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Iran is the latest proof for cyber-utopists that the Internet is our best hope for global democracy and progressive politics. Bloggers are deep in the debate about whether Twitter is responsible for organizing the street protests in Tehran, or merely reporting them. But there are some Twitter doubters out there, and I add myself to their ranks.
If Twitter is the face of democracy, who, exactly, does it represent? In Iran, like many developing countries, most of the Internet users are affluent, young urbanites. The poor, the illiterate, the less urbane are not online, and this muddies the picture. I don’t know about Twitter’s effect in Iran, but Guatemala’s own recent Twitter coup is case in point.
See Double X's gallery of photos from Guatemala.
An online video and a single Tweet incited tens of thousands of Guatemalans to participate in the biggest demonstrations of their 13-year-old democracy. This video shows lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg just before he was shot in the head while riding his bicycle on Mother’s Day in Guatemala City. “If you are watching this message,” he says calmly, “it is because I was assassinated by President Alvaro Colom.” He then accuses the president, the first lady, and others of signing off on murder, corruption, and the laundering of public funds through a government bank for personal gain and to expense narco-traffickers.
A twitterer (“tuitero”) who saw the video urged people to withdraw their money from corrupt banks and was arrested. Outraged crowds took to the streets to demand the president resign. Guatemala was hailed as another victory for democracy by technology.
But the president has plenty of supporters, although they are not likely to be online. They are mainly poor farmers and workers from the rural areas. The vast majority are Mayan Indians who rely heavily on benefits from the president’s social programs. Many are illiterate and only speak K’iche’, the most common native spoken language there–not the Spanish, much less the English, used on Twitter and Facebook.. Their concerns are mainly subsistence-related and do not easily feed a first, let alone a “Second Life."
During the country’s brutal 36-year Civil War, military governments fought left-wing guerrillas and destroyed Mayan populations who were said to harbor them. The war ended in 1996 and left at least 250,000 dead. Colom lost several relatives during Guatemala’s dirty war and vowed to stop the “mano dura” or “firm hand” approach of his running mate Perez Molina, a former army general who once took on the insurgency. Once elected, Colom focused on creating jobs and addressing the country’s dire poverty.
We still don’t know whether Mr. Rosenberg was murdered by opponents of the left who wanted to overthrow Colom, or if he was killed precisely as the video suggests, by Colom’s own allegedly crooked inner circle. What we do know is that Colom is a center-left democrat whose social and tax programs have rattled the country's conservative elite.
Had I not come to know something about the situation on the ground in Guatemala City, Rosenberg’s posthumous testimony surely would have had me swearing that the president is an enemy of the People and the Ideal, plus a crook and a murderer. But the web, although it has a bracing immediacy, doesn’t tell the whole truth. If those most traumatized by a legacy of violence and poverty aren’t yet able to participate in the debate, can we really say that the ’net has a democratizing effect? Particularly when, as in countries like Guatemala, the concerns of the unvoiced are in direct conflict with the political agenda of the cyber community?
SNL: Equal Opportunity Objectifiers
Jon Hamm spent most of the Saturday Night Live episode he hosted last night shirtless.
Confessions of a Woman Comedy Writer
Allison Silverman accepts one from New York Women in Film & Television (and tells us why it's rare).
Comments
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ان كنتى تبحثي عن العاب بنات جديده ومنوعه بشكل يومي فيمكنك دخول موقع العاب بنات مصر
العاب بنات جديدة
هل انت من هواة المنتديات والمشاركة فى المنتديات شاركنا التميز فى منتدي منتديات بنات مصر
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منتدي
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تحميل صور
صور رومانسية , صور حب , صور بنات مصر , صور بنات جديده ,
msryat
صور
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مركز تحميل
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شات مصري
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دردشة
شات بنات دردشة بنات شات للبنات فقط
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شات بنات مصر
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شات ودردشة نسيتك , شات سعودي , دردشة سعودية , موقع شات شات شات نسيتك شات سعودي دردشة شات كتابى سعودي دردشة كتابية شات كتابي احلي شات كتابي سعودي في موقع نسيتك دوت كوم ادخل وتمتع بالشات شات سعودي
The underlying point that
By: Usama3 | Tue, 07/07/2009 - 20:53
The underlying point that this article almost touched on is that 'democracy', as it emerges in developing countries, is a vehicle for the affluent. And the affluent of the developing world and the developed world share more in common, and thus can 'open trade agreements, share communication, exchange culturally and in education, than the affluent and the poor in the same developing country.
Sadly, one of the characteristics of colonization was that colonial empires sought elites who would betray their fellow colonized countrymen in exchange for power, riches, and a position of affluence with the imperial power.
The affluent of developing world share with the developed world a closer proximity to their economic empowerment than the poor languishing day to day. While there is often good will from American people towards other people of the world, the American govt functions with far less idealistice motivations. Rather, they seek economic interests for American businesses first and foremost. And supporting affluent elites in developing countries like the nations of Central America is consistent with the Bush support for CAFTA of 2004. Its also consistent with the effort to Neo Con call to overthrow and 'decapitate' Iran to install a pro-capitalist regime that would serve American regional interests.
That's a bold statement
By: manas | Tue, 06/23/2009 - 18:11
I agree with you. On the internet it is hard to tell who is who. It's so easy to impersonate and pretend, that it's hard to imagine why anybody wouldn't do that, given sufficient rewards.
Your bold against the wind stand is commendable, because I am sure you will be attacked by many for saying what you said.
rural Guatemalans and media use
By: Mariel | Tue, 06/23/2009 - 14:34
Great summation of the political situation in Guatemala right now.
However, while I do agree that rural Guatemalans haven't been very visible in the national or international press on this particular issue, I don't think they're quite as politically naive as they come across in this article.
I'm currently in Guatemala working with a network of radio stations in indigenous areas, and, as Lazar explains, Guatemala’s indigenous population is barred from political participation not only by poverty, but also by its lack of Spanish-language and literacy skills. The radios comunitarias attempt to lower these barriers at the level of individual radio stations by using artisan-crafted transmitters, broadcasting in indigenous languages, and, obviously, providing a news source for people who are illiterate. At a regional or national level, radio station volunteers operate with the Marx-influenced understanding that if indigenous people are to receive fair representation in the news media and guarantee that topics of interest to them are addressed, they need to become the owners of the means of production.
Rural indigenous Guatemalans are not powerless to represent their own interests to the state. From what I have seen, volunteers at radios comunitarias and listeners alike are very conscious of creating a newly politicized community through their use of mass media. They may not be using the latest-trend social media that so fascinate the cognoscenti in the United States and Europe. But rather than give up on the idea of social or mass media as a whole, they have instead turned to media in which illiteracy and language variation do not present problems.
Lazar’s representation of indigenous people as “technologically noble savages” is problematic because even as it highlights the extent to which indigenous Guatemalans are excluded from political discourse, it also ignores the political progress that they have made in the last 30 or 40 years. In Guatemala, indigenous communities had organized into unions, political organizations, and development cooperatives and elected indigenous representatives to office by 1976. Indigenous guerillas’ radio broadcasts from the mountains in which they hid from the army are proof that mass media is not a new concept to Guatemala’s indigenous population.
Apologies if this is a bit clunky or overly long, it's taken from a longer post of mine at http://mediatingideology.wordpress.com/2009/06/23/media-manipulation-and....
Intresting prospective!
By: dglater | Sun, 06/21/2009 - 20:25
American media has hailed twitter as this last piece of breath for "Iranian Democracy." However, from the example this article has provided its not always the case for every country. I would also add China to this list. China Currently has more internet users then any other country (yes 70 million more users the USA.) Yet, don't expect any "twitter revolution" out of china anytime soon, as the world faces an economic recession, china is facing a 7.2 GDP growth for 2009 and the people of China are well aware of this!
anyways... GREAT article!
please digg
http://digg.com/d1uTR6
Tools for Democracy
By: Lee Kottner | Thu, 06/18/2009 - 12:30
I don't think anybody is really saying that Twitter will magically bring democracy to non-democratic regimes. It's true that without literacy and access new media are useless to the disenfranchised. But not all the enfranchised are opponents of democracy, either. Information of any sort, as long as it's a free exchange, is important to democracy. And any time that media is not controlled by a single state entity, you're going to get dissenting opinions and ideas. That's the important part. Big media like newspapers and TV take money to run And give little or no access to the public. The Internet, while still somewhat expensive, requires fewer resources and with the right tools, allows more access. That alone is democratizing. What people do with that access is another matter.
It's not a tool for "not democracy"
By: Vanessa | Thu, 06/18/2009 - 11:22
First of all, I don't want to take issue with twitter-skepticism in general. I think it's important for pieces like this to be written to help bring people back to earth.
Hoever, the idea behind this piece seems to be that twitter isn't perfect and that you can get misinformation on the internet. Also, that rich people have computers. These are truisms. So, as a challenge, are newspapers not really a tool for democracy because of Hearst's role in the Spanish American war? Or are newspapers, like every other tool, occasionally a mixed blessing?
I think new media, twitter, etc, is occasionally a mixed blessing.