The internet is probably the most powerful invention since the written word; it’s the instant written word. The internet gives a voice to anyone with access to it and practically the whole world has the potential to hear you. You can let the world know your take on a presidential candidate, find someone who will take that old treadmill off your hands, give people an easier way to donate to your charity, and most importantly, the internet is a tool to promote social change. Through the internet people in non-democratized countries can become exposed to different ideas and better standards of living, they can bring awareness to other countries of their social issues and/or injustices, they can provide testimony and visuals to their cause and essentially pull people into that cause. That is how social change comes about: making the most people you can aware of an issue and using the power of those numbers to persuade change. The internet does this in a faster way than any other channel.
The internet has become what television once was for the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement. It brought awareness to the public about how bad the war was getting and how horrific it was and showed the cruel and unjust treatment of African American people that was still going on in many parts of the United States, that awareness brought on feelings of outrage and inspired people to get together to do something to change these issues. The Zapatista revolution has been able to sustain itself since 1994 by turning to the internet and letting people in western nations know about their plight and how they can help. It's a voice that couldn't be spoken without the medium of the internet.
This is what’s going on in the ABC story about Myanmar. The citizens know that by making people aware of their plight, they will be helping induce social change. The internet is the fastest way to spread information, so they use it to their advantage by Tweeting, Facebooking, blogging, and posting or streaming videos from their phones so that it is harder for the government to control the leaking of this information to the rest of the world. And the best thing is that you can usually post things anonymously if you have to. The internet is a tool for social change. It got people in other countries to pay attention and like they showed in the video, I think it was especially helpful to the people’s case that the government wouldn’t allow ABC’s cameras into the country so that the reporter had to become like the citizen journalists of Myanmar. It was a firsthand experience for this outsider who will go back to his country and tell them what it was like.
On a side note in regards to the YouTube Direct article: I think deterring people from becoming citizen journalists in America makes sense because yes, I believe our news has become censored by the companies that own them. So, citizen journalism will expose more real news from real citizens. Also because our news networks have no problem taking things for free and using it to get better ratings (ie. bigger profits) for their station and you should be compensated for your work because they can afford to pay you. However, I think for other countries it’s not so risky to be a citizen journalist posting your news. In cases like Myanmar and China it’s just about central to getting some change to their respective countries.
This is what the whole Google vs. China debate is about: if Google doesn’t continue to censor their internet like they have been… “oh my gosh our citizens might learn about the outside world!” That is the fear of the Chinese government; without the control of the internet, knowledge will spread freely and they’ll lose control of their citizens. As I said before knowledge is power, it can bring change, lots of change and the Chinese government doesn’t want that. One of the contributors to the New York Times article, Timothy B. Lee, pointed out, “Censorship is not primarily about technology. Censorship in China…is the ability to punish people in “real life” when they do something online that the government doesn’t like.”
Lee also suggested that humans will always find ways to get to the information they want. The thing is that, as Ron Deibert said, even kids can get around their parental controls on their computer so it would just be impossible for the Chinese government to think that they will ever have total control over their internet, hard as they may try. Think about it China: File sharing still hasn’t been shut down and it looks like no one will ever be able to get control of it again.
I think people in other countries viewing this content have an obligation to do something to help these countries help get to them what we already can experience: a better quality of life with a democratic and free society. So, I think that contributor, Johnathan Zittrain, was right in suggesting that websites should help people make all sites accessible.
I also thought that Zittrain had a great point in speaking of the value of automatic translation tools and free speech/content. “The world’s people can speak fluently to each other on the net…that will be a quantum advance in the circulation of ideas.” Just think how amazing that would be.
“World Peace”. Image. http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumb_270/1211127579lJy6D6.jpg
“Dan Rather Vietnam”. Image. http://www.electronichouse.com/images/slideshow/1966_DanRather_Vietnam.jpg
YouTube Direct: Why Citizen Journalists Shouldn't Care by Jared Newman http://www.pcworld.com/article/182362/youtube_direct_why_citizen_journalists_shouldnt_care.html
NYT Forum on Google and China: http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/can-google-beat-china/
Internet activists push for greater democracy By CIARAN GILES (AP) (TWITTER & Facebook & YouTube as advocacy tools) – Nov 25, 2009 http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html
Myanmar Cell Phone Journalism: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3666307
