In regards to this apparent situation, I've posed two major questions that I am interested in hearing feedback on. The driving idea behind my questions is whether or not modern revolution will continue to rely on consistent individual large-scale ideology or adaptation to new tools that segment revolution into tangible, measurable goals.
1. In today's modern society, are there tools available to monitor revolutions in real time?
Having taken the McBride social media course, I've put quite a bit of thought into the use of social media during revolutions. Is it truly something that is innovative? Effective? Are there other outlets that are not social media related that could be used by revolutionaries to track progress?
Part of my inspiration for revisiting this question is the guiding principles behind one of my classes this semester, which is taught on the principle that many of today's largest scientific principles are based on assumptions that essentially piggy-backed off actual revolutionary ideas. While I'm not sure I agree with the class's main principle from a scientific perspective, I am tempted to believe that significant side-effects from revolution are quite real. If revolutions had onset goals that could be tracked in terms of progress, perhaps the side-effects could be reduced.
2. Following from above, can revolutions even be tracked in terms of measurable progress?
The nature of revolution is something that is difficult to track in terms of measurable progress. Can you really quantify freedom? Some would probably argue that you can, or at least make an effort too. The concepts driving revolution are usually extremely large, adding even more difficulty in measuring success. Are multiple small revolutions with clearly defined goals better than large ones?
Up until this point, history has largely been the deciding factor on whether or not a particular revolution had success. Ultimately, this would still remain the case even if revolutions could be tracked in real time as long term political and social effects are extremely difficult to predict in the present. However, I also foresee modern evaluation combined with historical knowledge having the ability to have large impacts on the success rate of revolution, especially in regards to smaller subsets of goals.
While I have not taken the McBride course on social media, so am lacking in knowledge compared to yourself, I do think that the use of social media is effective in the midst of revolutions, especially when human rights are at stake. It may not be effective in the sense that significant changes within the revolution occur as a direct result of social media usage, but I do believe it serves as a great tool for getting the word out on occurrences/movements from first hand witnesses. Because many governments block international websites and news coverage during revolutionary movements, social media often times serves as the only method for people to communicate with the outside world - whether it be to ask for help, or simply let the world know what is happening in their country.
ReplyDeleteIf you have developed another opinion after taking the course, please share, as I would love to hear your (and others) thoughts on the issue, and whether or not they changed through out your time in the class.
I have found both the original book/article by Hannah as well as another article written for the NY Times. If anyone wants the Eichmann in Jerusalem paper just let me know and I will email the pdf to you.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/01/books/review/fifty-years-later-why-does-eichmann-in-jerusalem-remain-contentious.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
I also took the class about social media. Throughout our readings and our discussions it became clear that social media can be an effective tool in aiding revolutions/protests, such as what we saw with Egypt's Arab Spring last year. However, our class seemed to conclude that there are many limits to the effectiveness of social media. Most social media sites do not promote deep discussion. Twitter...in a 120 characters, probably not. Facebook....nope, people tend to either pick fights, become more radical/extreme, or take on the mentality of 'you're stupid, I'm right' with little room for true discussion and exchanging of ideas. That is, when people choose to post more than daily updates. After doing a survey on how college students use facebook, I found that no one posted discussions about political, religious or other controverial topics. After looking at how people seem to use facebook, I realised that it only promotes finding and 'liking' people whom you already support and that it does not foster change or discussion. Additionally, in our class we discussed that social media leads to 'likers' but not true supporters. People can easily support a cause online, where they do not need to do anything, but not many people follow through beyond hitting the 'like' button. So I agree with you that social media sites are wonderful for organising and spreading word, but in the grand scheme, I believe the role is somewhat limited.
Lets assume a few things to be true: The spread of information representing a cause positively is inherently useful for movements regardless of their purpose. The rate of success of a movement directly depends on the number of people involved, and their personal influence relative to the goals of the movement.
ReplyDelete1. Even with the two assumptions above, the usefulness of social media as a revolutionary tool depends on the nature of the movement and its geographical and personal relationship to individuals using social media.This is a rather dark example, but sometime recently, the radical group ISIS posted pictures of their flag in front of two important landmarks in the US to twitter which were then distributed by news outlets and other social media sites. Another unsettling fact is that there are a large number of foreign fighters joining the ranks of ISIS, including US, UK and European nationals. It is likely at least some of these people's only connection to ISIS, at least initially was through social media. So here we have an example of social media providing two extremely important functions for ISIS, recruitment and the spread of fear.
2. While I don't think of social media as a good way to monitor progress of a movement goal-wise, any tool capable of tracking the volume of references to a movement in social media posts could be extremely valuable when trying to determine the spread of a message or cause.