First off, let me say that I find the Susan G. Komen Foundation's decision to end funding of Planned Parenthood irresponsible and reprehensible. Caving to right-wing anti-abortion extremists is both despicable and shameful. There's simply no place for politics in the on-going struggle to fight breast cancer. But I also have to say I am sick of hearing about the "power of social media to harness protest," as the New York Times reported Friday. While I completely understand, appreciate and accept the benefits the Internet provides, we as a society have to stop making it as important to the story as the story itself or, as in some cases, making it even bigger than the story.
Remember the demonstrations in Iran in 2009? And how quickly the media, and just about everyone else, rushed to give credit for this "revolution" to Twitter and Facebook? Back then I wrote:
What do the American Revolution, the French Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement have in common? They all somehow managed to change history without Facebook and Twitter. But if you listen to our technology-obsessed media this week as post-election unrest unfolds in Iran you'd get the distinct impression that the current opposition rebellion could not exist without these social-networking sites.
To be sure, demonstrations, protests, boycotts and revolutions have existed since the beginning of time. We all know what the Boston Tea Party protests of the 1700's led to, right? More recent examples include César Chávez's Delano Grape Strike in 1960, the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and Anita Bryant's 1977 legislative victory against homosexuality (which, much to her ultimate embarrassment and disappointment, served to fuel a new era of aggressive gay rights activism and protest).
I know it sounds terribly sexy and is highly seductive to discuss social media and its role in major current events, but I fear the "me generation" of the 2000's risks patting itself on the back way too much (which, really, is what Twitter and Facebook is all about, isn't it?) rather than keep the focus on the story. A protest or boycott movement should be about the core issue and not on which medium those who protest are spreading the word. When that aspect starts to dominate, then it becomes more about the protester than what he or she is actually protesting.
If this were the 1960's and we were expressing outrage over Komen's decision, the word would ultimately be spread just as effectively and with the same outcomes... albeit with less speed. Let's not take away from the power of protest, and what we as citizens can achieve, by wasting so much time fawning over technology's role in all of it. At the end of the day, it's the people who use Twitter and Facebook, just as they used other media throughout history to foment dissent and harness protest.
Let's keep the relevance of Twitter and Facebook in their proper perspective. As I wrote in '09:
What would we have without these two sites through which to spread information about the massive protests? We'd have cell-phone cameras, Youtube, digital cameras and email. And what would we have before that? Phones, videotapes, 35mm photographs and underground newspapers. And what would we have before that? Well, we'd have the American Revolution, the French Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement, which last time I checked, profoundly changed the course of history without the ubiquitous Twitter and Facebook.
Follow Andy Ostroy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AndyOstroy
I doubt there is agreement on Andy saying he is "just like...Martin Luther King and Ghandi."
I find it amusing, and not just a touch ironic, that you are using the Huffington Post for expressing this viewpoint. The funny part is that if you had followed you own ideology against "social media" then I never would have heard of it myself.
Overall, there's really nothing wrong with your piece. I just disagree. And many of us do not take well to being lectured as to what we should or should not be praising, or talking about.
Andy I feel your position is absurd and not at all in line with your examples. Who here remembers what the French were actually revolting against without a Wikipedia search? How many posting can state the exact circumstances which lead to the tea being dumped overboard in Boston beyond the expectedly vague answer about taxation. Honestly, part of the lore is the disguising as Mohawk Indians, which is all about methodology and nothing about "the story". In almost all the examples of protest you provide the personalities involved do take center stage in history, looming over what they stood against. Do we not remember Rosa Parks more then the actual bus segregation policy? How is this situation any different? Aren't all us "social media" revolutionaries allowed to be Rosa Parks/Cesar Chavez/Crispus Attucks/Samuel Adams/Maximilien de Robespierre/Che Guevara/Martin Luther/Martin Luther King Jr./et al? Or is that all some cultural hubris to you? To me the idea that you can separate out "the story" from the agents and agency involved is a foolish notion that doesn't hold up to even a passing critique. Worst yet to be taken further and chastise those agents for getting in the way of "the story", as if the story of protest is ever about anything but them, those souls that protest. If anything, enough already criticizing the power of social media and move on.
But back in the 60s the media was not owned by Corporate Conglomerates, many of whom support a Repub1%can't agenda. That is the problem. If the media of the 60s was composed of the same corporate overlords as today with the same political agenda, you'd never hear about what Komen did except, possibly by word of mouth, phone and letter. How long would that take to inform enough people to make any difference? TV, radio and newspapers are NOT what they were in the 60s. We have no Walter Cronkite or Huntley/Brinkley of 2012.
In 2012 we have to do it ourselves outside of the media. The internet and social networking is the only way we have to do this since the very forces that were with us or at least neutral honest reporters of the 60s are now against us and politically censoring what information we receive.
THAT is what SOPA, PIPA and any future clones must be defeated. Once we have lost the neutrality of the internet, we are lost.
For example, Martin Luther nailing his Thesis on a church door wouldn't have become revolutionary without the printing press.
The American Revolution was aided by the fact that many revolutionaries had access to printing presses.
It isn't the medium that makes the revolution, but without a medium with which to spread the ideas, they die on the vine. In the end, if Komen ceases to exist, it will be because they were unethical and dishonest with their supports, and the medium that we disseminated this information is social media.
I do think that having the ability to have a voice aids any revolution, and before the internet the FCC and big corporate money controlled the megaphone through which information could be disseminated. This HAS changed, whether it irritates you, or not.
Jeez, what's your hurry? This whole new way of getting things done in this world through social media has only just begun just like the song...and you get to write all about it in your job every day in the same exact manner? This is your livelyhood for cryin out loud...wouldn't you want your method of speaking to be popular?? Wow. Be glad you have a job and that I found this 'article' because of social media and this blown up issue.