The Network May Inform, But to the Streets We Still Must Go

Before addressing this idea that internet, as wonderful as it is, can only inform and in order to actually change the world we must do it in person, I want to talk about fear and anger. In the article and in class we learned that fear is the emotion of oppression. If you fear for your life, you will only run or try to survive. In the movie Kony 2012 we see that this is happening to the African people under the hands of Joseph Kony. The reason that he has power is because the people are afraid of him. But there is another power that can incite action, and that is anger. Now according to what we read and discussed if anger does not turn to enthusiasm it will not last. It is true, according to Castells’ article, that fear is the trigger to get things happening, but as we saw in Kony 2012, Jason Russell turned his anger of Kony into enthusiasm to get him. If he would not have done this, the government would not have listened to him, nor us. But after the seven years of knowing this is going on he focuses his passion to make a film. Now what powers this film as well is the internet and the networking world. At the very beginning of Kony 2012 Russell does not start off talking about Kony, but the power of facebook. The very first thing that is said is that there are more people on Facebook than there were on the planet 200 years ago. Russell believes that the way to capture Kony is to send in USA military add, but the only way they will do that is if the nation cares, and the only way the nation can care is if they know about it. So Russell uses Facebook, the network, to fight his war.

A Death in Tehran also uses networks to inform the world. The most interesting part is when the regime that murdered Neda, offers her mother money for the rest of her life if she says that her daughter died for the regime. It is a little terrifying to thing that even just a few years ago, and perhaps even sometimes today, people and organizations can cover up things they don’t want the world to know. But people like Wei Wei are now equipped with the network and the way to have a voice. Now the average joe can raise a voice to inform the world of the truth and expose the world for what they really are.

But can knowing something change the world. Not alone. Castells says “The consensus seem to be that, at the end of the day, the dreams of social change will have to be watered down, and channeled through the political institutions, either by reform or revolution.”  The overall idea is that because of the internet we can now inform ourselves about so much more, and so much quicker than before. But we see, especially in the movie A Death in Tehran, that being informed is only the first part, once you have won the internet information war, you either have to take to the streets and vote, or take to the streets and revolt. Both are done in A Death in Tehran, and devastatingly, at least for now, both were unsuccessful. Even in Kony 2012 Russell wants us to share on the internet this information but then he specifically asks us to take to the street and put up posters. Both the documentaries were very convincing but the creators’ documentaries know that in order for their videos to be useful, the viewer must do something.