Fys comic 2

This blog will focus on the second comic my group made. This comic focus' on the Occupy Wall Street movement, which is occurring right now.  Our comic demonstrates a group of people who recieve chain messages informing them of how people are distressed about the economy, and how the website the occupationalist.org is a website where people can keep track of the movement. The website also is a way for people to communicate about the movement, where twitter posts using the #OWS hashtag are posted, and powerful stories of individuals struggle with daily lives are shared. This website proves a powerful way for people to express their opinion on the economy because people can be directly seen by others as they struggle with their everyday lives. The stories portrayed by people are powerful enough to influence others to share their stories and join the movement. The internet is surely proving a powerful way to get people to join in this movement. Because this website is so powerful and influential, demonstrating how it is used by many people in our comic answers the question about how social media affects the movement. Twitter is a big factor because the hashtag puts every tweet about the wall street movement in the occupationalist.org website where everyone can see it. This means that every person who logs onto the occupationalist.org is exposed to the movement from the general public's perspective.

links
http://occupationalist.org/

Comic strip blog 1

This blog will focus on our comic strip created for question 2. We created a comic to demonstrate social media's impact on the revolutions of the Arab Spring. Our comic focused on how websites such as Facebook, twitter, and youtube have impacted some of the Revolutions. The comic was two people having a conversation, where the first person had very little knowledge of the revolutions that had occurred in Tunisia and Iran, and the second person had been researching the events that had happened. The article, "The first Twitter Revolution?," discussed how twitter, Facebook, and Youtube had impacts on the revolution in Tunisia that eventually forced leader Ben Ali to resign at the end of his term.  This was the focus of our comic strip because this was a concrete example of how the internet could have impacted the people. The government in Tunisia is very strict in its control of the internet. Tunisia is also a very technologically advanced country according to the article. This means that while the government may have strict control over the internet, the people of Tunisia are also tech savvy enough to find a way around the censors. The article stated that pictures made it through Facebook without being censored, sparking the uprising. The protest gained momentum through Youtube videos and twitter,  where events were coordinated among other people through the site. In this case,  Ben Ali actually loosened the rains on the  Our comic strip discussed how the internet sites have impacted Iran as well, which is another technologically advanced country.  Our comic discusses how the internet had an impact on how the digital media sites helped inspire people to join in on the movement across Tunisia.

Bibliography.

Zuckerman, ETHAN. "The First Twitter Revolution? - By Ethan Zuckerman | Foreign Policy." Foreign Policy - the Global Magazine of Economics, Politics, and Ideas. 14 Jan. 2011. Web. 26 Nov. 2011. <http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/14/the_first_twitter_revolution?page=0,1>.


Comic URL
http://Pixton.com/ic:r7a65eh9

Blog on Cyber Utopianism

Today's blog will focus on Chapter 2 of The Net Delusion. The article discusses Cyber Utopianism. The first examples of how the internet is starting to have a major impact on foreign affairs were brought up by Hillary Clinton. She spoke about how the blogs and web pages of the internet today are like the samizdat during the Berlin Wall days of Germany. Samizdat were publications written by the people of Germany and handed down to other readers to spread the word and gather people together. The analogy was used because the blogs, which are the "samizdat," are used to pierce the digital walls or "information curtain" that are online,and the bloggers are seen as the activists breaking down the walls. By acknowledging online activism, Clinton made it apparent that online activism being used as a tool for people to stand up to their governments is a rising issue. Realizing this, the US government has began to prioritize internet activism by creating an internet freedom initiative, making the internet a growth industry for the government. Since the world is almost all digital today, the effect of knocking down one of these cyber walls could have the same effect as knocking down the physical walls that are causing the oppression. Because the bloggers are today's activists and the internet is the new way of sharing information and broadcasting, the internet is the new way for people to try to make changes.

blog 11/12/11

This blog will focus on the articles B and C. Article B discussed the long standing dictatorships in the arab world, and how revolutions have started to break out in those countries recently. The revolutions of the past are being studied to give us clues about when revolutions might occur again in the future. There was three reasons listed by the author on why people obey dictators for so long. They were historical prestige, the charisma of the ruler, and the fact that dictators maintain order and justice. This explains why people will obey dictators, with the historical background of a leader a major point. The historical background of a leader is a major point because many arabic countries have leaders that are from dynasties of families. But the revolutions recently are pointing to the internet as a catalyst, because people can now see compare their governments to those of the rest of the world. When these countries receive news and see what is happening around the world, they want to see a change in their government, so the three reasons for the people to follow their rulers is slowly losing strength. People are starting to no longer care if their ruler is from a dynasty, or if their ruler has a lot of charm and charisma. They see the economies of other countries from the internet and want changes to happen. The internet has allowed these people to see the world around them and has allowed them to communicate with people all over the world. Once the revolutions have started, the article states that it is up to the rulers aggression whether or not the revolution will be successful. If the ruler is willing to shed blood and hold its ground, then the revolution could be halted, whereas in the case of Mubarak in Egypt, the leader was easily overthrown because he was not willing to attack.
The article also made the interesting point stating that every revolution is different, in the sense that every revolution has its own leader taking the country in a new direction, even if that direction is a radical one, like the Russian revolution of 1917 led by Vladimir Lenin. Lenin drove the Russian monarchy out of Russia and installed a communist regime to replace it, a very radical step. The article finishes by saying that the recent uproars in the arab nations is signaling more revolutions to start, but it is hard to predict what will happen next. Facebook and twitter is giving people the ability to communicate like never before. The online digital media is also opening many peoples eyes who may be on the verge of joining a revolution but do not know exactly what is going on.
The second article, "Small Change," counters what the first article says, saying that the change society needs cannot be satisfied by social media sites. The author used the Russian Revolution and a sit-in protest at a restaurant in 1960's North Carolina to prove that the largest, most impacting changes were brought about without the internet or digital media. Even though twitter has been linked to a revolution in Moldova, but the author states that in reality few people in Moldova- and in other arab countries to be exact, have twitter or Facebook accounts. The civil rights revolutions of the 1960's, along with other revolutions like East Germany, are not the same revolutions that are being created on twitter or online. This is because the revolutions in the past formed with people that they knew, making them more prompt to join in the fight and discuss joining up. The author states that the reason changes have occurred on Facebook is because not much was asked of the person. A revolution asks a lot of somebody, and the author states that joining such a cause with people you do not know is unlikely. A revolution puts out some serious personal risk, and joining with someone you do not know makes it hard to join in on the fight. The author states that the internet is increasing the amount of motivation it takes to join in a fight.

Ch2 discussion

This blog will focus on chapter two of Nepstad's book on revolution. The topic of chapter 2 is the revolt in Tiananman and a failed revolt in China. Many students in Beijing started to protest because of economic uncertainty presented by the Chinese Communist Party. After weeks of protest, the protestors failed, and no governmental changes occurred.
The protests started because the government started taxing businesses and controlled worker wages. Along with this, there were no changes being made politically.  The protests were highly organized, being controlled by The Beijing Provisional Federation of Autonomous Students Association, which was formed from the student protestors to petition for personal freedoms and political reform. During the protest, the people started to march upon the square, where they broke through the police lines blocking the students from advancing. The protestors had hoped that the soldiers would not advance or get involved, and this was a safe bet at the time because the police and soldiers had shown non-publicly that they supported the Chinese people. The protestors had started to slightly win over the government slightly when the Chinese protestors started to become split between goals and leadership. During early June, the military advanced, using tear gas and other methods to break up the crowd. The people responded, throwing rocks and bashing on military vehicles to try to force troops to retreat. The troops then started to fire on the people, with reported great brutality. A reported thousands of people were killed. The remaining students left the city.
It is said that the protest failed because the students  alienated workers, which split the two parties. If they had united together, then things could have happened differently. The students also did not coordinate that well with newcoming protestors, who could of been of more use if they were used properly.

Ch 1 blog on revolution

This blog will focus on the readings for chapter one readings on the Philippine revolution in 1986. The revolution was studied to see exactly what makes a revolution. This revolution was sparked after years of countrywide dislike of the direction of the government. This countrywide disgust can cause the country to be willing to take action against the government if they do not believe the government will move forward. As the country loses faith in its government and is on the brink of taking action, then a revolution could be catalyzed by members of the government losing faith themselves in their leader, turning to the opposing sides. The rebellious groups must also have an idea of what they want to see changed and they must be organized when they do take action. After all of these conditions have built up momentum, it is possible that a revolution could occur. In the case of a revolution, digital media fits in because digital media could be used to sway the people of the country if they are more informed of whats going on within the government and also where people could also communicate with each other using the internet. Being able to communicate better would be a huge advantage for the revolutionaries because they could coordinate themselves using the internet and they could also reach out and recruit more people to the cause.
The Arabian spring was a series of protests in 2010 that could have been caused by the questionable economic choices by the government. In Egypt and Tunisia, the government made the economy private, enticing foreign investors. This apparently just made the rich people richer and the poor people poorer, which created great disgust within the country. It is also believed that the protests could of broken out from the protests that had broken out in Tunisia, causing an uproar all throughout the middle east. When a country overthrew their leader, then another country believed they could do the same.

Do social media sites promote or prevent online activism?

Todays blog will focus on the article "Why Social Media is Reinventing Activism." Until I read this article, I did not believe sites such as Twitter or Facebook had much of an impact on anything. I believed that these sites were too full of other people posting random stuff about their lives for an activist to be heard. The article stated that their is a term, "slacktivism," that describes the people on these sites slacking off and procrastinating rather than helping out with a problem. The article also states how a very small percentage of donations were accounted for from social media sites (3.6% for the Red Cross). But the article states how Shawn Ahmed, founder of the uncultured project, describes how people can be inspired to pitch in to what they see online and help out. Ahmed collected donations, promoted through the internet,  for a school in Bangladesh that had been destroyed by a cyclone. The money received help completely rebuild the school. This is just one example of how one person helped solve a problem. With the millions of people that are online, it is apparent that if millions of people spoke out on social media sites,that many more problems in the world could be fixed. The internet is so large and vast that it can help people reach out far beyond their boundaries. The internet also helps people provide more accountability to what their doing so that more people will want to help out. This can be accomplished form providing vidoes and pictures on the actual media sites that show what is going on for the project.