Way back in the dark ages (2004), protesters wishing to hurl a figurative or a literal rock in the direction of the Republican National Convention had to know where to meet fellow protesters. This information could usually be found online (newspapers generally only list big marches, if that), but the problem was figuring out where to find this information. And what happens if it changes due to weather or other factors?
Activists operate on a frayed-shoestring budget and have day-jobs to hold down so marches were coordinated through word of mouth, flyers and maybe a flea-bitten website that was lucky to see two updates during the convention. This just doesn’t cut it.
Thanks to some exciting new media technologies this paradigm is changing rapidly. Ubiquitous cell phones (many able to access much of the web), easy-to-use, free blogging software and Twitter have changed things completely.
Twitter’s emergence on the scene has been especially interesting to watch. Activists now have the ability to organize and reconvene in real-time. Protesters can simply subscribe to the tweets of organizations like ProtestRNC2008 and ColdsnapLegal to receive instant updates on their mobile device. Activists can then be warned about police actions, rallied to support protesters under arrest and even send out appeals for help. Some of the tweets are chilling; the brevity of a 140 character limit requires direct, no-frills prose.
Medics Desperately needed @Hennepin Cty Jail (4th st & 4th ave, Mpls) for arrestees being released; treatment for chemical weapons needed. An additional 24 people arrested and taken away on 2nd bus at 7th st & 2nd ave. Total: 51 confirmed arrests. Cops are now leaving the area.
Media outlets like the Twin Cities Independent Media Center are using their updates to instantly find sources, news events and to inform readers. This is journalism like I’ve never seen it before.
Activists use these services to find spontaneous protests and unannounced concerts like Rage Against the Machine’s attempt to play a free show near the Capitol building in St. Paul. Police wouldn’t let them play so they did a few a capella numbers through a megaphone and started marching their crowd downtown towards the Xcel Center, home of the convention. Within minutes I was receiving tweets from people in the crowd telling me where they were headed. The march was unapproved so there was no agreed-upon route beforehand, and really no other way to find out about it except through new media.
Jane Hamsher, blog mistress of Firedoglake, argues that new media is not just changing how people find out about protests; it’s also changing essence of protests and the media:
It was like a million ants scurrying around the city, passing back bits of information that formed themselves into a whole in a completely decentralized manner. Its very nature defied efforts to control and spin and propagandize.
It was the anti-Fox News.
The advent of Twitter poses a fundamental challenge to Old Media. The mainstream media is increasingly being pushed from the role of gatekeeper to the less important role of middle man. And who doesn’t want to get around the middle man and go directly to the source? For those so inclined it’s possible to hear and see news as it really happened; what my history professor would call a primary source rather than a secondary source. Why watch events through the news media’s filter when you can see it for yourself on YouTube?
Is the Old Media biased? Of course. So is New Media. But access to primary source materials allows you to make up your own mind about what really happened. Good luck trying to get primary source materials from the mainstream media. If it’s not on C-SPAN, you’re not going to get it. But YouTube, Flickr and blogs allow you to get information right from the horse’s mouth, while news aggregation services like Digg and Mixx make it easier to sort the wheat from the chaff.
No doubt protesters are learning from their experience at this year’s RNC and will be back with even more sophisticated tools and tricks in 2012. In the meantime we can learn a lot from them as well.