movements 1768-2004 mentions that forms of political uprisings have been happening over thousands of years, I am curious as to why those happenings are not considered "social movements". Most likely, it is because the term describes a specific idea - social movements entail organized rallies, street marching, and picketing. Uprisings that occurred in history were most likely forceful rebuttals and plotted overthrowing of the state head or leader(s).
It seems the concept of the social movement is an evolved thing. As time progresses and civilizations become more intricate and complex, new forms of social practices and applications are necessary. Because of events that took place before them, as well as previous writers and thinkers, people like Marx and Lorenze von Stein could use past events and ideas to formulate great social analysis documentation, such as The Communist Manifesto.
It's no surprise the extent to which technology has altered the course of social movement evolution. Technology, in the purely definitive sense, has obviously allowed for the spread of social movements - the applied science of knowing how to document any sort of information gave information a vehicle to spread at a rapid pace and reach more people. In a similar way, modern day technology, such as the Internet, is the new form of the printing press, quill pens, and papyrus. As information spreads at a more rapid rate, social movements are becoming much more globalized.
In response to Tilly's section on globalization in conjunction with the rapid expansion of communication technologies, I question whether or not this new globalizing technology acting as a social movement catalyst just expands to rich, western countries. If this is the case, is globalization just granting more power to richer countries, leaving less developed countries in the dark? The term Political Circuits, mentioned on page 103 describes the combination of technology and information as a force behind the births of social movements - as communication costs are reduced, the occurrence of social movements doesn't necessarily increase, but does definitely cover more ground for communication.
[edit] Seminar Paper 3
People’s Movements, People’s Press: Response 3
In People’s Movements, People’s Press, Bon Ostertag does a very concise job of incorporating historical value and context in chronological order of social movements and how technology acted as a catalyst for these movements to occur. As he mentioned, many historians had consistently argued that the birth of a social movement was parallel to the birth of a journal or publication. I thought his choice of social movement division was an interesting one - he specifically chose abolitionists and suffragists to group together, then the gay and lesbian movements, then the antiwar underground GI movement, and then environmentalism. I think this was intentional because of the close involvement each of these had with each other, and also, a previous movement’s impact on society as a leway for the following one to occur. For instance, abolitionism paved the way for the women’s movement, and Ostertag described how the development of the printing press allowed for publications by sympathizing women, who started by being involved in abolitionism, and then reflected on their own situation. Before blacks won their freedom, a seemingly impossible feat, women were simultaneously jumping on the “hey, we want freedom too” bandwagon, and used their journalism skills to the best of their abilities, but were overshadowed by the prevalence of abolitionist publications. With this movement in particular, I noticed how he integrated important facts and research that he had compiled into the telling of the history, so the book seemed like a historical story. My favorite aspect of the book was Ostertag explaining what basically could be described as the semiotics of journalism. In the section devoted to the women's movement, he writes about how the lack of tools (tools being words such as feminist, misogynist, gay, or queer) within the certain technology, (this technology being journalism, the printing press, and the English language) impedes upon communication of an idea. It's not just that it is unclear and therefore confusing. It is that one literally does not have the terminology to print in papers, which means there is no way to convey an idea, which means the idea cannot exist. This ties in directly with Tilly's discussion about the term "social movement" and how it came to be coined, and also how it wasn't considered to be in existence before the word was invented. This is not to say that uprisings didn't exist before the term "social movement" was used, or that female activists or thinkers did not exist before "feminism" was used. It's that the group, without having a name or word to be associated by, cannot be considered because it cannot be explained to the opposition.
[edit] Seminar Paper 3
The Art of Protest: Response 4
Response 4: The Art of Protest
I was very excited to see The Art of Protest, an impressive account of social movements since the 1950s, incorporated into our program reading. It seems that, oftentimes, the aesthetic of cultural expression during a social movement is under appreciated as an integral part of the movement. Or, perhaps, artful expressions such as poetry and music that keep with the themes of the movement are interpreted simply as being a result of the movement. Thomas Veron Reed, (or, T.V. Reed, which I thought was amusingly paired to our studies with technology & movements) however, really honed in on the roles that cultural expression really can and does play in activism and protest. The chapters are organized in a timeline-like fashion, which makes the content and events more streamlined and understandably related. By beginning with “Singing the Civil Rights”, we can see how music and art helped to carry the weight of the movement on college campuses, in churches, and the NAACP. The “freedom music” that reflected traditional African American music resonated with those involved in these institutions as being genderless, classless, and generationless. Then, as the Black Power movement was discussed in chapter 2, we saw how complex the relationship between aesthetic and politics could become. I appreciated Reed’s readiness to dissect the theatrical elements of political drama, and the performativity of political activists and leaders. For instance, the way Amiri Baraka incorporated politics into the theater is a perfect example of how to two overlap. On page 42, Reed clarifies that “All politics involves a theatrical element, and a failure to understand the relation between the “poetics” and the “politics”...is a failure to understand them at all.” I think, though he’s referring to the Black Panther Party specifically, it really is a key part in general to understanding why this book is important to understand and why the content is so relevant to current social movements as well. It’s interesting to note the modes of communication each group chooses (or spawns, maybe?), as well. Women used poetry - I thought it was a valid connection that Reed made when asserting that the feminist poetry movement exploded onto the scene, though poetry had mainly been a male-dominated discourse. Chicanos used murals to convey their messages - I thought this was a great point because murals are such a huge part of Mexican traditions and folk-art. I like to think that Reed was possibly alluding to how culturally pertinent these methods of communication are, and how intentional they were as well.
