I just finished watching 'For Neda', an HBO documentary about Neda, a young Iranian woman that was killed during the Iranian election protests. It was a very touching movie. I was surprised as the level of oppression faced by women in Iran yet happy to see that millions of people came out to protest together in what they believed in.
I also talked more today with friends about the topic and am thinking that I can do case studies where Twitter has gotten a lot of publicity for being successful (in such cases as spreading information on the Iranian 'revolution' protests). In this way, I can see if there are any commonalities which allowed the use of this social networking site to get word out to the international community. I may then choose to look at the western world as well as the Third World to look at both cases and why perhaps this type of information spreading is not or is occurring. For example, in the poorer context, what are the barriers to using this type of service and if they weren't there would they still be used? Then looking at the western world. These barriers do not exist really (at least not as much as they do elsewhere) yet perhaps this service is not being used in the same context, why or why not is this occurring? It may turn out that most cases where Twitter has seen success have been in industrializing countries, thus looking at the other two extremes, may offer an interesting insight.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
You need to do a bit more "old fashion" library research to help you find the focus, both theoretically and methodically. There is now indeed a fairly large and growing body of research literature on the use of social media for political and social change, and use of Twitter is but a more specific example of the broader phenomenon. So please visit the literature in our elibrary, maybe starting with this volume:
ReplyDeleteCyberprotest: New Media, Citizens and Social Movements. Edited by Wim van de Donk, Brian D. Loader, Paul G. Nixon, and Dieter Rucht. London: Routledge, 2004