https://www.ted.com/talks/zeynep_tufekci_how_the_internet_has_made_social_change_easy_to_organize_hard_to_win
( also on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo2Ai7ESNL8 )
Zeynep Tufekci: Online Social Change: Easy To Organize, Hard To Win
filmed October 2014 at TEDGlobal 2014
801,951 total views
Today, a single email can launch a worldwide movement. But as
sociologist Zeynep Tufekci suggests, even though online activism is
easy to grow, it often doesn't last. Why? She compares modern
movements — Gezi, Ukraine, Hong Kong — to the civil rights movement of
the 1960s, and uncovers a surprising benefit of organizing protest
movements the way it happened before Twitter.
Interactive transcript
Zeynep Tufekci’s footnotes
"As digital technology makes things easier for movements, why haven't
successful outcomes become more likely as well? In embracing digital
platforms for activism and politics, are we overlooking some of the
benefits of doing things the hard way? Now, I believe so. I believe
that the rule of thumb is: Easier to mobilize does not always mean
easier to achieve gains."
"Or think of the Occupy movement which rocked the world in 2011. It
started with a single email from a magazine, Adbusters, to 90,000
subscribers in its list. About two months after that first email,
there were in the United States 600 ongoing occupations and protests.
Less than one month after the first physical occupation in Zuccotti
Park, a global protest was held in about 82 countries, 950 cities. It
was one of the largest global protests ever organized."
"Now, compare that to what the Civil Rights Movement had to do in 1955
Alabama to protest the racially segregated bus system, which they
wanted to boycott. They'd been preparing for many years and decided it
was time to swing into action after Rosa Parks was arrested. But how
do you get the word out -- tomorrow we're going to start the boycott
-- when you don't have Facebook, texting, Twitter, none of that? So
they had to mimeograph 52,000 leaflets by sneaking into a university
duplicating room and working all night, secretly. They then used the
68 African-American organizations that criss-crossed the city to
distribute those leaflets by hand. And the logistical tasks were
daunting, because these were poor people. They had to get to work,
boycott or no, so a massive carpool was organized, again by meeting.
No texting, no Twitter, no Facebook. They had to meet almost all the
time to keep this carpool going."
"three years after Occupy sparked that global conversation about
inequality, the policies that fueled it are still in place. Europe was
also rocked by anti-austerity protests, but the continent didn't shift
its direction."
--
Twitter: twitter.com/ColoradoHOA
web: sites.google.com/a/coloradohoa.com/www/
F*c*book: www.facebook.com/pages/Colorado-HOA/992421100772299
e-mail list: www.freelists.org/list/hoa
