Twitter and Tear Gas Book Review
Twitter and tear gas is authored by none other Tufekci Zeynep. A Turkish decent from the early 1950’s, Zeynep depicts how the media (twitter especially) has impacted our world. Zeynep is a Turkish writer, a sociologist, and also a programmer. She is known for her research in how technology and society intersects. Most of her work focuses on social interaction, social movement, and privacy and surveillance. She is a professor at the school of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and also the Department of Sociology. Her book Twitter and tear gas is a must read.
Twitter and tear gas central focus is on how the internet gas boosted the way protests movements are being
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It introduces a preface followed by an introduction and three parts and she ends it off with an epilogue. Each part of the book is filled with stories and experiences from different people on how the internet has helped with protests. It starts off with the story of her grandmother being able to win a scholarship to go study in Istanbul and her family telling her that her education was over after the fifth grade, the author shows the hardship and the difficult times the Turkish were living in back in those days. During this first part of the book (Making a Movement) she introduces and talks about publics and social movements while trying to find patterns and similarities between the Gazi movements and the Zapatista. The reader is then taken on a trip through the lack of media access back in the day to twenty first century where twitter and other media platforms is changing the protest game. This is the second part of the book (A Protester’s Tool). This part focuses more on the technology aspect. During this section she moves away from the social movement and first-hand observations to redirect on the importance between internet and society. The reader receives first-hand accounts from the author herself and people who were all involved in the protests by either physically protesting or helping out through the media. In the third part (After the Movement), Zeynep goes more in-depth on the movements of protests leaders and how they deal with political power coming down on them. The book was written in first person and the tone throughout the book is so simple that anybody reading it will have no problem understanding the main
In the article “ I Tweet, Therefore I Am” (2010), Peggy Orenstein explains that social media such as twitter can express who you are as a person and make you come to the realization of how your life is defined. Orenstein supports this explanation by giving her own personal experience on her twitter experiment. The author’s purpose is to point out that not all people who are hooked to social media have lost the disconnection of feelings along with relationships between people. Orenstein writes in a reflective tone for students and adults.
The article named “spring awakening” wrote by Jose Vargas describes the impact of social media in converting the mentality of young Egyptian generations into bold and defend their inalienable rights as a citizen. This article justifies how social media can mobilize a tremendous number of people to stand up for their rights. The reasons that inspire my emotion is emerging of “Wael Ghonim” as a legendary vocal figure of action for change, revelation of social media as earthquake for change, and fundamental soci-political change.
The issues of how technology is influencing our nation today has come into play with social media and surveillance in our personal lives. We use twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. to express our opinions on things and as a voice to inform people on what’s going on in today’s society. We have learned how to use the tools we’ve been given to change our lives forever; our government has access to all of our personal information in exchange for our protection against terrorism. In Bijan Stephen’s article on “Black Lives Matter” and Rebecca McKinnon’s chapter on “the Arab Spring”, they both touch on the power of technology in negative and positive ways.
Malcolm Gladwell, a published author and staffed writer for The New Yorker since 1996, argues in his article “Small Change” that social media will not have a great impact on social change, and might even be demolishing the necessary tools that high-action activism has always been reliant on. Gladwell attempts to speak out to warn our current technological society, specifically to the young adults who frequent social media more than other ages. Gladwell highlights an event from 1960 when four college women from North Carolina A. & T. were denied service because of their race, and turned to protest as they sat at the lunch counter, refusing to move. The movement of sit-ins spread and grew until eventually seventy thousand students across the South were united in protest, without the use of technological communication. He focuses on the idea that this protest, like many others before the use of social media, was formed on the idea of strong bonds between real friendships, and not just loose relationships between acquaintances. But if we were to combine the key concepts Gladwell highlights that are needed within protests
In Ukraine there are people that are gathering at the Independence Maiden Square in Kiev. They all gathered at the square to rally against their PresidentYanukovych because he was not doing what they were hoping they will do. The government launched an attack against their own state because of the rallies that are happening. Petrou said, “Kyiv’s Independence Square is a blood-and-shoot warzone” (Petrou 127). Special police units went to the Independence Square, and they started to attack all the demonstrators with clubs, tear gas, and stun grenades. It was estimated that the police battered up 25,000 protesters, and while the police was busy with the protesters, other people went around and seized up some government buildings across the western part of Ukraine. Yulia Tymoshenko, a former Prime Minister, was jailed on dubious charges, but she is a deeply divisive figure among Ukrainians; she urged the people to take the streets to protest the government’s decision on the EU deal. After some time of being jail, she is now free and is walk...
Protests have long been a way for people to display their difference in opinion and gain support. One of the many protests against the war that had a powerful effect on public opini...
Andrew Calabrese, Virtual non-violence? Civil disobedience and political violence in the information age (2004) 6 Emerald Info 326 available at http://spot.colorado.edu/~calabres/Calabrese%20(civl%20dis).pdf
However, books and newspapers are not our sole source of the written word. Online blogs, articles, and newsletters now exist. Television and books have merged into one: the Internet. Revolutions, riots, and rebellions don’t just happen in our living rooms now, they happen on the go with us. On the subway, when we’re waiting in line at Subway, at our friend’s house as he talks about how he’s “way into subs.”
Social media is a revolution, which we are currently experiencing. It has changed the way people communicate and interact with one another, and opens up many more avenues to share news, information, and just general chit chat. Social media is relatively quiet young, but is here to stay for the foreseeable future. We are now at a point where online, we can share, read and react to lots of individual information being posted on microblogging websites, such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr and more. Twitter in particular has been widely embraced, and will centre most of the discussion.
For example, in Saleem Kassim views, “As a result of the many technological advancements and innovations that have revolutionized how individuals communicate, an abundance of information has become available to everyone.” Saleem Kassim’s point is that anyone and everybody can put out information that can be seen by everyone when you are an internet user. For example, the news can tell you that there’s nothing happening in a certain country; whereas, someone from that country can post on twitter and upload videos showing anyone that decides to see the truth of what is really happening in their country. Kassim also states, “Ultimately, public information supplied by social networking websites has played an important role during modern-day activism, specifically as it pertains to the Arab Spring.” In other words, Kassim believes that digital communication has brought people together to fight for something that is a good cause. To have people aware of the truth and to have someone do something about it. Indeed it is highly likely that we bring people together for a good cause but digital communication can also cause a downside through having no censorship on what you post. When more people are brought up of current events trending they decide to hope on board to see if there is anything they can do to help. Not to mention, Graff and Birkenstein view it the same way. Like I mentioned earlier, Graff and
The book begins with an attempt on Zainab’s life, presumably by Nasir’s forces. Later, the Muslim Ladies Group is banned when Zainab refuses Nasir’s offer to join the Socialist Union. She then engages in secret meetings with Muslims in h...
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 couple of seconds. In a few seconds we can reach our friend at the other pole of the globe and receive pictures and live videos in response. We can send information, receive it and even create it in the artificial world. Life has become easier with technology. We can control our cell phones with voice command and reserve a table in the closest restaurant for dinner. Technology is everywhere in our lives, but if we think for a second the purposes we could use them for then the danger begins. In this short essay I will be talking about the struggle of mankind for freedom and the stages it went through. There are 3 parts to my paper. In the first part I will discuss the birth of World Wide Web and how the purpose of it went through changes. In the second part, I will be talking about birth of newspapers in the Web, precisely how it developed into an intermediate body that transfers information to people. Ultimately, I will discuss the Ukrainian revolution and the role of the news media in it and ho...
Orenstein, Peggy. “I Tweet, Therefore I Am.” What Matters In America. Third Edition.Gary Goshgarian and Kathryn Goodfellow. New Jersey: Pearson, 2012. 40-43. Print.
In mere minutes, any active user can access information and associations regarding various causes, such as the riots happening in Egypt and the Middle East. Teenagers, in the Middle East, used their Facebook accounts to campaign the “Day of Rage” in Saudi Arabia. Helping to set the Arab riots in motion, the event demanded elections, freedom for women, and the liberation of political prisoners. The activists’ goals to bring democracy to Egypt and removing Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s fourth president from 1981 to 2011, still continue and perhaps with the assistance of Facebook they will accomplish these ambitions. The causes campaigned through Facebook have served as a fundraise...
On Sunday March 30, 2014, the teacher assistants of MC202 held a viewing for the documentary film The Square. This documentary is based upon the 2011 uprising that takes place in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt. It is seen through the eyes of six main characters that live in Cairo and contribute to the revolutionary movement. In the film, each person is united through the idealism and hope of achieving a democratic nation and to get the dictator type of government to change. The brave camera operators are able to capture a first person view that is directly at the front lines of this revolution, shooting from street level and high rise buildings to view the large mass of people gathered at Tahrir Square. This same group of people often find themselves coming back to the square in order for the government to hear their voice and make a change that appeals to the people’s interest. The film focuses on three events that required the people to gather at the square, this includes the removal of dictator Hosni Mubarak, the protest of military rule, and then to rise up against the presidency ...