Role of the Social Media in Social Movements Essay

Introduction The number of revolutions in the last 3 decades has increased, and seems to keep increasing. Civil unrest and protests brought many victims including civil and political figures throughout the world. In the era where technology is at the peak of its success, especially in communication technologies, mankind suffers from lack of communication. Problem is not caused by the technology itself, the problem is in human nature. I will continue with an analogy. Man invented the knife, which is very useful tool in our daily lives. The problem occurs when one thinks about the purposes that knife could be used. Story repeats itself with Newspapers and News Media. Technology improved the speed and the size that news can reach anywhere in†¦show more content†¦You can control what they believe if you can control what they have access to. In other words, if you can control what they can know the rest of it is a simple matter.† ~ John Perry Barlow Web is the next great revolution after industrial one. Why? Because it supercharges the information like the steam supercharged the physical force. In other words, web does the same thing for information as what steam for physical power. The web allows anyone to publish and distribute words, images, videos and software globally, instantly and virtually for free. Moreover, the pioneers who paved the way for the web thought of it as the ultimate empowering tool. Wikipedia is the example of how web empowers each and every one of us. It offers the knowledge for free; it undercuts authority and enables ordinary people to shape knowledge together. This idea could be traced back to 1960 when the counterculture, libertarianism began to take root. It was a mix of both left and right wing ideas and rejected state control, the legal system and censorship while emphasizing importance of individual free will. While the countercultural dream would disappear in the real world, in 1970 it founded place where these ideas would flourish. Previously, computers were in the hands of governments, military and big corporations, but now for the first time small and cheaper models began to put the technology in the hands of the people. And somethingShow MoreRelatedNetworks Of Outrage And Hope : Social Movements922 Words   |  4 PagesIn his book, Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age, Manuel Castells, a Spanish professor of sociology and communication, focuses on current social movements and protests in the world recently. Examples of such movements are the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Spain. 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