Grassroot movements take on a new form
I have to admit that before sitting down to read this week’s readings, I had been at the gym wearing my customized Nike shoes. I had never thought about the Nike sweatshops in regards to my customized shoes, which I shamefully admit to having. In the first reading from Jonah Peretti, we learned about cultural jamming, memes, and media ecology. I found this article interesting because it demonstrates the power of the internet because of the internet’s ability to include multiple formats for the dissemination of information, which in turns sparks social transformations. Peretti was intelligent to study the effects that one email had, over time, on the rest of the world.
Peretti used cultural jamming to combat Nike’s campaign for their customized shoes. Peretti ordered a pair of customized running shoes with the word “sweatshop,” written on the shoe as her customized aspect. However, Nike refused to process her order, and Peretti emailed this event to her close friends. In a very short time period thousands if not millions of people had heard of this incident. Without the internet this meme would never have reached the power that it did. Peretti found herself at the center of a world-wide movement. The internet has powerful implications, especially as users learn to navigate the internet. The internet turned a personal email sent to a few friends, to a topic of discussion in the mass media. In this instance, the internet “provided a technical distribution network that overlays social networks.” I also found it interesting because this article serves as an example for the discussion of journalists and how they use the internet and blogs specifically to report the news. In this instance the internet gave an eager reporter a unique topic that mattered to the people, which was then picked up by other reporters, adding fuel to the fire.
This example provides solid evidence to the positive influence of the internet, a topic we have discussed relentlessly in this class. The internet proved to serve the public, providing a format to disseminate issues that were important to the public. This example goes further into the issue of agenda setting. Many topics that people receive information on, are chosen by a string of reporters and editors who must approve news before it is disseminated. The internet now disarms news outlets’ ability to set the agenda in the public sphere. The internet allows any type of movement or topic to gain support, outside of the controlled news rooms.
In the second article, Vegh argues that the government has framed the debate of the threat of hacking in order to persuade people to allow their rights to be violated. The government uses the public’s fear of hacking to try to control the internet and reinforce the power structure. With the internet controlled by the government, it is easier for the government to quiet anti-government activists by calling them cyber-terrorists. For more threatening movements then Peretti’s Nike sweatshop movement, the government is trying to silence these types of movements. It is not surprising that this power struggle has arisen; the internet is the easiest place for activists to find support, and it is the hardest medium for the government to regulate and control. It is difficult to always distinguish between cyber-terrorism, hacking, and harmless activists, especially with an inclusive form of media that is exponentially grown faster then we can adjust.
Questions: Is it alright for the government to censor or control the internet? Is it an issue of freedom of speech? Have many high profile memes influenced our government? Will memes have a roll in creating