The Role of Social Media in Political Movements

This essay focuses on the role of social media in political movements. The main point of the paper is to decide if social media can help or hinder positive social changes. The essay explores recent Venezuelan protests and tries to indicate whether their role is rather constructive or destructive.

In February, 2014 a series of protests and demonstrations occurred on Venezuelan streets as a result of insecurity, corruption, inflation, media censorship, strict price control, and human violation (Kurmanaev and Pons, November 8, 2013).
Everything began in January, 2014 when actress and former Miss Venezuela, Monica Spear, was murdered (Chavez and Galluzzo, January 8, 2014). This tragic affair was followed by the rape on a student that took place on a university campus in San Cristobal (Tayler, February 18, 2014). These events spurred the series of protests and public property attacks.
Due to the omnipresent censorship of media in Venezuela that includes, i.e.: limiting sources for newspapers, banning channels and blocking the Internet, the government was accused of assault, harassment and numerous of threats (Freedom of the Press News, February 26, 2014). Moreover, it was stated that reliable information regarding economy and crime statistics are not provided. The movement called "We are all Venezuela. No press freedom, no democracy" was created in order to help to defend both, press freedom and the right to information.















Nowadays, citizens can be engaged in various political processes in many ways. Activists using social media are able to set up different meetings and protests, virtual petitions, forums to debate issues. What is more, new technologies overcome obstacles to participation - lack of time constrains is no longer an issue. The Internet and online groups involve people in the real world where they can be taught various political skills (Rohlinger, Bunnage and Klein, January 2012).
It cannot be denied that Venezuela used social media a lot in recent protests in order to upraise against authoritarian government (O’Hagan, March 13, 2014). New technologies let them to access information that the whole World had access to. Broadcasting raised Venezuelans' awareness and consciousness, and played an enormous role in the demonstration. The role of social media affected Venezuela in two contrary ways. Freedom of speech, unrestricted access to information and the sense of unity was definitely more constructive than destructive. On the other hand, however, social media emphasized authoritarian attitude of the government and brought even more dislike, distrust and disrespect toward its governance.

Copyright 2014 Associated Press, "Twitter reports image blocking in Venezuela": http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/02/14/twitter-image-blocking-venezuela/5497219/ (Retrieved September 16, 2014)

Social media is for Venezuelans a means for showing the news in the streets, therefore, there was a huge  barrage of criticism between 12 and 15 February when images on Twitter were reported as unavailable due to technical problems (Copyright 2014 The Associated Press, February 14, 2014). This situation had an enormous impact on about half a million citizens. Due to the constant lack of trust towards the government, the popularity of Twitter (as the only free media) and social media in general is expanding everyday (Franceschi-Bicchierai, February 28, 2014).

As a means the Internet may be used by people within socio-political and cultural context, therefore, governments have developed various ways of controlling the online sphere. The position adopted here shows that social networking may be the lifeblood for many political changes as they strengthen indirect but very interactive conversations between users. A page can be treated as a political tool since it relies on "the power of community knowledge as a force for change" (San Miguel, December 18, 2012, pp.11). Nevertheless, it should fulfill certain requirements, such as allowing citizens for integration and expression of ideas.

In spite of various positive, as well as negative aspects regarding the role of social media in political movements, it is difficult not to agree with Sarah Joseph's words who claims that "the increase of unfiltered connections between people of different cultural, political, and economic outlooks is likely to have some unprecedented and beneficial consequences for the development of local, national, regional, and global activism." (Joseph 2012, p.188).

Bibliography:

Chavez and Galluzzo, "Venezuela: the most dangerous place on earth?": http://www.channel4.com/news/venezuela-most-dangerous-place-earth-murder-monica-spear-colombia-drugs (Retrieved September 16, 2014)

Franceschi-Bicchierai "In Venezuela, the Only Free Media Is Twitter": http://mashable.com/2014/02/28/venezuela-twitter/ (Retrieved September 16, 2014)

Freedom of the Press News, "IAPA protests official censorship of press in Venezuela": http://www.sipiapa.org/en/iapa-protests-official-censorship-of-press-in-venezuela/ (Retrieved September 16, 2014)

Joseph, "Social Media, Political Change, and Human Rights", 35 B.C. Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. 145 (2012): http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1667&context=iclr

Kurmanaev and  Pons, "Venezuela Inflation": http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-07/venezuela-inflation-hits-16-year-high-as-shortages-rise.html (Retrieved September 16, 2014)

O'Hagan, "Does social media really bring us closer to the reality of conflict?": http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/does-social-media-really-bring-us-closer-to-the-reality-of-conflict-1.1303773 (Retrieved September 16, 2014)

Rohlinger, Bunnage and Klein, "How Social Movements are Using the Internet to Change Politics?": http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/sites/default/files/ssn_key_findings_rohlinger_on_virtual_power_plays-2.pdf (Retrieved September 16, 2014)

San Miguel, "Social Media, a Tool for Political Change": http://www.academia.edu/2619486/SOCIAL_MEDIA_A_TOOL_FOR_POLITICAL_CHANGE (Retrieved September 16, 2014)

Tayler,"What the heck is going on in Venezuela?": http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-18/what-the-heck-is-going-on-in-venezuela-could-the-maduro-regime-fall (Retrieved September 16, 2014)