I actually can remember clearly watching the broadcasts of the revolution in 2011. I was sitting in a portable outside of my high school, during AP Government and Politics. Our teacher sat us down and decided this was a major even in history and we had to witness it. It was quite the spectacle. However, just like Castells says, while America kept up with the revolution, once Mubarak was removed from his position, we felt the revolution was over with. So eventually the media stopped reporting on it. It's more complicated than that, however. A revolution does not just end with the overthrowing of politics, the after effects of the event will change how the country functions. If I remember correctly, some reporters revisited Egypt some years later, and the situation had not gotten any better. Not to say that it has become worse, just that they reached a stalemate.
Technology played a major role in these revolutions. I believe it always had. Before the internet, the civil rights movement in the 60's had been shown nationwide. With TV and the radio, the movement reached far into nation, encouraging people of different creeds to walk with them and fight for equal rights. As said in Castells' article, the encouragement of Asmaa Mafhouz's vlog on her Facebook, she sparked the revolution, and it attracted many people of different backgrounds.
However, there is the notion of women in these movements. Castell looks into the issue of the treatment of women during these revolution. It ranged from physical assaults to sexual assaults. As the case with the "blue bra girl", a tragic assault that resulted in the anger of women. Even when they managed to get men to protest with them, the men were said to be uncomfortable with the women and sometimes looked the other way while they were being mistreated. Long in history women had been a large part of protests and revolution. But it is easy too erase them from the books, as they are very whitewashed versions of history. Is it because women are expected to be docile in a primarily patriarch society? Perhaps it is threatening to men to see women as anything but gentle and motherly humans.
Censorship was also touched on in Castell's article. It goes to show how important technology has become in our society. As mentioned, even with the revolution going on, the government had decided to lift the censorship and restore it to its original form. This being done out of pressure from the United States, economic failures, and the uselessness of stopping a movement that is already far from censorship.
Friday, March 6, 2015
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I agree with everything you said here. If technology wants at the level its at now this wouldn't have been such a big deal. And with the amount of information we are exposed to now, its easy to get distracted by other things and forget about what doesn't effect your life directly. There are types of communication that are difficult to shut down, so there will always be some way of getting information out, but it all depends on what is drawing peoples attention and what the big wigs feel like reporting on. There are other sources that aren't filtered so its easier to see everything. But attention is key. And the way to attention is multitude. The more information the more often gets the most attention. Until something more relevant to that persons life comes up. Then if it doesn't effect them, they lose interest even if it is always present.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your blog I found the second paragraph interesting where you discussed technology playing a major role in revolutions. I could not agree more this is because as you mentioned it helps the movement spread to many people. The reading also mentioned something similar, like once news gets to one person that news then gets distributed to his network of friends, then those network of friends pass it on to their network of friends and so on. In addition, I think President Obama’s 2008 media campaign is another example of the power and effectiveness of technology. This is because he was able to use the internet as well as social media sites, to effectively target a younger technologically sound generation of people. Needless to say, technology played a big role in helping Obama win elections to become President.
ReplyDeleteI agree completely that technology is a key factor in any revolution; the ability to spread information is key to any movement, as your examples showed. The way in which information can spread in in an ever-expanding network is a sort of power unique to the age of the internet I like the example Steve made about the presidential election, I think the presidential elections to come we will see the internet and social media play a larger and large role. Almost to the point that a candidate will be a great disadvantage without such a online presence. Censorship seems to be a constant battle in the courts, with the vast amount of information, I think they are essentially wasting time. If our nation started heading down that road their would grave repercussions domestically and abroad. The seemingly five second attention span of today is detrimental to maintaining any sustained effort. If we want to see change we need to stay focused on what's important and not be distracted by the newest headline.
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