Originally Published in the California Review at UC-San Diego in February 2011.
The prominence of technology around the world has yielded a new
form of influence and authority; independent of state governments, the Internet
has empowered the individual. The escalating popularity of the Internet as a
media outlet for average citizens and its substantiated consumption as a
product of the 21st century has transformed it into the most dominant form of
media—especially bearing in mind its ability to circumvent government control.
Thus, we are led to ask: how has the new media, specifically the Internet,
affected cultural and political discourse? The Internet, by means of
globalization, has become the most recent and popular form of new media,
creating a revolutionary sphere that is characterized by the expansion of
Internet activity, the proliferation of localized activism, and government backlashes
through censorship. Humans have long interacted with others in order to improve
the conditions they live in. With the rise of the Internet, cross-global
human-interaction has now become part of the phenomenon that is globalization.
Inherently, the Internet has given individuals the ability to project their
voice beyond borders, oceans and other historical boundaries, making the
individual supreme. New forms of media have now trumped older outlets of media
that must succumb to government obedience or regulation. Under the study of
human action, all humans have value in something or someone. Ludwig von Mises
wrote in Human Action, “Acting man is eager to substitute a more satisfactory
state of affairs for a less satisfactory. His mind imagines conditions, which
suit him better, and his action aims at bringing about this desired state.” The
Internet and new forms of media have become an outlet for individuals to
improve their state of affairs and conditions they now live in.
Individuals
address others in order to inform and convince them of the logical structure of
human reasoning. New forms of media have created this ideal by using the
Internet to inform and convince others. The Blogosphere, websites like
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, MySpace and Email have become outposts for
social-interaction in Today’s world. The Blogosphere in the Middle East has
empowered the young Arab voice, creating a new discourse in the region. The
Blogosphere has allowed individuals in the Middle East to challenge their
government; allowing individuals to contrast what their government officials
have said in the past, while calling out on institutionalized forms of media
for bias and hypocrisies. The Blogosphere has allowed individuals to voice
their opinions; some have faced prosecution by their governments. Karem Amer,
Alaa Abdel Fatah, and Fouad al-Farhan are just the names of a few who have
faced punishment for vocalizing themselves online in the Middle East.
In 2009 during
Iran’s Green Revolution, the Internet had become the ultimate tool for Internet
activism. Twitter and Facebook became central to coordinate protests for many.
Many old media outlets like newspapers and television news reports begun to
pick up the coverage of online protesters as their primary sources. The United
Kingdom’s former Prime Minister Gordon Brown was so impressed by the influence
and power of the Internet to broadcast the voice of the unheard, he remarked,
“People have now got the ability to speak to each other across continents, to
join with each other in communities that are not based simply on territory,
streets, but networks; and you’ve got the possibility of people building
alliances right across the world.” Gordon Brown went on to admit that due to
the influence of new media, governments power and influence over foreign policy
would never be the same again.
Many outside of
Iran who witnessed the devastation and corruption via online interaction began
to join the Green Revolution through Internet activism. For example, many
British citizens attempted mass Denial of Service attacks against Ahmadinejad’s
website. Other organizations like the online group “Anonymous” formed alliances
with the website Pirate Bay to provide supporters with online tools to
circumvent government censorship and take down government websites. The global
interaction of web users and activists revealed the Iranian government as a
corrupt and brutal regime. And central to the Green Revolution was the new
media’s ability to communicate amongst local activists and grassroots
organizations to create and demonstrate in Iran. Although the Internet has
brought a new micro-level of interaction amongst cultures, nations and
individuals new forms of media have run into three major issues: threat of
cross-cultural ethnocentrism, the lack of ability to properly orchestrate who
is the leader of a said organization, and the threat of foreign intervention by
other countries through technology. With the expansion of the Internet, some
have claimed there has been an expansion of cultural influence and
ethnocentrism over Islam. New media was created and formed by the West, and
with these outlets came the potential to influence the views and perspectives
of others; the ethnocentric threat became central to anti-western rhetoric.
But instead of the
Internet actually producing ethnocentricity, it does not form it nor helps to
resolve it. Another challenge towards new media activism has been its failure
for central leadership. Although this maybe true, the voice of a group has
become anonymous and in actuality has empowered its ability to contest
government and other organizations. Additionally, even though there is no
leadership found amongst online media groups, they still have the ability to
voice, assemble and to execute many of their goals.
Finally, we are
now seeing cases where grassroots based organizations have had the ability to
actually provoke major change into governmental bodies, as has been shown in
Tunisia, and to a lesser degree, Egypt. Such transformative changes in
government have exposed the power of the Internet. The Internet’s ability to
inform, misinform or even produce/create a movement has been seen as a new
weapon amongst states. The ancient threat of insurgency from another country
through a nation’s populace has always existed. For example, Iran’s regime
during the Green Revolution accused the United States of meddling with its
affairs. Although the accusation of the government may or may not be true, new
media has allowed us to hear both sides of the argument rather than hearing a
propagated, one-sided argument.
Despite the view
that Internet activism has not had any substantial political, economic, or
social gains, these characteristics can more often be attributed to new media.
The power of the Internet’s effectiveness is still being tested, and with more
time it will be able to maximize its potential and reach a broad spectrum of
viewers.
While the world is
geographically large, new media has shown us we are all interconnected in a
smaller community than our eyes would have us believe. And with the growth of
micro-interactions through technology humans have been able to share and inform
others of what they value or how they perceive a particular incident. This new
media has question old forms of media, eliminating the middleman. The future
discourse of technology in our lives and its influence around the world is
assured to last at least in our lifetime.
