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Occupying Wall Street

If the media of the day changes the people, what are we becoming through social media?

Tallulah Habib
By Tallulah Habib
Johannesburg, 18 Oct 2011

Youth around the world are taking power into their hands and waving the spirit of the 1960s like a banner. In words that echo the late Jimi Hendrix, they are questioning what it means to be human; they are calling for a new form of unity, a new breed of governance. It's an amazing thing to watch.

In the digital age, every voice has power - whether sending a tweet, writing a blog, or speaking from a senate building.

Tallulah Habib, social media activist, ITWeb

What started on 10 September in Wall Street as a quiet rally that the media mostly ignored, has spread across the planet. The so-called “Occupy” movement urges populace of all major cities to camp out in economic hubs to protest unequal wealth distribution. Youth in America, facing a future of unemployment and hefty student loans, wanted to show their disgust at the big banks that received huge government bailouts, while the majority of Americans suffered the blows of the recession. They saw the 1%, the wealthiest in the country, carry on living their 'Merc and Champagne' lifestyles, and they wanted to do something about it.

“We are the 99%” became their rallying cry, and it is a cry that is now echoing as far afield as SA.

To say that a movement such as this has never been seen before would be a myth, for even those of us not born at the time have watched the anti-war protests in the 1960s and the hippy movement caught on film. We have heard the Woodstock songs. Why would a bunch of youth calling for a new world now be any different from the youth of that time?

Because of social media.

In a recent column, marketing maven Walter Pike spoke about how social media could be the fifth estate. The fifth estate is a much debated concept. When dividing the world into “estates”, one is referring to societal or political forces that have influence on society. It is generally accepted that the first is the clergy, the second is the nobility, the third the commoners and the forth the media. A fifth estate, if introduced to this fine balance, would cause immense upheaval, such as that seen when the printing press introduced the fourth. Is what we're seeing the introduction of a fifth estate in action?

Democratised media, democratised people

“The medium is the message,” Marshall McLuhan once said, in a quote that every journalism major knows by heart. What it means is that media has a marked impact on the society of the time. The printing press gave Church reformers the ability to print their own bibles and pamphlets, and thus throw off the domination of the Church. It was an enabler of the Reformation. The mass-media revolution meant reporters and politicians were in the home like never before. Through radio, the world experienced the Spanish Civil War, through television, the war in Vietnam. Everything that happened in public became a matter in the realm of the private. Now the Internet and social media have taken that a step further - not only is the outside world in the home, but we can have some effect on it.

“We are increasingly listening to each others' voices rather than to the Master's Voice,” write the authors of 'Me the Media' (Sogeti, 2009). In the digital age, every voice has power - whether sending a tweet, writing a blog, or speaking from a senate building. Social media has been credited with a surprisingly large number of uprisings and revolutions over the past few years: Spain in 2004, Belarus 2006, Moldova in 2009, Iran 2009, the Arab Spring, the London Riots and now with the Occupy movement.

Mouths of babes

The youth sounding the battle cry are my generation, the Y-Generation, otherwise known as the Millennials, the constantly-connected, digital-native, social-media savvy generation. Many articles have been written about how we think differently from the generations before us, how we function differently in the workplace. Did they not say the same of the baby boomers after TV was introduced? Did they not credit the proliferation of television in society with the protests that surrounded Vietnam and the Cold Wars? It seems to me that it is always the youth of a media age, those who have grown up in a society altered by a new medium, who cry out against what has gone before, who believe it can - no - needs to change.

The passionate cry of the Occupiers may mimic the ones of the flower children four decades ago, but the cries are going out into a completely different world. For one thing, the world is smaller, their words have a wider reach through the Internet and social media. For another, it is a world in which the 99%, if they have an Internet connection, actually have a voice.

A third point must be made, however: the Occupy movement is as unfocused as the medium it rides upon. It is partly violent, partly peaceful; partly about economics, partly about government; partly purposeful, partly just a loose gathering of unhappy people. Again, the medium epitomises the message: powerful but chaotic, democratic but unfocused. Can real change come about in this way?

Media revolutions seldom completely change what has gone before. In all cases, the old ideas and values still remain to some extent. Occupy will likely not reinvent currency and government, but that doesn't mean it won't play a part in the changing of the world as we know it - a change we may just be lucky enough to see in our lifetime.

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