Thursday, February 10, 2011

Practicum #1-Meredith

I've been searching for ways that political and social activists use the internet for their causes or just to talk about issues going on today. I started by trying to look at chat rooms and blogs on new stations' websites like CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and Fox. It seemed more like the people who entered these chat rooms and wrote on the message boards were more interested in picking a fight with someone rather than discussing a social or political issue. For the most part, the chat rooms and message boards were full of social vigilantes.
I've been following the conflict in Egypt and have been reading the technology section of the NYtimes. I found out that many of the protesters are using facebook and twitter to expose Egypt's problems to the world. I found this video on the NYtimes website. One of the young Egyptian revolutionaries says "this revolution started on facebook and twitter"
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/02/08/world/middleeast/1248069622796/cairo-s-facebook-flat.html?ref=technology
The revolutionaries are mostly university students who have a serious problem with the poverty and inequality in Egypt. They take videos of protests and rallies and then upload them to facebook for the entire world to see. I have yet to see where I can find these videos but I'm most certainly going to look!

1 comment:

  1. Did you get to design how your penguin looks? It sounds like that site would be so much fun for a tween!

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