I just came out of my Media class, so I've got media on the mind. There were a couple of interesting articles in the paper in the past couple of days related to new media.
The first was an article in the magazine section of the New York Times, which discussed the role that Facebook has played in opening up opportunities for free speech and assembly in countries that don't allow such things. In Egypt, students have used Facebook's groups to organize. The April 6th group has 70,000 members and has publicized protest sites and pictures taken on cell phones of police cracking down on protesters. Ethan Zuckerman says that authoritarians countries cannot crackdown on Facebook like they can on other internet websites, because the people who use it for fun and recreation would flip out. He calls it the "Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism."
This article was interesting because it fits in well with two debates in the academic community. One is whether or not online political discussions can lead to real offline action. The other is whether or new media always leads to democracy and increased freedom.
The second article discusses how Obama hopes to use the same tools of new media — facebook, youtube, twitter, e-mail lists — that helped him get elected for reaching his supporters post-election. He wants to use YouTube to publicize his message without media filters today.
The only concern here is that, in general, people do believe that the media should act as a check on government. It's not really a good thing, when our politicians become more savvy about reaching the public than the media.
Apt. 11d 