nettime social media political activism redux
Hello, The recent massive public demonstrations in Budapest against a repressive internet tax, amongst other issues, raises once again questions of the role of social media (and Facebook in particular) as mobilising vehicles for social protest and political activism. As Alice Neerson writes in Open Democracy, social media facilitate differing degrees of involvement in political action. By lowering the barriers to activism, they make it possible for more people to take small steps as part of a larger movement. When expressed through social media in much larger numbers, public opinion has the potential to influence those in power and to give emotional momentum to those… on the front lines of a struggle.” (Sept. 29) The Budapest demonstrations offer, yet again, some indication of the validity of this observation; it has become facile to forget or dismiss the fact that social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) are precisely that: social media. Social media are both a reflection of and channel for the flow of collective, often invisible, realities. Not to dismiss or minimize the nefarious and intrusive qualities that are intrinsic to the most ubiquitous brands of social media, it becomes simplistic (and reductionist) to put aside the manner in which these tools are wielded as factors in political activism. In this context, social media has the capacity, to mobilize public opinion particularly in situations where more formal political institutions have lost touch with or are incapable of responding to latent forms of public discontent and specific political grievances. A very basic survey of recent examples of political activism will illustrate how lethargic (and far too easily corruptible) established political parties are when it comes to comprehending and supporting the issues that ignite and propel social action. Social medias are neither the primary nor secondary (categorization is inappropriate) factors in political movements; what they can do is make visible the concerns of people inhabiting diverse social spaces as well as the objectives of political discourses that are simultaneously taking place below the radar of neo-liberal elites and their governmental watchdogs (at least temporarily). In this sense, as instruments for rapid forms of communication and as a means for organizing collective actions, they can be utilized (as has been amply demonstrated) to push back against the creeping authoritarianism invading the fragile democracies of the Western world; just as they have been used to foment and activate change in other parts of the world. Allan # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime internet tax .hu
Hi, I am very sorry but this tax is not really much, the other side had allready proposed it, it was a left idea, whatever right and left still mean, and democracy is a very big word. Why do you blame the state for the fact that there is no real opposition in more serious questions? Maybe you should speak more with your neighbors. Cum grano salis, H. Am 29/10/14 00:42, schrieb Janos Sugar: Around 1rr00,000 Hungarians rally for democracy as internet tax hits nerve http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/28/us-hungary-internet-protest-idUSKBN0IH29M20141028 http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/cc8f9944-5b8e-11e4-81ac-00144feab7de.html#axzz3HTc1e5hH # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime social media political activism redux
Thanks a lot, Allan, this is interesting. The question imho is not how social media relate to the inadequate responses of political parties but if they will generate sustainable 'new institutional forms' over time. What if the current social media only produce one-off events? Protests without a cause? The social in these cases then gets reduced to the self-mirroring of the masses on the streets. That's old school spectacle and has remarkably little to do with the capacity of these social media to network, organize, debate. Mass mobilization these days disappears very fast, so fast that even the most involved insiders are baffled. I personally do not think this has much to do with the 'absence' of leadership and the absence of an avant-garde (and their artists). Politics, our politics, have become submitted to the same laws that rule everywhere: the law of the meme, in this case. Geert On 1 Nov 2014, at 12:26 PM, allan siegel siegel.al...@upcmail.hu wrote: Hello, The recent massive public demonstrations in Budapest against a repressive internet tax, amongst other issues, raises once again questions of the role of social media (and Facebook in particular) as mobilising vehicles for social protest and political activism. As Alice Neerson writes in Open Democracy, social media facilitate differing degrees of involvement in political action. By lowering the barriers to activism, they make it possible for more people to take small steps as part of a larger movement. When expressed through social media in much larger numbers, public opinion has the potential to influence those in power and to give emotional momentum to those… on the front lines of a struggle.” (Sept. 29) The Budapest demonstrations offer, yet again, ... # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
nettime social media political activism redux
A problem with all of this is that the ???hand???s off the Internet??? position is at the very core of a neo-liberal take down of the social contract. The Internet erodes local tax bases, shifts wealth from the poor to the rich, from poor countries to rich ones; and the rallying cry for oppositional elements is ???hand???s off Of course, there were particularly obnoxious elements to this tax and especially with this government but how to shift the discourse in the streets away from a libertarian anti-governmentalist, anti-tax, anti-regulation position to a positive/pro-active one that recognizes the transformational impact of the Internet including in areas impacting social justice. Mike -Original Message- From: nettime-l-boun...@mail.kein.org [mailto:nettime-l-boun...@mail.kein.org] On Behalf Of Geert Lovink Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2014 6:34 AM To: nettim...@kein.org Subject: Re: nettime social media political activism redux Thanks a lot, Allan, this is interesting. The question imho is not how social media relate to the inadequate responses of political parties but if they will generate sustainable 'new institutional forms' over time. What if the current social media only produce one-off events? Protests without a cause? The social in these cases then gets reduced to the self-mirroring of the masses on the streets. That's old school spectacle and has remarkably little to do with the capacity of these social media to network, organize, debate. Mass mobilization these days disappears very fast, so fast that even the most involved insiders are baffled. I personally do not think this has much to do with the 'absence' of leadership and the absence of an avant-garde (and their artists). Politics, our politics, have become submitted to the same laws that rule everywhere: the law of the meme, in this case. Geert ... # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
