Social Media and Revolution: A Theoretical Framework in application

Through the examples of the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement, Skinner (2011) has drawn out the theoretical frameworks to explain the increasingly significant role of the Internet and social media facilitating revolutionary social movements. Specifically, three Information Studies paradigms - the physical metaphor, cognitive metaphor and social informatics - were introduced as alternative and complementary perspectives in assisting future researchers with their topics.

While physical paradigm considers information as a physical object which can be recorded in texts. This metaphor assumes that information exists independently of human consciousness in an objective reality and that information exists separately in this realm. Whereas the cognitive paradigm is known to come out of criticism of the physical paradigm, arguing that information is situational and depending on humans. Information does not play any role of informing people without being interpreted. Then comes along the social informatics in which it tries to response and fill up the missing parts in the earlier paradigms where it goes a step further to draw the connection between humans to see how they we interact with one another, not just seeing how we interact with information.

In this week's blog post, basing on the theoretical frameworks and its critics mentioned above, I attempt to put them into practice by examining more examples of other kinds of social movement.

The first example is the Invisible Children's "KONY 2012" campaign. The strongly provocative images and messages in the 30-minute documentary supported and spread through the social media platforms. It is noteworthy that our social networking profiles or the information that we choose to post or share is rarely neutral even if we are reporting a live events. It is almost always a subjective reflection or interpretation of our personalities. Thus what we share or post depends on this "identity management" and what makes "KONY 2012" an initial viral social movement is the fact that it is aimed at "culture makers" - prominent philanthropists, celebrities and policy makers. KONY 2012 received the virtual world's support by being tweeted and mentioned worldwide via Twitter and Facebook, by the followers of those big figures. Such seemingly positive feedback turned into a cyclical social media flood, allowing KONY 2012 to go viral. Ellen DeGeneres, Oprah Winfrey or Ryan Seacrest and other celebrities received over 36000 tweets on the topic of KONY 2012 and Invisible Children.

Following this example, we can see the importance of the news source and how it targets big names to spread the words, just relying on the credibility rather than the content itself alone - thus fits in with the social informatics paradigm and cognitive paradigm. The fact that the campaign only existed only in the virtual world and died down after receiving no concrete or tangible action support and received a lot of criticisms afterwards proves that its content does play a factor in allowing a movement to flourish or not. And this means that no matter how big and dazzling the campaigners want their campaign to be, information and content do independently exist for the audience to choose - though it might take a longer time for the case of KONY 2012.

The three paradigms each has its own attributes and setbacks, however, in order to have a holistic picture of any given phenomenon, it helps to employ all of them complementarily for reference and better understanding.
However, it helps to understand that this piece also attempts to apply the theoretical framework to make sense of the real life events. But the notion of social media facilitating social movements and revolutions is still in in the progress of development and there is whether or not, a certain event is a revolution in its true meaning is still up to question, depending on the examining standpoint - its purpose, its characteristics and its outcome, to name a few.

Social Media and Political Communication: A Perfect Revolution?

Social media platforms have been expanding rapidly over the past decade, gaining a significant part of people's every day lives in different aspects. From business to education, social media has transformed the way industries target the public.

In an article written by Jackson and Lilleker (2011), the change in the political domain was examined with the exampleof Twitter as a social media platform in political communication. The main focus falls on British MPs and their use for self-promotion and constituency service.

Elected representatives now have new platforms and ways to communicate with their constituents on a wider scale with timely manners, allowing quick feedbacks and more interactions from both sides. There has been an increase in the use of social media platform such as Twitter by political representatives.

However, there are some downsides to social media. Apart from the misuse or ineffective use of social media by politicians in their attempts to reach and appeal to their constituents as mentioned in the article, the elected representatives can also be harassed by citizens through these very platforms, due to the their open and democratic characteristics. Last year, Connecticut State Senator Beth Dye was reported to take down her Twitter account because of the negative comments bombarding her way after introducing a debatable piece of gun legislation. And this is not uncommon among elected representatives with their experiment of employing social media as a new form of communication.

Thus, despite and fast growth of social media in the political domain as a means of communication and the results that it brings about, there should always be caution and strategies that politicians need to pay attention to when employing them. Not only this is to show the respect to the constituents, but this is also to protect themselves.

Through the micro-scope: Globalization and new media technology as empowering tools for Vietnamese civil society

Vietnam, among other developing nations, is trying to find its stance and stability in economic and political development. As the wave of democratization is spreading around the world, Vietnam is one of those few countries left with a highly authoritarian regime where the state and government hold great power and have virtually complete impact on decision-making process. In other word, since the regain of its independence in 1945, the civil society has been having a less than a say and a influential position in the political participation. However, it is the case of globalization and new media technology that the table is turning.

The impact of globalization on the social structure has been briefly pointed out by Castells (2008) in his article The New Public Sphere: Global Civil Society, Communication Networks, and Global Governance:


"Globalization is the process that constitutes a social system with the capacity to work as a unit on a planetary scale in real or chosen time. Capacity refers to technological capacity, institutional capacity, and organizational capacity. New information and communication technologies, including rapid long-distance transportation and computer networks, allow global networks to selectively connect anyone and anything throughout the world. Institutional capacity refers to deregulation, liberalization, and privatization of the rules and procedures used by a nation-state to keep control over the activities within its territory."

More attention is to be drawn to the notion of technological capacity and institutional capacity. As the worldwide wave of globalization hits Vietnam, the civil society finds themselves with a powerful tool that open them to an ever connected and open knowledge resources. It is due to the fact that, right at citizens' fingertips, information can be easily searched and looked up. Even with the state's control, the fact that it is getting more accessible for citizens to travel and go abroad, getting more access to an increasing globalized pool of information puts the state's power in checks and balances, whether the state wants it or not. Thus, together with the advent of new information and communication technologies, Vietnamese civil society finds themselves a more liberating new public sphere where they have more negotiating power and exercise their abilities right up to what is described as:


“[...] a network for communicating information and points of view” (Habermas 1996, 360). The public sphere is an essential component of sociopolitical organization because it is the space where people come together as citizens and articulate their autonomous views to influence the political institutions of society. "

Despite the control and surveillance of the state with the internet censoring or the imprisonment of several bloggers, Vietnamese civil society has been struggling at its best capability to exercise its basic rights and utilize the powerful weapon at hand to express themselves. This can be seen to belong to the fourth type of expression of global civil society: "the movement of public opinion, made up of turbulences of information in a diversified media system, and of the emergence of spontaneous, ad hoc mobilizations using horizontal, autonomous networks of communication." There have been more non-state actors providing information from different perspectives through online platform and uncensored news stations, and followed is an increasing population of followers. Even with the more integrated force of global civil society, this has been seen as an empowerment and significant shift for Vietnamese civil society to gain a better negotiating tool for their own rights and with regard to the state, bringing more political and social change, especially the democratization process. Even though the transformation is not as rapid and intense as that which has been happening in Egypt, there is definitely a gradual process taking place . However, due to the the lack of space and content limit, this aspect will not be explored further.


This is all attributed to the new public sphere given by the force of globalization and the advancement of the new information and communication technology. Information are getting more fluid, transparent and decentralized.


More information can be found here:  http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/10/11/vietnamese-civil-society-bringing-political-change/

Week 1: Social Media Phenomenon under Micro-scope

Kietzmann's article: "Unpacking the Social Media Phenomenon: Towards a Research Agenda" gave a graphical analysis of this new storm that has taken over the world in different facets. Using the model of the honeycomb, there are seven functional building blocs that represents the multiple aspects of social networks that social media has transformed since its recent significant revolutionary. 


This honeycomb model gives a clear guidance for firms and those who concern a clear guidance to choosing a social media platform. The one that would fit with the purpose and targeted audience who we wish to interact with.
For a personal reflection, there is indeed a distinction and strong emphasis of different building blocs across the social media channels that I have been using. For example, when it comes to being professional, LinkedIn is my go-to platform. LinkedIn's distinguished functionalities are "Identity" and "Reputation", allowing myself to identify and assess colleagues, potential employers and vice versa. However, still a strange element is that there are a few users on LinkedIn who manage to remain mysteriously anonymous.  

On the other hand, Facebook is the ultimate playground for me to exercise its most significant functionalities "Conversations" and "Relationships". Whereas, "Sharing" is the core functionality of Twitter where I can go and would almost instantly get an update as well as opinions on a given issue. Of the same "Sharing" function (at the same time, very weak emphasis on "Identity" and "Conversation"), Tumblr emerged as a charming garden of diversity which enables myself and other users to freely express ourselves through the means of photos, quotes, songs that are largely off the mainstream attention. As a result, Tumblr is the companion of my digital (also mental) sanctuary for me and many other friends of mine with beautiful, poignant quotes and photos reflecting our lives. 

Remember the day when our lives weren't so digital?