How Far is it from Macon to Egypt?

Posted by bgosden on Feb 16, 2011 in Life, Social Media | 0 comments

A historic thing happened in Egypt a few days ago. Well, that’s not exactly true. A historic event culminated a few days ago. The truth is, what could be called Revolution 2.0 against the oppressive regime of Hosni Mubarak has been in the works for some time.

It can be difficult as an American to truly appreciate such a far-away triumph of the collective human spirit. While we “benefit” from 24-Hour Cable News, much of focusses on U.S. news. To occasionally spice things up we can get a trashy story on Charlie Sheen amid the monotony of news of U.S. politics and the drama between Democrats and Republicans. Most would agree that our coverage of world news lacks a bit. It can become easy to feel very foreign to the rest of the world.

But thanks to social media, the unfolding drama of protests in Egypt were played out right before our eyes. Twitter and Facebook posed such a threat to the regime of Egypt that they even cut off access to the Internet for some time. When this happened, third-party sources like Tweetdeck became the forum through which they expressed their collective voice of discontent. And news reporters even perpetuated this by “retweeting” these statements so that more and more followers could see and know what was going on

What we’re seeing is a growing pattern of tools of protest for young people around the world. Say what you want about Social Media and its ills in our society, it’s being used by thousands of young people in countries that don’t allow free speech as a way to break through the iron wall of oppression that try to enforce silence among the people. What newspapers cannot print, Twitter will carry in snippets of 140 characters. What government news programs will not highlight can be instantly turned in to a Fan Page on Facebook. From there the viral spread of hope and freedom can actually spread across the world.

Don’t get me wrong, this was by no means a triumph of Social Media. The victory belongs to the people of Egypt. This revolution against oppression is the product of a people who know hope against everything seemingly to the contrary. But the tools they chose to help organize the effort was a study in what Washington and Lee University professor Claudette Artwick calls technosociality.

It’s a good day when the voice of the people can cry louder than oppressive powers. It’s a good day when powers can fall to the sound of voices of protests rather than bombs. And it’s a really good day when, through the power of Social Media and communication, I can peer through the window of my computer screen to witness the triumph of a people who joined in community to declare that there would be more to life than just oppression. I guess you could say that, in some sense, the distance between Macon, GA and Egypt seems a lot shorter now.