Lucas A. Cuéllar's Seminar Papers
From digmovements
[edit] Reading Response Papers
[edit] Response to "We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By the People, For the People"
By Dan Gilmore
Digitizing Movements
Lucas A. Cuéllar
Week One
This book provides an extremely interesting perspective on the advent of what is termed “personal journalism”, which has come to be more accessible and more widely dispersed with the internet, and the subsequent innovations, from mail-lists, to weblogs, to wikis. This all means that reporting the news has become not a game run only by the media conglomerates, but on the grassroots level run by the people. The part about this that is rather amazing is that it is working, and despite the amount of amateur reporting, the people are using these mediums. Dan Gilmore definitely writes from the perspective of a journalist, as that was his profession and indeed the way he came to be acquainted with these technological advancements and their impacts on the field of professional journalism. He has the advantage over a younger perspective (like mine) because he remembers that developments of the early Internet, or if not his research is great. He also understood these developments and was able to utilize them as part of his job as a writer. This makes his perspective all the more compelling. It is also clear that he is no technophobe, and probable embraced the advancements of the age. The book is written in a personal style, incorporating the stories of Gilmore’s career into the accessible explanation of the technology he is describing. It is extremely accessible, and engaging. This book calls to attention the responsibility that individuals have taken on to put their information out there for others to read. It also provides insight in to the ways the government and big media have responded to this open source technology and discusses the ways in which it has been controlled and regulated.
[edit] Response to "Social Movements, 1768 – 2004"
By Charles Tilly
Digitizing Movements
Lucas A. Cuéllar
Week Two
This book provides a concise and scientific look at Social Movements as they developed in the Western world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and chronicles the movement of this western form of social movement into all democratized areas. Tilly begins with his definition of the term social movement, which boils down to the WUNC principle. W is for worthiness, U for unity, N for numbers, and C for commitment. According to Tilly these are the tenants of a social movement, as we understand them today. In the course of the book, he looks at all kinds of social movements that encompass the WUNC principle, including religious rights groups, support for a specific parliamentary candidate, and the protest around the Stamp Act, which are early examples of people mobilizing to attain recognition from the government. This portion leads me into thinking about the reasons for the evolution of the social movement, as we understand them today. Perhaps because I watched Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves again over the weekend with the 9 year old that I co-parent, I was thinking about the times when the people, although shackled by feudal law, had direct access to their lords, or rulers at specific times and could engage in verbal expressions of discontent. It seems to me that people have always put forth their grievances in one form or another, to varying degrees of effectiveness, through using their voices, or mass to express discontent. Then as time went on, and the ratio of populace to ruler changed in the favor of the populace, and power was spread out over greater land people had to come up with different ways to voice their discontent. Also, under the colonization by the Western European powers, the colonies sometimes being 1/2 way round the world created the need to have a coherent movement in order to be heard.
[edit] Response to "People’s Movements, People’s Press: The Journalism of Social Justice Movements"
By Bob Ostertag
Digitizing Movements
Lucas A. Cuéllar
Week Three
In the Introduction of this book, Bob Ostertag raises an interesting point about the nature of journalism today, and how drastically it has changed since print was the only medium of media. On page one of the book, Ostertag says: “The history of social movements and the history of their press are often nearly inseparable, and historians frequently peg the birth of a social movement to the founding of the movement’s first journal.”(1 Ostertag). This fact is contrasted by the fact that no one to speak of has done the research on the press of social movements as compares to the extensive study of mainstream press. Ostertag suggests that this could be due to the fact that by the standards of typical assessment of media, social movements journals are incomparable. The standards that Ostertag speaks of are, “total circulation, advertising revenue, length of book, longevity, “professionalism”, “objectivity”, and “lack of bias””, (1) all of which are not quite the litmus for a journal affiliated with a particular social movement. I personally have often questioned the ideal of objectivity in the media, because I don’t believe that it is an achievable ideal, despite concerted striving on the part of honest journalists, and the hypocrisy of holding individual journalists to this standard while the paper as a whole is known to have a bent, or leaning (the NY Times is liberal, the Wall Street Journal is conservative) is pervasive. However, despite this opinion, I have not truly considered the role of non-objective journals in society, especially those connected with social movements. Ostertag does a masterful job of deconstructing the differences between mainstream media, and the media of social movements, and examining not only the journals of social movements, but also their contexts, thereby deeply engaging the material. Despite being fairly well educated on the topic of social justice history, I was proven ignorant of the history of social movement journalism, and who the key media people were. Ostertag chronicles the history of the Abolitionist Movement, the Suffragist Movement, the Gay Liberation Movement, the Underground press of GIs during the Vietnam War, and the Environmental Movement, through the publications of each, and the people behind the publications. I had heard of several of the publications before, but only a few of their creators. Several important battles for the right we now understand as freedom of speech were fought through these publications. Also, it is clear that Ostertag’s approach of judging the success of these publications by the success of the movement and not by the standards assigned to mainstream publications is necessary in this analysis.
[edit] Response to “The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movements to the Streets of Seattle”
By T.V. Reed
Lucas A. Cuéllar
Digitizing Movements
In “The Art of Protest” T.V. Reed chronicles social movements in the United States, beginning with the Civil Rights Movement, as it culminated in the mid-nineteen-fifties, through the activist art form. Reed includes in this analysis the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party (or the Black Power Movement), the Feminist Movement, the Chicano/a or Brown Power Movement, the Red Power Movement (and the actions of the American Indian Movement), the Environmental movement, and the aspect of the Gay Liberation movement that was dedicated to increasing awareness about AIDS and fighting for a cure. Reed also includes in his analysis the Anti-famine and Anti-Apartheid rock concerts that were fundraisers to bring aid to regions in Africa, as well as the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, which are arguably part of the anti-globalization movement. Reed has identified in each of these movements and moments a utilization of a particular form of art activism that can be used as a point of analysis into the movement/moment in history.
T.V. Reed uses the Civil Rights movement as a sort of litmus test against which to compare the subsequent social movements. The Civil Rights Movement, primarily concerned with abolishing the legal segregation of Americans of African Descent through non-violent political action, has been widely conflated with music. Truly, this is one site where the value of the protest art form is generally acknowledged, and indeed canonized by the memorial type documentaries in film of the Civil Rights Movement. The origin of songs as protest and solidarity building tools can be traced to the slave songs augmented from African traditional and ceremonial music, and reborn on the shores of the American continents. I use the general here in effort to acknowledge the music of resistance that is present in Central and South American cultures through the presence of people of African descent whose ancestors were enslaved in those countries. However, this is not the focus of this book, as T.V. Reed locates his analysis in the USA.
From the Civil Rights Movement’s use of music, Reed moves into analysis of the Black Panther Party, and a more militant and urban section of the Black Power movement. In Reed’s analysis, the Panthers used theatrical methods to highlight their resistance. However, much of their politic was (and is) reactionary to both the white supremacist United States society, and to the non-violent protest tactics of the more rural Civil Rights movement. The premise that if the cops are carrying guns, so then should the panthers is an example of this reactionary politic. However, the actions of the Panthers, as Reed suggests, were largely symbolic and theatrical. This section details the aspect of the Black Panther Party responsible for the theatrics, the Revolutionary theatre projects, and the all Black casts of actors, which crossed the lines of the stage and took the performance to the streets.
The Chicano/a Movement follows, and the art form that Reed identifies with them is the mural. In this case, I think it would be pertinent to mention the other forms of artful protest used by the Brown Power Movement, like songs, and theatrics, but it is true that muraling has it’s roots in the culture of Mexico, and there are a number of muralists from Mexico that are noteworthy. The movement was largely made up of farm workers, and migrant workers, yet also had the element of urbanity through the barrios in Los Angeles. Despite this the analysis felt thin, and reaching. Still the fact that the mural is a powerful storyteller remains.
The Red Power analysis also felt thin, and like an excuse to analyze the presence of Hollywood films featuring Native people and their struggle through the American Indian Movement. I would argue again that there were many forms of artful protest utilized by AIM that shadow the songs and theatrics identified by Reed as Black art forms, which also have long traditions in the diverse cultures of the Native peoples in the U.S. The indigenous Power movements are still raging worldwide. At the time of AIM the idea was to unite all native people under the same struggle, and to identify the oppressions that all tribes and tribal people face in the U.S. This is evidenced by the continuing struggle for sovereignty. However, as an analysis of the movement meeting the mainstream, the chapter does provide significant insight into the blockbuster type of fascination that the general public holds for the “Indian”.
Reed comes back with an excellent analysis in the subsequent chapter, “We Are (not) The World” as he picks apart the story of how the Western rock world responded to crises in Africa. I like and agree with Reed’s general politic, voice, and position as located within the context of this book. In my view this book is written from a place of critical consciousness, in the critical race theory kind of way. A general awareness of the isms, and the interconnectedness of them, their hegemonic existence. These –isms consist of race, class, gender, sex, sexuality, and ability. These are fleshed out through cultural relativity, xenophobia, ethnic and cultural discrimination, etc. The chapter “We Are (Not) the World”: Famine, Apartheid, and the Politics of Rock Music, analyzes the large-scale benefit, rock concerts put on in the mid-1980’s geared to help the suffering of world, at the time all located in Africa, apparently. Obviously there are rock musicians who are politically aware enough to call attention in their music to those suffering right before them daily, and know what’s really going on in the world. However, there was a lot of publicization of the famine in North Africa, I remember the photos. Anyway, the bottom line is mobilization over organization. These concerts, like the war photos, serve to mobilize, not organize people into action. He looks at the phenomena observed through the LiveAid, “Band Aid” and “We are the World/USA for Africa” concerts, and contrasts them with in his words “… a cluster of musical texts…” from the US and Britain, i.e. the American Sun City music/video project, and the English “Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday” tribute concert.
In the section titled Benefit Pop/Rock and the African Famine, Reed raises the issue of cultural relativity and ethnocentricity of the LiveAid projects. The projects are typified in the song “Do they know it’s Christmas?” performed by various artists under Band Aid and released on compact disk, and “We are the world”, Elton John, etc. These events were initiated when Bob Geldof, an Irish rock musician of middling notoriety, saw a PBS video about the famine, which stretched through Sahel region of Africa from Senegal to Ethiopia and caused 1 million deaths. This is an event of global note, and in a way it made sense at the time to have huge rock concerts and masses of people trying to help. However, because these events both originated from the colonizers, the first world nations, the “developed” countries, you get blatant cultural relativity, and ethnocentricity. I do think that it is noteworthy that even these aid efforts were coming from conquered people, colonized people and queer. I love this quote: “narcissistic self-importance and ethnocentric disregard for cultural differences that permeate much of this project.”(p. 159). Reed notes that there is no inclusion of even one face of African descent on the project. Ok, valid, however, it ought to be more than just a black face that is needed. If this project were truly inclusive, the question ought to be where are the African representatives? Merely calling for a black face tokenizes, and furthermore black musicians from Britain or the USA may be just as likely to commit these sins of “narcissistic self-importance and ethnocentricity” as white musicians from the USA or GB. Not to say that there is not a question of where is the multi-cultural element, because that is a perfectly imperative question to ask. Also to note racism in both of the “developed” countries (nice touch Reed, “(over)developed nations and under developed nations”(p.). A distillation of Reed’s interpretation of the message of these two events: ““We” [in the west] are the world, and they in Africa don’t even know it’s Christmas”(p.161).
The contrast of Music Against Apartheid: Townes Van Zandt, and the Mandela concert. This was a much more grassroots moment, that addressed the idea of global community, citizenship, less grossly ethnocentric, more human rights motivated, and involved the people. The subsequent chapter, entitled ACTing UP against AIDS, explores the graphic arts medium as used by ACT UP and the AIDS awareness and prevention movement. This is followed by an exploration of the Environmental movement, and the intersections of race, class, and gender, through literacy. Reed asserts that the environmental movement, as such, has been considered, accurately, a white movement. This is especially true because of the lack of an all-encompassing vision of environmentalism, one that would include the struggles of migrant workers, for example. Reed follows this with an analysis of the WTO protests in Seattle. This protest, and it is a protest not a movement thereby becoming a moment, was diverse and effective. It included all kinds of protest art, street theatre, posters and signs, punk and hip-hop music, and elaborate costumes. It also included utilization of Internet communication and was the birthplace of Indymedia, as an independent and grassroots news source.
In essence, this book takes an interesting and largely unexplored look at the nature of protest art. While Reed does not provide an exhaustive analysis of any particular movement, this book does serve to illuminate the use of art as a medium of protest and coalition building. Unfortunately Reed’s analysis indicates that even here in a fairily critically conscious text sexism, racism, classism, and ethnocentricity are alive and well. In chapter three, for example, he identifies poetry as the art form of the feminist movement. This ought to indicate that the feminist movement was classist, this characterized by a movement that marginalized poor women, and women of color. The feminist movement also went through a period of homophobia, and excluded queer women. Reed only touches on these elements in the civil rights movement, and the black power movements briefly, but it is indicated that they were present. All in all, however, I did enjoy the book.
[edit] Response to “Communication Revolution”
By Robert McChesney
Digitizing Movements
Lucas A. Cuéllar
This book explores news media at the juncture of print and Internet publication. Robert McChesney poses the supposition that we are at a “critical juncture” where the people have an enormous potential to inject into journalism a popular and grassroots element. The introduction addresses multi-national news conglomerates, and the fact that a few people control much of the mainstream media. This mainstream merely publishes news that supports the status quo. At this moment there is the possibility to create dissenting storylines through self-publication, as there has always been. The crucial part of the juncture is that at this moment the Internet makes this self-publication both easier (anyone with computer and internet access can do it) and vaster (anyone can send their stories across the globe to anyone else with computer and internet access).
McChesney is a communication scholar, and therefore this is his lens through which to see this “critical juncture”. He begins the book with explorations of communication as a field of study, explaining that in the universities media scholarship is not accorded the weight of other intellectual pursuits. What is most interesting in this section is the fact that he calls out the need for universities to maintain intellectual control, and resist the incursions of corporations into fields of study. The case he is making is that the boundaries between “library schools” and “communication schools” are in conversation with each other, and may one day break down. This would bring about a new era of education, and learning.
McChesney tells his story through his own life experiences, which is very effective in this book. He explains the political ideas that lead him to his career, and provoked the intellectual exercise of understanding communication through political economy. He has a Marxist analysis of society, supported by Engels, and Noam Chomsky. He examines the modern U.S. capitalist society through this analysis, and how the role of communications as a discipline plays out in this society. The question he was asking was does it have to be this way? Increasingly, due to the unique moment of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, the answer became no. This uniqueness came out of the social movements that erupted, spearheaded by the Civil rights movement, in the 1950’s and carried through the Vietnam anti-war movement, and beyond. Robert McChesney imagined that much would change, and the reality yielded this book. This reality is that much did change, but the slow arch back to sameness also occurred. For example, despite the Brown v. Board decision (which eliminated segregation in public schools), we now have schools segregated by class, which has an alarming similarity to the lines drawn by race. Corporate control is also an issue that has mainstreamed the potential changes, and the capitalist nature of this country supports consuming over revolting. McChesney and Josh Silver created Free Press in 2001. This soon became part of the news media reform movement. This movement was cemented, as it were, in the years of the Bush Administration through their gross and largely unchecked misuse of the media. The conclusion is that time is of the essence, and in our hands right now there is the potential to change the ways in which media has been controlled. The founders of this country knew the importance of a popular media, one that had to be protected by the First Amendment. There was nothing in this amendment that said the media has the right to make lots of money, and report false news so the president can appear to not have stolen two elections.
[edit] Response to “Insurgency Online: Web Activism and Global Conflict”
By Michael Y. Dartnell
Digitizing Movements
Lucas A. Cuéllar
This book is interesting in that it was begun as a web based project in 1997 and became a book. This points to the crucial juncture, as discussed in “Communication Revolution” by Robert McChesney, of communication and publication that the Internet has provided us with. In the Introduction, Dartnell compares forms of Internet resistance to the battle of images that surrounds global conflict in this day in age. The question of journalistic images as a tool for information dissemination and mobilization is pertinent to the question of the same with Internet as the medium. Dartnell locates his analysis of web activism in three disparate social movement groups, namely the Irish Republican Social Movement (IRSM), the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), and the Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru (MRTA). As Dartnell notes, despite their differences and distances from one another, all three movements are marked by a failure of the state, and their usage of web activism to further their respective causes and viewpoints. This book explores the location of the web as a viable place to mobilize. Dartnell does acknowledge that the web is not in fact accessible to all, and that the digital divide between the haves and the have-nots may lead to a new for of elitism. However, he approaches the movements from the perspective that they are all non-state actors capable of using media to reach a global community, and in the end to change the state through this web activism. The idea here is not as simple as e-signing petitions to send to your local congressmen and women, but to utilize a massively powerful communication tool, which has the power to mobilize thousands, even millions, against the state.
Response to “The New Transnational Activism” By Sidney Tarrow Lucas A. Cuéllar Digitizing Movements
The current state of the world is a global one. The concept of complete national sovereignty is impossible to implement at this point of internationalism. The roots of international consciousness may well be European colonialism, but I tend to think that this is merely too easy an answer to the quandary. The fact is that there is evidence of colonialism in every continent, nation, etc. The timing and scope of European colonialism has contributed to the current structure of the countries and societies of the world. We live now under internationally potent organizations, the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, a concept of human rights law that spans all people everywhere. These are compounded by countries united by economic treaties, such as the European Union, the Free Trade of the Americas Agreement, which further serves to distance us from National sovereignty. These facts contribute to the international consciousness. These systems are far from a true multi-national pluralism, in fact it seem to actually perpetuate the colonial system in that the colonized countries are now being further depleted of national resources through their involvement with the international economic structure. Specifically, I am thinking of Jamaica and the forced poverty that the International Monetary Fund has created through lending. However, this internationalism has also contributed to an international consciousness that allows for international activism, and transnational opportunities to respond to the realities of the world. You could distill the book down to a very simple concept, one that fits neatly on a bumper sticker, namely “Think globally, act locally”. This book examines transnational activism throughout the 20th and 21st century, from the Second World War to Chiapas, Iraq, and September 11th, 2001. this provides an interesting site of inquiry into the differences between international economic and political systems, and the systems of activism that grow in light of them. Sidney Tarrow provides an insightful analysis of transnational activism, and the opportunity that global conscisousness and international communication affords activists. This kind of internationalism coexists with economic global domination, which in turn feeds the need for transnational coalition building. However, at no point in this analysis does Tarrow undermine the argument for localized action. In fact, it appears that in the climate of growing internationalism, the localized movements take on even more importance. This is hopeful in that while it may not be possible to truly affect a massive change on the global scale, affecting change in local communities now can be effective on the world stage.
