I was going to talk about my reactions to the video we watched in class last week, but just before writing this I came across this article in Frontline's Obama's War page: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2009/10/iranian-blogosphere-reacts-to-obamas-peace-prize.html
This article shows the maxim of the Internet's potential as a method of political organization and expression. Only hour's after it was announced that Barack Obama would be awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize, twitters and facebooks around the world--specifically in Iran, exploded with commentary. The article a variety of opinions from Iranians concerning Obama's nomination, but notes that many of the commentary has been negative, citing that it should have been awarded to Neda, the young woman causality of this year's contested elections that became the face of Iran's green movement.
Many political scientists attribute the rise of Democracies around the world to how well democratic sentiments can manifest themselves out of clearly organized social networks, amoung many other factors. However, I do wonder if the youthful dissidents in Iran could use an online forumn to create a politcal organization stronger than what the 2009 election's witnessed. Could twitter be the new South African trade union or early English industrial factory? Only time will tell.
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Ryan,
ReplyDeleteThis video really explains the crux of how the internet is the greatest tool of revolution in the modern era. I really like your idea of sites like Twitter becoming the great catalysts of political dissent in the modern era. In economic terms, the traditionally high costs of building a mass movement(such as the search for like-minded people) are reduced dramatically. There's an old saying that goes "It only takes one to make a revolution, but it takes many men to make it succeed." If it weren't for the internet and its ability to help rally many like-minded people this revolutionary movement could have never started.