To skip this introduction and go directly to read Alexander Mirescu’s In-Depth Analysis “Civil Society in Tunisia: The Arab Spring Comes Home to Roost,” click here.

The Arab Spring is now commonly understood as a tragedy, if not a colossal failure. Those who “knew” that Islam and democracy are fundamentally incompatible feel vindicated. Those critical of American foreign policy find their criticisms confirmed, whether the object of their criticism is that of realpolik – the U.S. should have never supported the purported democratic uprising – or more idealistic – the U.S. should have supported such forces sooner and more thoroughly. I believe these common understandings and criticisms are fundamentally mistaken, based as they are on lazy comparative analysis, not paying attention to the details of political and cultural struggles, and by ethnocentric obsessions and superpower fantasy, not realizing how much the fate of nations is based on local and not global struggles.

In today’s post on Tunisia, a very different understanding is suggested, as I as the author of The Politics of Small Things, see it. The uprising in the Middle East of 2011, sparked by protests in Tunisia, opened up possibilities for fundamental transformation. The possibilities were opened by ordinary people, when they spoke to each other, in their differences, about their common concerns, and developed a capacity to act upon their concerns. In most countries in the region, one way or another, the power these people created together faced other powers and has been overwhelmed. But the game isn’t over, as this report on civic associations in Tunisia shows. The report suggests a corollary to the old adage: those who live by the sword, die by the sword. The persistence of civic action in Tunisia suggests a continued opening: those who manage to speak and act in the presence of others, in their differences, with common principled commitment to their public interaction, open the possibility of an alternative to tragedy.

The promise of the Arab Spring may yet live in the country of its birth. I think we should pay close to this, as we are overwhelmed by the tragic reports and images coming out of Syria and Egypt.

To go directly to read Alexander Mirescu’s In-Depth Analysis “Civil Society in Tunisia: The Arab Spring Comes Home to Roost,” click here.

Since the ouster of authoritarian leader, Ben Ali, in January 2011, Tunisia, with its vibrant landscape of civil society organizations (CSOs), continues to distinguish itself from other MENA states affected by the Arab Spring. Indeed, since its independence from France in 1956, Tunisia has long been an exception in the region.

The first decades of independence under the stable, albeit single-party leadership of Habib Bourghiba brought profound levels of modernization in public healthcare, education and, for the Arab world, the most far-reaching set of women’s rights. Praised by the World Bank, IMF and UNDP for its rapid, yet sustained development, Tunisia stabilized its future through an expanded tourism and a more diversified economy, coupled with a more efficient and increasingly export-oriented agricultural sector. Bourghiba wisely transitioned economic output, as Tunisia’s limited petroleum resources decreased. After a quiet change of power in 1987, former interior minister, Ben Ali, continued his predecessor’s development legacy and stayed loyal to the country’s secular political culture, which allowed for private expression of religious life, but guaranteed governance that was markedly non-Islamic in its day-to-day business.

Micro-level civil society before the revolution

While more extensive inspection is required, recent field research reveal a small, but unexpectedly vibrant CSO sector before the beginning of the Arab Spring in December 2010. While regimes will often tolerate, contain, control and even co-opt CSOs for their own purposes, exceptions will arise. Pre-Arab Spring Tunisia challenges this assumption: by the mid-2000s, neighborhood-level associations with modest financial development aid from foreign embassies successfully negotiated pockets of “free spaces” outside of the regime-approved, corporatist CSOs. Under Ben Ali, CSO activity and development projects were centralized under the Ministry of the Interior, representative of the “police state” Tunisia had become.

Chema Gargouri, president of the Tunisian Association for Management and Social Stability (TAMSS), was among the first pioneers of civil society. Initially working through standard channels of application, she directly engaged the much-feared Ministry of the Interior to allow for neighborhood-based educational programs for children and gender-based training programs that were not officially sanctioned by the government. Despite regular police surveillance and occasional raids by intelligence officers, Gargouri carved out a space, as she explained to me in an interview this month: “that neither directly challenged Ben Ali’s regime, nor overtly supported the government. We were strictly apolitical; if they asked me to become political or they thought I was becoming political, I would have closed the doors.” Hence, while authority unquestionably rested in regime hands, a tacit agreement based on negotiated response emerged whereby crucial, micro-level civic action, free from direct state co-optation, could be nurtured and nascent ideas and practices of independent social engagement and collective action established.

Civil society during the Arab Spring

In December 2010, the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi in the backwater town of Sidi Bouzid tapped into the deep well of Tunisian youth’s frustration with lack of employment, socio-economic marginalization, police repression and petite and grand corruption. In the immediate phases of the Jasmine Revolution, informal civic networks quickly began to collectively organize, even while mass demonstrations and general strikes took place. Since independence under Bourghiba, Tunisians could rely on state institutions to maintain day-to-day functions, such as administering schools, hospitals, emergency services, traffic regulation and garbage collection. Ahmed Hamza, program coordinator at the Women’s Enterprise for Sustainability (WES) in Tunis, described to me how neighborhood- and even street-level organizations in January 2011 took on the responsibility for issues like transporting children to school, public safety and rubbish removal. Political orientation, religious observance or the absence of religious observation, economic background and level of education were placed aside as neighborhood groups “took on the state’s role, when the state apparatus disappeared.” Hamza recalled the palpable sense of excitement of citizens taking the lead on organizing their society at the most basic level.

In rapid fashion, similar-minded civil society organizations began to bond around common ideas, while simultaneously preventing class, ideological or religious differences from spoiling the common goal of ousting the Ben Ali regime. Under other circumstances, Islamist Tunisians may not have had much in common with secular, Western oriented Tunisians, yet a palpable ‘spirit of solidarity enveloped the country.

Civil society after the first elections

The first free elections in Tunisia took place on 23 October 2011. The Islamist party, Ennaddha, won 41% of the vote, thereafter creating a coalition with two smaller secular parties, the Et-Katatol and Congress for the Republic (CPR). In the face a multitude of political, economic and institutional reforms and the creation of the National Constituent Assembly tasked with formulating a new post-revolution constitution, Tunisia’s transition seems to have ground to a hear halt. In some ways similar to its ideological brother in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, Ennaddha has failed to introduce necessary reforms for foreign investment and commerce and trade. Unemployment remains staggeringly high, despite Ennaddha continued promises for improvement, while tourism, Tunisia’s historical cash cow, has suffered from low bookings due to domestic and regional political instability. The assassination of two leading secular, oppositional leaders within six months, the brutal murder of eight members of the military and a porous border with Libya continue to destabilize the country. With increased calls from the secular opposition, led by the multi-party conglomerate entitled Nidaa Tounes, for the dissolution of the government, civil society has lost much of its initial spirit of collective action for a more durable democratic transition.

As much as civil society can influence politics, so too can political instability affect civil society. This has become evident in the restructuring of Tunisia’s current CSO landscape.

My current research points to three distinguishable categories of CSOs that emerged in recent months: religiously affiliated, secular/oppositional and interest-oriented.

Religiously affiliated CSOs are nothing new to the Arab world, and certainly not a phenomenon in Tunisia. When one speaks of religious CSOs in the Tunisian context, then the automatic reference is to Islamic organizations, a clear reflection of Tunisia’s homogenous religious landscape: nearly 99% of Tunisia are Sunni Muslim. Islamic organizations and make up the vast majority of this first category. They seek to fill in the large socioeconomic gaps that have emerged as a result of the revolution and political gridlock. Religiously affiliated CSOs are comparatively more concentrated in the central, port city of Sfax, followed by formidable activity in Tunis and, finally, in the historically poorer, agricultural regions of the interior. Religiously affiliated groups, even those who claimed to me to be politically neutral or confessionally moderate, tacitly or even overtly support Ennaddha and its religious-conservative agenda. Similar to like-minded groups in Egypt, Palestine and Lebanon, Tunisian Islamic CSOs are largely engaged in neighborhood-level actions, collecting monetary donations and gathering and distributing school books, shoes and clothes and, in some cases, handing out durable goods like refrigerators.

Secular/oppositional CSOs have emerged on the other side of the spectrum. The secular tradition in Tunisia, long influenced by the French tradition of laicite, demonstrates its adaption to and respect for the country’s deep Islamic tradition: their understanding of establishing an Arab democratic tradition does not necessarily exclude religious actors from participating in CSO activities. Indeed, of the varied secular groups I interviewed during the month of Ramadan, many individuals felt compelled to express their religious observance and their commitment to inclusion and openness. Others in this category exemplify markedly less or even no religious observation. However, there are two closely intertwined, overarching elements of the secular/oppositional CSO category.

Firstly, indifferent of personal religiousness, there is a desire to deepen Tunisia’s tradition of Bourghibian secular governance. Since its independence in 1956, Tunisian politics displayed a marked commitment to keeping religious influence out of day-to-day politics. Bourghiba, himself a moderately observant Muslim, embodied the capacity to govern secularly, but practice his personal faith privately. Secular/oppositional CSOs do not seek to aggressively remove or eradicate Islam’s role in society. Rather, as Dr. Salah Bourjini explained in an interview: their goal is to “separate governance from religion. We want complete liberty in religious practice, but let’s keep unnecessary influence out of government.”

In light of Ennaddha’s electoral win and its inability to offer convincing remedies to Tunisia’s growing problems, these CSOs have adopted their current oppositional stance, in part because of perceived threats of a gradual Islamization of society and risks to the rights of women and the small religious minority groups.

Interest-oriented CSOs focus their efforts on achieving specific goals, indifferent of the current political deadlock. This is best exemplified by the increasing number of environmental groups, which see their mission as being located beyond party-based politics. In the southern town of Gabes, the site of a decades-long environmental degradation through the local heavy chemical industry, members of the Association de Sauvegarde de l’Oasis de Chemini (ASOC) demonstratively locate their work outside of party politics. Collaborating with regional Mediterranean and EU member states, ASOC “specifies its focus strictly on improvements in the quality of water and air in and around Gabes.” Improving the state of the regional environment would have positive results for the local economy, local agriculture and tourism, all of which are policy areas still uncontested and, at a minimum, verbally supported by all municipal political parties. In Sfax, similar groups included the Mediterranean Network for the Promotion of Sustainable Development Strategies and the internet-based EcologiePlus organization.

Tunisia’s second post-Arab Spring elections are scheduled for 23 October 2013. The tense political climate will surely become yet more pronounced as Election Day approaches. However, if there is one common element that unites all members of Tunisia’s CSO community, it is an awareness that the success of the Arab Spring has returned to where it began in 2011. While Egypt and Syria are gripped by continued violence and while political stagnation has ground further political development in Yemen, Oman, Bahrain and Libya, Tunisian CSOs realize that the last chance for an Arab democracy rests in their hands.

In an oft-quoted remark Henry Kissinger observed that “Israel has no foreign policy, it has only a domestic policy.” Israel keeps on proving Kissinger right and by now his bon mot has become a sad truism. But recently the truism has turned to farce as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu relentlessly takes apart Israel’s Foreign Ministry and its professional Foreign Service.

In an act of political payoff, Netanyahu did not appoint a Foreign Minister in his new cabinet at the request of Avigdor Lieberman, the former Foreign Minister, who is currently standing trial for Breach of Trust and fraud. Netanyahu has decided to keep the position open for Lieberman until the end of the trial. In the meantime, he himself is acting as the Foreign Minister. Needless to say, the Prime Minister hardly has the time to manage the daily matters of the Ministry, though he started his public career as a diplomat, and a very adept one.

Additionally, to further weaken the ministry, Netanyahu redistributed many of the traditional responsibilities of the Foreign Ministry among other ministries, some of them new and bogus creations, such as the gimmicky Ministry of International Relations. Other related ministries include the Ministry for Regional Cooperation, a Minister for Diasporas, and a Justice Minister, Tzipi Livni, who is also responsible for diplomatic initiatives and peace talks with the Palestinians. Considering that Prime Minister Netanyahu keeps for himself and in his office some key aspects of Israel’s foreign relations, what we get is a beheaded and enfeebled Foreign Ministry, lacking political backing, which competes with several artificial and bogus ministries. Why is this so? Why does Netanyahu sacrifice the Foreign Ministry with its years of experience and professionalism?

One may argue that by weakening the ministry and establishing evermore competing entities, Netanyahu is trying to divide and rule, a well-worn strategy of playing all against all, so as to ‎secure his own agenda. However, in my judgment, there is no agenda as it appears that in Israel, everyone is in charge and no one is in command.

There are two possible alternative reasons for the establishment of these “bogus international ministries.” The first is the deep-seated animosity Netanyahu bears towards what is called the “old elite.” This animosity was very explicit in his first administration, between 1996 and 1999, and was targeted at various strongholds of the old elites, like the Supreme Court, national media, and academia. Though more restrained in his second and third administrations, it seems that his stand towards the diplomatic service still echoes with this rancor. The second reason for the proliferation of ministries is related to Netanyahu’s weakness. Contrary to the widespread perception of him as a strong leader (see, for example the May 2012 Time Magazine coverage of “King Bibi”), he is in fact a weak politician who is coerced and arm-twisted rather easily. The political spread of these various “international bogus ministries” is a sure sign of this weakness.

The minister charged with regional cooperation, Silvan Shalom from the Likud is a harsh internal opponent of Netanyahu, who every now and then receives some political goods to keep him at bay. The Minister of International Relations (whatever that may be) is Yuval Steinitz, a close ally and devotee of Netanyahu who had to be compensated for being “robbed” of his post as Finance Minister. The creation of the Ministry of International Relations serves no other purpose. The minister in charge of the Diasporas, Naftali Bennett, is the head of the Jewish Home, the right-wing partner in Netanyahu’s coalition. While Tzipi Livni, on the other hand, is the head of the splinter centrist party, the Movement. Each got his or her share of the spoils. And on top of them all, presides Lieberman who for years now has successfully wrested most of his wants and whims from Netanyahu, including his demand not to appoint a Foreign Minister in his place.

All these facts are a bit tedious, especially to theorists who tend to look at the macro level and examine the structure of global politics. But boring as they are, the facts are crucial in understanding and explaining Israel’s international behavior (think Goldfarb’s The Politics of Small Things and Putnam’s two-level-game). The appointments, driven as they are by various political moves and calculations, create an impossible political mosaic; impossible, that is, in terms of forming and executing coherent agendas and policies.

I doubt anyone can identify Israel’s preferences regarding the negotiation with the Palestinians and what its vision is for a final settlement. I wonder: Does John Kerry think he does today after his recent experiment in shuttle diplomacy?

Prime Minister Netanyahu declares every now and then his commitment to a two-state solution. On June 5^th 2013, for example, he called on Abu Mazen not to miss yet another opportunity, asking him to “give peace a chance.” Yet, the same month it was revealed that more housing plans were being approved and built in the Occupied Territories. At the same time, Likud’s MP and Deputy Minister of Defense, Danny Danon, mocked the idea of a two-state solution. The same goes for many other Likud MPs and other coalition members who oppose any negotiation. This duplicity clearly hampers efforts by international actors, such as Kerry’s. He, like many others, receives mixed, confusing and practically impossible signals to decipher from the Israelis (as well as from the Palestinians).

The same duplicity was evident in a recent attempt to craft a joint Israeli/Polish declaration prior to Netanyahu’s official visit to Poland. Mid-level bureaucrats met and published a very moderate declaration approving the two-state solution. Not a day passed before Netanyahu distanced himself from the statement and effectively voided it. Maybe if the professional and skilled diplomats of the Foreign Ministry had been involved in the process, none of the subsequent diplomatic embarrassment would have occurred. But nowadays who consults the Israeli Foreign Ministry? No wonder the frustrated Israeli diplomats have been on strike for the past three months or so, partly because of their deteriorating salaries and partly as a result of the steady gutting of their ministry. It should not come as a surprise that the Prime Minister (who is also the Acting Foreign Minister) does not even meet with the striking diplomats. It seems that no one in the government really cares.

But then again, how could the diplomats, skilled as they are, solve those problems if no one provides them with a coherent agenda and agreed upon policies? And those agendas and policies will not be formed by themselves. They must be developed by a government that acts as Plato’s Captain of the Ship. And the seas that Israel rides, it should be noted, are rough indeed and full of existential challenges; but also, we should not ignore, of opportunities. The regional seclusion of Israel that has lasted for decades is being challenged now by changing circumstances, for example the Arab uprisings and the recent discoveries of Eastern Mediterranean gas. Thus, there are those in Israel who call upon the government to rethink its position in the region following the Arab Spring, to embrace the Arab Peace Initiative, and adopt a more regional integrationist position. This was, for example, the message of Meir Dagan, former head of the Mossad, in his address at the Israeli Presidential Conference, on June 19th 2013. However, also those calls fall prey to the aimless drifting of the ship.

Without a captain and without a skilled and trusted crew, such as the Foreign Ministry diplomats, the Israeli ship would appear to be hazardously drifting to the shoals. ‎

This post is an abbreviated version of a working paper published by The Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI).

In today’s In-Depth post, which was presented at this year’s American Sociological Association Meeting in Denver, Lisa Lipscomb extends Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz analysis of media events to the new media and the new political environment. I am struck by how the analysis of Dayan and Katz still illuminates important political developments, and also appreciate how Lipscomb extension gives a fuller understanding of media politics of our day. Their work still shows how  institutionalized democracy is significantly constituted through television. She shows how extra institutional democratic forces, contributing to what Pierre Rosanvallon describes as counter-democracy, are manifested through Digital Events of the new electronic media.

Thus, the main events of this week and last: using the insights of Dayan and Katz, it is clear that the nominating conventions are anything but empty affairs. It is true that these conventions have long ago lost their instrumental purposes: before the fact everyone knew who the candidates for president and vice president would be, and the party platforms developed and passed at the conventions are ignored by the electorate and the politicians alike. Yet, the conventions still play a very important political role, ritualistically indicating that the election contest is now entering its decisive stage, and that it is now the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of their party (to paraphrase the old typing drill).

Indeed, the nominating ritual confirms both the substantial existence and appeal of and the attachment to each of the parties. They try to refine and shape their message and appeal, and in the process, they define the terms of the American political contest and debate.  In societies of the past, such rituals occurred face to face: not only in conventions and politics, but also in processions, coronations, funerals and holidays of all sorts, reported first by word of mouth, later through the written word and the printed page. The major finding of Dayan and Katz is that since radio and television, political ritual continues through a type of broadcast, “media events,”confirming the central ideals and identities of social orders, and the competing conventional alternatives, and the alternatives to the dominant ones, as Lipscomb cogently summarizes in her piece.

But things are clearly changing. The new electronic media connect citizens in new ways. The dominance of television, which Dayan and Katz assumed when they published their book in the early 90s, is now being eroded, something that deeply concerns Katz. He is not sure that the new media environment supports a common public world, a free public life necessary for democracy. He fears that fragmentation of public orders challenge democratic practice. His are real and important concerns. I applaud this former collaborator of Paul Lazarsfeld for continuing to probe the political consequences of media. Yet, we need to understand how new media are now constituting political subjectivity and connection.

This is what Lipscomb’s post considers by examining the formation of a global protest, “a digital media event,” the case of the video of the murder of Neda Agha Soltan at the hands of the Basij, a voluntary militia that takes its orders from Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini and its circulation through new media and old. She shows how a community of critical capacity comes to be formed, a most important development in the times of the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street and other new “new social movements.”

To read the full In-Depth Analysis “Digital Events: Media Rituals in the Digital Age” by Lisa Lipscomb, click here.

The woman in the video was later identified by her fiancée as Neda Agha Soltan. Neda lay dying on Kargar Ave. in Tehran, Iran Saturday June 20, 2009 during a post-election protest, allegedly shot in the chest by a member of the Basij, a voluntary militia that takes its orders from Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini. Using a cell phone, an anonymous bystander digitally captured the moments just after Neda was shot. According to news reports, the author of the video then contacted a virtual friend he had met through Facebook who lived in the Netherlands, and asked him to post the footage. The virtual friend, known only by his first name, Hamed, uploaded the footage to the Internet and sent copies to the BBC and The Guardian as well as other media outlets. Within hours, two distinct clips surfaced on Facebook and YouTube. Shortly thereafter, the video was broadcast by CNN, thus making “Neda” a household name (Langendonck, NRC Handelsblad, 2009).

Today, I am here to talk about how mobile and social media fit in to the ongoing discussions about media’s influence on public life. I am going to make this argument in three parts. First, by offering a brief overview of Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz’s concept of the “media event,” as outlined in their book of the same name, and more recent additions and amendments to this theory. I will then define what I call the “digital event” by looking at the capture, distribution and reaction to the Neda video. Finally, by examining the online and face-to-face response to the video, I hope to persuade you that the Internet and mobile media are able to bring about public awareness, elicit ritualized response online and in the streets, and therefore, recreate the sacred through bringing together publics in the same way that media events have.

Dayan and Katz defined a certain format of television programming, which they believed provide the public with a new way of attending a ceremony. The authors describe how a “media event” brings people together to participate in a historic, political or social occasion that takes the form of a televisual ceremony. Dayan and Katz identified three types of media events: the contest, the conquest and the coronation. Some examples of these include the Olympic games, Presidential elections, religious pilgrimages, space exploration and state weddings and funerals. Media events are unique in that, “they are, by definition, not routine. In fact, they are interruptions of routine; they intervene in the normal flow of broadcasting and our lives” (Dayan and Katz, 1992, p. 5). Most often, numerous stations broadcast the event simultaneously, nationally and/or internationally, without interruption, thus monopolizing the airwaves for the duration of the event. According to Dayan and Katz, the broadcast takeover facilitates the creation of a unifying experience and ultimately an arena of sacred space (Dayan and Katz, 1992, p. 89). Furthermore, the time-sensitive nature of the event functions to unite the public – those watching at home and those who are in attendance – and share the experience of witnessing a historic moment. Media events manipulate space and time, keeping the viewer far, but also near. The medium is able to bring outsiders in to an event of great social, historical or political importance. Even though the television viewer is not physically in attendance at the event, they participate almost as fully. In fact, the viewer at home is given the advantage of an unobstructed view and voice-over narration that is not offered for those in attendance.

The media event is a highly structured and delineated process. The ceremony or ritual is planned, scripted and often times rehearsed. It requires the cooperation and collaboration of many different people and agencies including broadcasters, event organizers, the event audience, the viewer at home and many times, the state. Additionally, the media event oftentimes relies on tradition to dictate how the event is presented, for example, in the case of a state wedding or funeral. Since agents outside the media and the television studio organize media events, the role of the medium is to provide the channel for transmission. Here, the format promotes public unification and community through ritual, tradition and celebration.

Media scholars have pointed out that the media event does not account for disruptions or conflict; for example, terrorist events, natural disaster coverage or the spectacle of war (Couldry, 2003; Cottle, 2006). “Media Events” was published before 9/11 and the global “War on Terror” and more recent theories have addressed this issue, updating and expanding upon the concept of the media event. Katz himself later argues that, “media events of the ceremonial kind seem to be receding in importance, maybe even in frequency, while the live broadcasting of disruptive events such as disaster, terror and war are taking center stage” (Couldry, 2010: 33). As I come to defining my notion of the “digital event,” I see it situated within the contextual framework of Simon Cottle’s concept of “mediatized rituals.” Cottle (2006) defines mediatized rituals as “those exceptional and performative media phenomena that serve to sustain and/or mobilize collective sentiments and solidarities on the basis of symbolization and a subjunctive orientation to what should or ought to be” (p. 415). He then sub-categorizes mediatized rituals into six theoretical arguments: moral panics; celebrated ‘media events’; contested ‘media events’; media disasters; mediated scandals and mediatized public crises. As we see it, Dayan and Katz’s concept is subsumed into the category of celebrated media events. On the other hand, digital events do not fit nicely into one of these categories. Since I am relating the notion of the “digital event” to the specific mode of communication, the theoretical approach can differ depending on the situation. The Neda video could be described as a “media disaster” and a “mediatized public crisis.”

Neda’s death itself, while certainly an event, is only a portion of the narrative of this “digital event.” In this situation, I see the digital event beginning when the witness started recording the situation. After he finishes recording, he pursues making the situation public by sending the footage to a friend who is able to upload it to the Internet and distribute it to news sources. Once public, there is an outpouring of reaction from online viewers, which takes the form of ritualized digital mourning and the reproduction, reposting, forwarding and linking of the video. Those that took to the streets after her death carried the image of her bloody face printed on posters and flyers.

The digital event is digital because many of its major components take place in or are facilitated by digital media, which includes mobile media like cell phones, or digital space, including the Internet and social networking websites. Time is the obsession of television whereas space is the obsession of digital media. Space in terms of location and geography and space in terms of capacity, capacity for memory: storing, archiving, uploading, sharing, remembering. Raymond Williams’ (1974) concept of “flow” is inevitably linked to discussions about the temporal nature of television. According to Williams, “This phenomenon of planned flow, is then perhaps the defining characteristics of broadcasting, simultaneously as a technology and as a cultural form” (p. 86). Televisual flow consists of the totality of television’s contents: news programs, documentary shows, narrative programming, etc. It has been repeated many times over that people watch television, not shows or programs. When it comes to event programming, for instance, Dayan & Katz’s “media events,” flow is interrupted. Mary Ann Doane (1990) argues that we can identify media events as such when the referent becomes indistinguishable from the medium (p. 222). Alternatively, the digital event is timely, but does not interrupt flow. In the case of the Neda video, once the mainstream media picked up the footage, they packaged and delivered it to the audience in the format of a crisis (Doane, 1990). However, the ritualized public response came as a result of the video’s digital presence and the interactions protestors and supporters were having online and in the streets.

Many actors are responsible for the success of the media event, which is also true for the digital event. Both digital and media events situate the audience in a participatory role. Granting regard in the form of attendance or visual participation establishes the media event as legitimate. Examining the technology or medium used is one way of understanding the medium’s unique characteristics and social capacities. As we have seen, the media event demands a passive audience. Although McLuhan described television as a “cool, low-definition” medium that requires the viewer to extract the meaning from a program, this is clearly not the case with media events as meaning is predetermined and calls on cultural scripts familiar to the viewer. In the case of the Neda video, the cell phone was used as an instrument of witnessing. Protestors had been recording the extreme violence on the streets from the start of the protests. Pictures and videos uploaded to YouTube, Twitter and Facebook show protesters holding their phones in the air recording what was taking place with hopes that others would also see. The digital event requires a high level of participation at every level or phase of the event. Citizen journalism was responsible for the publicity of the Neda video as well as the millions of viewers on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook that eventually took to the streets in memory and protest. July 25, 2009 was declared A Global Day of Action in Paris and a hundred other cities around the world. National Geographic photographer Reza printed 500 masks of a portrait of Neda and had protestors sit in front of the Eifel Tower for a photograph.

One of the distinguishing features of a digital event is that it does not require event organizers, pre-planning or scripting. The video of Neda was recorded and distributed by two individuals and did not require the mainstream media in order for it to gain widespread attention. However, the Neda video did eventually become subsumed into the mainstream media and was played unedited on many networks. In Iran, the media is controlled by the state; however, the Internet is proving to be problematic for the government. Despite government restrictions, what is happening on in the streets of Iran is being made visible around the world by way of digital media as well as mobilizing publics in the name of ritual protest online and in the streets. Neda’s death represented some of the fundamental injustices that brought the protestors out to the streets in the first place.

The digital event takes place everywhere and nowhere. In this case, Neda’s death was only witnessed in person by a handful of people. The cell phone provided a portal to a time, place and situation that would not have otherwise been available. Spatial boundaries became fluid; those outside Iran and unconnected to the protests became witnesses with the capacity to react and respond. In fact, the video was more accessible to those outside of Iran where there are less government restrictions regarding the media and the Internet. In large part, those outside Iran came to learn about Neda through YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. The mass media referred to the post-election protests as the “Twitter Revolution” and the “Facebook Revolution” in that each of these social networking sites was instrumental in bringing attention to and mobilizing those participating in the opposition movement. Additionally, the U.S. State Department urged Twitter not to push out a scheduled update because it would interrupt service and the events in Iran were tied to Twitter as a source of information and communication in a nation notorious for censorship.

During the height of the protests, those in the U.S. and other countries outside of Iran were changing their location on Twitter to Tehran, Iran in order to confuse the Iranian government, who many believed were targeting and performing online surveillance on election protestors. When someone creates a profile on Twitter, they can specify their location by choosing a time zone, which then appears on their Twitter profile page. Those who believed the Iranian government was targeting protestors through Twitter thought that it would be harder to track down the real protestors if everyone was declaring Tehran as their location. One individual using the name FORIRAN2009 tweeted, “Change timezone to Tehran – Disrupt Basiji (secret police) from tracking iranians.” Those not initially connected with the election or even every having any previous interest in Iran showed solidarity for the protestors after viewing the Neda video. In the days and weeks after her death, digital mourners continued to post links to the Neda video and also created slideshow and montage Neda tributes, wrote poems and songs in her honor, posted messages and changed their profile images to read “Where is THEIR Vote,” a reworking of the phrase “Where is MY Vote” that was being used by Iranian protestors. A user going by the name “Green4Iran” tweeted, “People in Iran: Shoot as many videos as you can and upload it. World is watching. Make sure the date well noted!”

AngelaChenShui tweeted, “VERY Graphic RT See 4 yourself the creation of a martyr http://bit.ly/9PVfO #iranelection #gr88 #Mousavi #mousavi1388 #Pray #Prayer #Freedom.”

Jonap tweeted, “Will Neda’s death be the rallying cry that Mousavi could not possibly be? #iranelection #neda.”

Rootvetwife tweeted, “RT They murdered #neda, but not her voice: http://bit.ly/14cX6p #iranelection.”

Inspiredkk tweeted, “#Neda in the hearts of the world. The most beautiful martyr in history. Shame on the mulahs, shame on the government. Neda lives…”

These and many similar messages were posted on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube over the days and weeks following Neda’s death. In response to her death, groups on Facebook were calling for her nomination as Time Magazine’s “Woman of the Year.” In 2010, a documentary called “For Neda” was released and is available for viewing in its entirety on YouTube. To this day people continue to mourn, ritualize and honor her as a martyr.

Neda’s death and the image of her dying gaze were instrumental in creating a thread of solidarity and collective mourning for protestors online and in the streets. The decision to look, to witness, to grant regard, to capture and archive and then make visible to a wider public no longer requires the massive collaboration of broadcasters, event organizers or the state. Dayan and Katz demonstrated that the sorts of ritual practices Durkheim studied are observable in the televisual age. I have tried to demonstrate that such practices are alive and well in the ritual dimension of the digital.

Social movements create publics. They make it possible for people to express and act on their common concerns together. This creativity of movements has not fully appreciated. It has a long history, and it is also a key characteristic of the new “new social movements.” We discussed this in the Wroclaw seminar, moving from history to the study of the movements of our times.

Our discussion reminded me of the work of one of my former students, Angela Jones. Her dissertation, now a book, is on the Niagara Movement, which preceded the NAACP. The movement established the first national forum for the discussion of African American concerns by African Americans. Until very recently, it has been viewed as little more than a footnote in the career of W.E.B. Dubois. Jones’s work fills in a gap in history, the first fully developed study of this early episode in the long civil rights struggle. The gap existed because of the insufficient understanding of the importance of creating free public interaction in social movements.

In the democratic opposition to Communist regimes, specifically in Poland, the goal of establishing independent publics was not overlooked. In fact, for quite a while, it was the major end of the social struggle. The constitution of a free public space for discussion and action became the primary end of underground Solidarność in the 1980s. Because the regime couldn’t be successfully challenged, the end became to constitute a zone beyond its control. The end was for individual and collective dignity, to create an area where one could express oneself, appear outside of official definition, consolidate agreement among diverse participants in an autonomous public, which could be applied at an appropriate moment. The goal was to engage in a long cultural march, as Adam Michnik put it in a 1976 classic essay, “The New Evolutionism.”

In the new “new social movements,” this movement feature has been cultivated in a new political, generational and media environment. New media forms have played an important role, for better and for worse, and the creation of new autonomous publics has been put forward as a primary end.

Tahrir Square and Zuccotti Park were places where all sorts of people met. Many came to know each other virtually, and then being together became the important feature of square and the park. The demands in the square centered on ending the Mubarak regime and its corruption, and in the park the rally cry was for the 99%, but the meeting of Coptics, Muslims and secularists together in the square, and the coming together of students, unionists, young and old, employed and unemployed in the park were at least as significant as the ends of their actions. Indeed, the ends were not all that clear: An Islamic or a Secular Democratic polity, a rejection of the American Dream or the restoration of its promise? As the movements couldn’t answer these questions, they opened up opportunities for new sorts of public expression and action. They expressed a simple but powerful point: the way things have been is not necessarily the way they will be, as the people in these movements revealed themselves to each other.

Wroclaw seminar participant Fernanda Canofre of Brazil wrote her master’s thesis on the Arab Spring and Moroccan films. When we discussed the Arab Spring, she suggested that we review twenty of videos from Morocco posted on globalvoicesonline.org. The videos add up, pointing to the diversity of those who support the protests in Morocco and the breadth and depth of their concerns, and the importance of constituting a free public life. The videos present “the February 20^th movement” in action.

The first video presents the demands of the movement made by one of its young leaders, Oussama Lakhlifi. It stimulated a fierce debate about the planned demonstration on February 20th. A week before the demonstration, activists released a well-produced film, the second video clip, in which a variety of Moroccans, from apparently secular students and labor activists to a religious woman in traditional dress, explain why they will join the movement. (See video embedded below.) They want to have a chance at a decent life. They call for a constitution and democracy, an end of corruption, and a chance for a job and the dignity of labor, and lower food prices.

Other videos respond to the unfolding events. The videos counter official propaganda, document official violence and the response of officials to movement demands. Attractive videos include an animated cartoon Einstein giving a lesson on the power elite and music videos of Moroccan pop band, Hoba, Hoba, Spirit and rap video “Mellit!” (I’m fed up!).

An official referendum on constitutional reforms was held and the opposition presented video parodies of the enthusiasm shown on official media. Two other videos call for a boycott. Another documents fraud on the day of the referendum.

After the reforms were overwhelmingly approved. Videos followed, one expressing continued international support for the movement from a gathering of activists and bloggers at a meeting in Tunis. The last video shows a lonely singer with a group of accompanying musicians all but ignored on a busy city street. The post concludes: “What role will the February 20 movement be able to play next year as revolutionary fatigue begins to gain ground? Will it be able to be creative enough to keep pace?”

The February 20^th movement changed the course of Moroccan history even though the social order was not fundamentally changed. Reforms were enacted, though the King was very much still in charge, relatively popular, not a Mubarak figure. The demands for the most radical change were not realized. But in this far corner of the Arab world, the accomplishments of the Arab Spring are well documented in these videos.

We see from the inside an independent public, with links to similar publics in the region. They have established the important political fact of their existence. As long as they keep speaking, showing and sharing, their world is fundamentally transformed.

Canofre’s discussion of the movement, and the Arab Spring more generally, was not at all pessimistic. Her interest in the videos, and in film as well, is not only as they document a historical development, but also as they make history. When the Wroclaw seminar participants questioned her about her interest in the videos, it became clear to us that a fundamental transformation in Arab politics is revealed and enacted in them. The fundamental relationship between culture and power has been transformed.

More on this, extended to the case of Occupy Wall Street, in my next post.

I am preparing my class on the new “new social movements” this week. I will be giving it at The New School’s Democracy and Diversity Institute in Wroclaw, Poland in July. I am excited and challenged about the course, happy to be returning to our institute, which has a long history, related to the topic of my class. The seminar, also, will be an attempt to thoroughly address the complex issues in my May Day post.

In that post I noted the media obstacles OWS faced on May 1^st. Neither the serious, nor the sensational media portrayed a meaningful popular demonstration, a national commemoration of May Day demanding social justice. While some might see this as a kind of conspiracy, I, as a matter of principle, don’t, or rather won’t until I consider alternative explanations. In the summer seminar, I hope to explore the alternatives with an international student body. Here’s an overview, which is informing my preparation.

Social movements have generally been understood in two ways. They have been seen as non-institutional means of a group of people to pursue their common interests and achieve their shared goals. The traditional archetype for this is the labor movement. Alternatively, social movements have been seen as not only interest focused, but as well, and perhaps more importantly, as non-institutional means for the formation of a group with common identities, concerned with supporting the identities and acting upon them. Civil rights movements, the women, lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender movements, environmental movements and the like, are understood as being newer kinds of movements, “new social movements.” To tell the truth, I never quite understood why the new social movements were considered new. They, like labor movements, emerged in the nineteenth century. They, like the traditional movements, pursue interests. And the traditional movements, like the new ones, are about identity. Yet, I know this is not central. Rather we need to note that new and old movements are not only about the pursuit of interests. Movements are important ends in themselves for the people who create and are active in them.

And clearly, this is still the case. Social activists in Tahrir Square in Cairo and in Zuccotti Park in New York have specific ends, and the demonstrations in these places also create identities that are as significant as the ends the demonstrators are seeking. But something else is important, quite apparent in these and other such places around the globe today. The coming together based on some shared concerns with different identities and even different goals has been a common feature of the movements in our most recent past. The demonstrators occupy a space and the way they do so, the way they interact with each other is an important end of the movement. The form of interaction, as well as the identity and interest content, is central.

Coptic Christians and Muslims protect each other with mutual respect in Egyptian demonstrations in Tahrir Square and throughout Egypt. Radical anarchists and conventional trade unionists hung out at Zuccotti Park last fall and in Union Square on May Day. Their political ends may be different, radical critics of the American Dream, along with those who want to keep the Dream alive, but they have figured out ways to find common purpose and joint actions. The new “new social movements” are first about that commonality, the creation of independent public space, in New York and beyond, people with differences working together in the name of the 99%, creating an alternative free public space.

Communicating from this space to the dominant media and mainstream publics is a fundamental challenge, now evident for the Tahrir democratic activists and OWS. The quality of their public character, its social media constitution that facilitated the formation of the movement, also presents problems for moving beyond the newly constituted public space. Leading spokespersons are not evident, a strength but also a weakness, nor are clear ends and demands forthcoming. The new sensibility and purpose of the new “new movements” can get lost, as it was in New York on May Day, as is happening as the Egyptians are about to go to the polls to elect a president.

The summer seminar will be an exploration of this. We will try to discover any common cause of the movements. Is it the state of global capital and the breakdown of neo-liberalism? While I have my doubts, we will discuss the works of observers suggesting this. I think that there is a generational dimension to the emergence of the new movements: we will discuss my depiction of the “wisdom of youth” and reconsider the sociology of generations. We will analyze precedents such as the American civil rights movement and Solidarność in Poland. The old distinction between new and traditional social movements revealed as much about the old as the new, and we will consider the way the creation of independent publics were central to movements past as well as movements now.

And herein lies the irony of the course being given in Poland. It is the fruit of the alternative public of a major social movement past. The Democracy and Diversity Institute is an outgrowth of the Solidarność underground. Members of The New School, led by Democracy and Diversity founder and director, Elzbieta Matynia, and I worked with Adam Michnik, the great Polish “dissident” intellectual and later editor of Poland’s major newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, on a clandestine “Democracy Seminar” in Budapest, Warsaw and New York in the 1980s. The seminar was a small activity of the underground Solidarność cultural world. The Democracy and Diversity Institute built upon its legacy. I have always thought of my class as being explicitly a continuation of this activity, starting my classes where the discussions of the Democracy Seminar left off. This history continues in July, taking on very new concerns and experiences.

In Germany, the primary focus of discussion was my newest book, Reinventing Political Culture. In Wroclaw, the focus was on my previous book, The Politics of Small Things. I was there for the book launch of its Polish translation and to discuss with a group of students and colleagues the key theoretical chapter in it, “Theorizing the Kitchen Table and Beyond.” I spoke about the chapter in light of the uprisings, occupations, flash mobs and demonstrations in the past couple of years. In Paris, I talked with Daniel about our prospective new book, which would be a development of the themes I raised in my Wroclaw lecture.

Our major thesis will be: the politics of small things + the media = political transformation. One possible transformation is the reinvention of political culture: changing the way people relate power and culture, challenging the bases of power, moving culture from inheritance to creativity, rewriting the story people tell themselves about themselves.

Daniel and I want to explain how the interactions between people, face to face, but especially virtual, mediated interactions, yield the possibility of large-scale social, political and cultural change. We will link his work as a student of semiotics and media, with mine as a student of micro-politics and political culture.

In Wroclaw I shared an outline of a part our project, in a very preliminary form.  I reviewed my idea about the power of the politics of small things, the power of people meeting with shared principles, speaking and acting in each other’s presence, working in concert. This is how I account for the “on the ground” democratic supports of the great changes in 1989, of the anti war movement and the Dean campaign in the United States in 2004, and the Obama campaign in 2008. And it is how Dayan and I will analyze the changes of the past couple of years. In order to do so, we will have to consider systematically the role of new and old media.

We reject the idea that the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street and the like can be explained simply by referring to the new media. We will question the notion that the new media automatically create fundamental challenges to the order of things. But we do understand their centrality. They facilitate and amplify the power of social interaction. The process of amplification is of special interest.

The social media expand the reach of the politics of small things. The resistance to people meeting is greatly reduced. The possibility of coordinating common action is greatly facilitated. Thus, the story of Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation in Tunisia and the work of Wael Ghonim in Egypt spread among people who were critically predisposed, and became visible to broader and broader circles. The way actions become visible is a special concern of Dayan’s.

My lecture in Wroclaw, in a sense, took off where my chapter on theorizing the kitchen table ended. I discussed the new evidence of the importance of the politics of small things, but I also started to address two of the key questions that my recent books left unanswered. When do small things matter? And why?

I pointed in two directions: to the foundations of public action and to links between publics. Sometimes actions in a particular place, at a particular time, resonate beyond those who are immediately involved. An extraordinary case in point is Occupy Wall Street, or as I have put it here, the ground zero social movement,  a few steps away from the former site of the World Trade Center, and steps away as well from a center of global capitalism. This needs further study. I suspect all social movements that reach a broader public have such a basis, whether it is given or simulated.

I also know that publics can be linked through new media and old. There is meaning to the chant of the sixties “the whole world is watching.” Getting people to watch beyond those who are immediately involved is required. Dayan names this the challenge of monstration. If not the whole world, at least broader public attention is necessary for social movements to succeed. There were ways that this was conventionally done through television, radio and print media. It still is so, we think, strengthened and supplemented by new media. Dayan and I will work on this together. A new puzzle is why the new developments supplemented by the new media, often lack clearly articulated goals and leadership. Sometimes this seems to be a matter of principle, but often not. We think it is also related to how the new media work.

I started talking about these matters with students and colleagues in Wroclaw. My next appointments to go public with this, ironically, will again be in Wroclaw.  I am scheduled to speak at the Wroclaw Global Forum, an international meeting of political and business leaders, and academics, this year’s topic “Reinventing the West: Prosperity, Security and Democracy at Risk?” I will be there to reflect on movements that present alternatives to the prevailing political economies. Later, in the summer, I will teach in The New School’s Democracy Diversity Institute a course on what I am calling The New “New Social Movements.”  Strange, I hadn’t been in Wroclaw for twenty years, now I am becoming a regular visitor.

I am now thinking about what I have just done and what I am planning on my plane flying over the Atlantic. I will post it on my arrival. Busy day busy person (and quite tired).

Last winter – back in the day – Glenn Beck was a roaring tiger. His claws were thought so bloody that when he attacked Frances Fox Piven, one of the leading activist scholars of social movements, a string of professional organizations rose to the lady’s defense, including the American Sociological Association and the Society for the Study of Social Problems. After the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, many progressives concluded that Professor Piven was next in line for assassination from the rightists roiled and boiled by Beck.

Today we frame Glenn Beck’s symmetry as less fearful. Those who worried that Professor Piven was walking on a knife’s edge might be surprised that her latest book, published in August, is entitled Who’s Afraid of Frances Fox Piven: The Essential Writings of the Professor Glenn Beck Loves to Hate. Glenn Beck has become Professor Piven’s marketing tool. Without Glenn Beck’s opposition, Piven’s writings might seem less essential. (As a fellow former president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, I am pleased that her deservedly influential writings have become essential. I am attempting to find someone of equal stature to hate me. The placid readers of this flying seminar know that I try my best.)

However, my point is not to critique the pas de deux of Beck and Piven. Rather it is to recall that in my earlier musing on Glenn Beck, I confessed to having become addicted to his rants, his startling readings of American intellectual history. However, beginning early in 2011, sparked by the demonstrations of the Arab Spring, first in Tunisia, then in Tahir Square, spreading to Tripoli and Syria, Beck began warning that these demonstrations were a clarion call to global rebellion. He promised viewers that an uprising was coming to a park near you, reporting every small and inconsequential gathering throughout Europe throughout the spring.

Listening to his fervid predictions, I came to feel that this represented a tea-laced fantasy. Beck had fallen off the dark edge. And perhaps Roger Ailes agreed with me. Beck was escorted out of the Fox studies and into his own Internet redoubt (“the fusion of entertainment and enlightenment”). As he was no longer close by my remote, my addiction ebbed.

Yet, examining the world of November, I can see the outlines of Beck’s vision from January. He informed us – warned us actually – that we would see an uprising on the streets of America. This uprising would not be an occasional frat party, but a hard and determined thing. Beck instructed us that the movement would be global – London, Rome, Athens, Bahrain, Oakland, Atlanta, and Zuccotti Park. What could Glenn Beck see that I could not? What could Glenn Beck see that progressives throughout America missed last spring? Was he a broken clock right twice a decade?

One need not agree that this exuberance of protest is as frightening or destructive as Beck would have us believe. Liberals, libertarians, and perhaps even some brave conservatives might agree with Thomas Jefferson, speaking of Shays’ Rebellion in 1787 that “the tree of liberty needs to be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” The Arab Spring reminds us of this same reality, and slowly, imperceptibly those images proved to be a model for actions in Europe and America. When the Occupy Wall Street movement began in September, New Yorkers were primed, and soon others were. But along with the Arab Spring, the Tea Party movement also provided a model. Progressives felt a gathering envy, and OWS was the result. The problem, as I see it, is that while there was a legitimate drive to gather to protest grievances, practical solutions remained distant for the well-intentioned mandarins of the movement.

What Glenn Beck recognized, first through Tea Party Summer, then Arab Spring, then Manhattan Autumn, was that moments of profound discontent, helplessness, and resentment at distant control produce an insistent demand for communal action, a call from agitators left and right. Glenn Beck’s own 8/28/10 Washington gathering to “Restore Honor,” ostensibly an opportunity for faith and commitment, mimicking that of the Reverend King, arose from the same forces.

Beck recognized an emergent power in these hard times: groups sharing common concerns,  gathering, angry, frustrated, and perhaps hopeful. These groups view a cloudy future for which they lack answers, but know that their questions cannot be ignored.

I found a post on Cyborgology of particular interest a number of days ago, posted a reply, which led to an interesting email exchange with Jenny Davis. We agreed to start a dialogue about the new media and the politics of small things, specifically about the case of Occupy Wall Street. Her post today, my reply in a bit when I finish my work at the European Solidarity Center in Gdansk. -Jeff

Two recent posts on Deliberately Considered, one by Scott Beck and the other by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, examine the role of social media in social movements. They demonstrate the way in which social media allow us to harness the power of the people, contest the interpretations of mainstream media, organize, and mobilize. They show how, through communications on digital networks, physical bodies have come together in physical spaces, protesting both ideological and material conditions.

The points made by Beck and Goldfarb are important ones, yet I believe they should be extended. In particular, we need to address not only  the ways in which these new media technologies work to bring together and document the physical bodies who occupy physical spaces. We also must examin the role of those whose activism never goes beyond the digital realm. We must look at how this latter group, colloquially referred to as slacktivists, matter.

Slacktivism matters in two interrelated ways: 1) increasing visibility and 2) generating a particular zeitgeist surrounding social movements.

Not everyone reads and/or watches the news, and in the age of the 24 hour news media, those who do read and/or watch the news must necessarily be selective in what they consume. What we share on Facebook or tweet on Twitter, therefore, works to increase the visibility of particular news items. Moreover, by linking a news item to a familiar other, to someone inside an actor’s personal network, is to imbue the news item with relevance. Status updates and tweets about Occupy Wall Street, for example, not only spread information about the protests, but also locate the protests in the digitally networked space(s) of everyday life, designating them as part of a relevant conversation.

This sharing, of course, is rarely (if ever) done in a neutral manner. Rather, Tweeters and Facebookers accompany shared news stories and web links with commentary that reveals a particular bent, or interpretation of the content. The content is therefore not just made visible, but impregnated with meaning in a web of social relations. When shared and interpreted on a larger scale, this meaning-laden content generates a “feel” or “zeitgeist” surrounding a historical moment and the related social movement. This is clearly seen in the vast international support for both the Arab Spring (and now Arab Fall) and the Occupy Wall Street protests. We understand these as movements by and for the people. We share a sense of anger towards oppression by the powerful few. We applaud those who strive to have their voices heard, and condemn those who wish to stifle the voices of the small and (individually) powerless.

Visibility and zeitgeist are not without material consequences. Theda Skocpol argues that social movements spread through visibility and modeling (see Sarah Wanenchak’s excellent discussion of this on Cyborgology). Just as the nations of the Arab world took cues from each other, the U.S. has now taken cues from the Arab world, resulting in feet on the ground, posters in the air, and bodies occupying lower Manhattan, L.A., Boston, Austin and numerous other cities. By spreading the word, making it relevant, and generating a zeitgeist of freedom and rebellion, slacktivists not only show support for the recent international social movements, but actively augment them in symbolic and tangible ways.