Social Media and Arab Spring

1.       The Arab Spring has been called the Bloggers Revolution.  What role did social media play in this revolution?

Social media played a huge role in the Arab Spring Bloggers Revolution because it was the vehicle that the people who were passionate about the revolution used to spread awareness and communicate with one another.  “People who shared interest in democracy built extensive social networks and organized political action. Social media became a critical part of the toolkit for greater freedom” (O’Donnell, 2011). In a revolution of that nature, what people see on televised media is often biased and controlled. The message that the people watching receive is that which the news broadcasters, corporations, or government give them. Often there is hidden agenda in such reports. By contrast, the social networks that were organized through the Arab Spring were created by the people, making it a possible primary source for the current events. “Our evidence suggests that social media carried a cascade of messages about freedom and democracy across North Africa and the Middle East, and helped raise expectations for the success of political uprising” (O’Donnell, 2011). Discussions about political and social uprising were happening throughout the region, and the evidence shows that the blogs, tweets, videos, organized Facebook pages increasingly revolved around revolution in the weeks preceding action.

Sources:

O'Donnell, C. (2011, September 12). New study quantifies use of social media in Arab Spring. Retrieved April 11, 2016, from http://www.washington.edu/news/2011/09/12/new-study-quantifies-use-of-social-media-in-arab-spring/

Wihbey, J. (2013, September 25). The Arab Spring and the Internet: Research roundup - Journalist's Resource. Retrieved April 11, 2016, from http://journalistsresource.org/studies/international/global-tech/research-arab-spring-internet-key-studies

A Class Divided

1.      What did you like most about the video?

I really enjoyed the fact that Jane went all out. She was, for lack of a better term, ballsy. She used her power of authority in a manipulative manner, but it was for the good of the experiment. She made all the children believe what she was saying was true, and she did not hold back in her criticisms. I could see their little brains turning when she would say things like “well of course you forgot your glasses, you’re a brown-eyed. Do you think that a blue eyed person would have done that?” She took every opportunity she could to make it personal for the students. I can’t imagine any teacher in this day and age having the courage to take that risk and follow through like she did. Nowadays people would be too scared of the repercussions from the children’s parents or the establishment for whom they work.

2.      What did you not like about the video?

Bringing up the change in times, I don’t think that this would ever work in schools in our present time. And actually when I really think about ways it could be implemented in the classroom, it is really a risk that shouldn’t be taken lightly. I would like to think that she thought carefully about each individual student to make sure that they could withstand such criticism and stress, but I doubt it. I think back then they just thought that children were resilient and should be taught a tough lesson (which I tend to agree with, but there are many factors involved that could make it a bad idea). There would always be risk of damaging one of the children in a way that they may not recover from quickly, or it may trigger something in them (perhaps a trauma or behavioral problem) that would be detrimental to the child and the experiment.

I would have also liked to hear from the parents of those children and what they learned from their kids or any changes they witnessed at home.

3.      Were you surprised at how the kids with blue eyes treated the kids with brown eyes? Why or why not?

Yes, I was surprised mainly at how eager they were to put them down and how they expressed that they felt so good when they were in the better group. I would think that children wouldn’t play into the power roles as much as adults would, but being told by an authority figure that they were superior, they ate it up.

4.      What scene or scenes do you think you'll still remember a month from now?  Why those scenes?

There was a scene where one of the children was asked how he felt when he finally got the upper hand group, and he responded with something like this: I felt important, powerful, good. I felt like all my past anger and frustrations just came out onto the lesser group, even if I knew that we used to be friends. That is obviously a paraphrase; or more so my interpretation of what he said. That will stick with me because it made me think of groups of people, and how groups or certain cultures have experienced past pain, discrimination and anger which all come out towards a whole other group, even if they do not know the individuals of that group.  All pent up aggression, even if it is really towards family, or some other random life stressors, will be purged onto the target group, making it misplaced anger, judgement, and discrimination.