In a battle of the lesser of two evils, this week's readings examine how governments control and exploit their people, paying particularly close attention to contemporary governments. The two case studies examined are Tunisia during the Arab Spring (in which the government's monetary stronghold on property ownership was revealed by WikiLeaks) and China.
As mentioned, the Tunisian example focuses on the government's monetary exploitation of the people. As WikiLeaks would soon reveal, President Ben Ali's family did a pretty good job of utilizing their own wealth to buy up property in the country and then sell it off to entrepreneurs for even more money. The United States, as was revealed, even knew about this--although much of the Tunisian population did not.
In contrast to this monopoly on money, the Chinese example focuses on the government's ability to control the media and the perception citizens and foreigners have of a nation. The Xinjiang protests were met with government sanctions on media--but not just any media. Specifically, the Chinese restricted new and social media, restricting phone service, shutting down Twitter and other social networking sites, and "scrubbing" down search engines and the links they provided... and then they allowed more "traditional" forms of media to come in and cover the story, showcasing their "transparency."
I'd like to think this is a case of the Chinese trying to set an example for all nations and "cling on" to and "save" these dying media forms, but at the end of the day, that's simply not reality. The truth is that the Chinese used their ability to control the media to give off a certain image and to assert their power--just like the Ben Ali government in Tunisia did with its monopoly over property.
This, in turn, begs the question: what is more effective, to control the land and money or to control the media?
I think to answer this question it is important to remember just how the death of a fruit vendor in Tunisia inspired an entire region to get up and do something--because of the media. Might Mohammed Bouazizi have been disgruntled with the government's monopoly on land? Certainly. But even if he had a ton of money lying around himself, would Bouazizi have been able to get the word out there about this monopoly? Probably not--because the government could have imprisoned or, better yet, simply censored him. Thus, we see that all roads lead back to the media, and, in particular, new media, the type of media that gives viewers a front seat to the action no matter where they are (therefore why the Chinese gave "old" media the "front seat" to the action in Xinjiang and shut down new media--because a newspaper article is not going to be as instantaneous nor paint the picture of a YouTube video).
Which brings this back to the point I found most interesting in Arianna Huffington's piece on this Chinese exploitation. The New York Times Roger Cohen claimed that, after he covered the Iranian protests in Tehran, "to bear witness means being there," a point Huffington highly questions--and with good reason. Because, once again, thanks to new media, EVERYONE can feel like they're there--whether it's an NFL game, the Academy Awards, or protests in China, camera-videos and tweets can, when mass-produced and promoted, make viewers feel like they are there, making them feel emotionally invested thousands of miles away.
From a journalistic perspective, I was more upset that Cohen said this... and then talked about how "we should all be leaving 'chunks' of ourselves everywhere." This has been a practice I have always preached; as someone who enjoys being emotionally invested in the subject of my reporting, I find it 100% true. But I feel you don't need to be there 100% of the time to be 100% invested and to leave your mark on a subject. Just look at Wael Ghonim, the Google exec turned secret-leader of the Arab Spring in Egypt. Wael wasn't even in Egypt much of the time leading up to the protests and, after being arrested, he literally could not be on the streets. Yet he was invested in his subject and sought to promote it--using the medium of his choice, Facebook. Wael left chunks of himself on the streets of Cairo, but, moreover, he clicked the "share" button and taught others to share bits of themselves too in order to combat the government.
I believe a media stronghold is the more threatening "evil" in this situation. And I believe that, simultaneously, it is the job of the media to give other members of the media--whether they are front page news editors or simply a citizen journalist--the power to let this be known.
No comments:
Post a Comment