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How does social media play a part in protesting?

Since the dawn of the different social medias, more and more people are able to connect with each other through simple clicks online. Quite soon the public sphere within the cyber net came to understand the power of writing, sharing and hash tagging online. This is a space where people could express themselves and start “hashtivism”, a form of protesting online. The Black Lives Matter movement came into being by linking the unjust justice system towards black people in the states and linking that to #blacklivesmatter. This is a protest against authorities who abused their power and vigilantes who shot innocent black peoplewhile getting away with minimal punishment. Now, how does social media contribute to the protests and is it a sufficient enough form of protest?

Social media is a great tool in order to spread information fast and without costs, to a large number of people. By putting a hashtag into a statement, it connects all people who look up the hashtag in the relevant context. By sharing a statement quickly on facebook bares its own cons to protest media. It’s might give the illusion of somebody doing enough by simply sharing. Sharing is a good start in which to spread information and get people together for a physical protest. However, social media alone could not have made too much of a change. I think had it not been for massive physical protests in Ferguson, the movement would not have had as big of an effect overall.

In Stay Woke – Black Lives Matter (Peabody and Laurens Grant, 2017), we see how the movement came to be. It all started with a response to a Facebook post (See picture below)

However, the moment really took off to a movement when the video footage of police brutality and killing of the innocent black man Eric Garner (Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement documentary (2016)) went viral.

Social media played a huge role during the physical protest in Ferguson. People were tweeting in solidarity from the Arab spring in how to treat eyes after tear gas.

It connected people across the globe and benefitted people on the battlefield. Tweeting live also lets us see how the protests are unfolding as they are happening, spreading the word on the spot without any control over what is allowed to be shown.

Social media is great for forming big groups with a common goal, but would have trouble in the future since “it has sidestepped some of the traditional tasks of organizing.” (Zeynep Tufekcias, xxiii). Hence why the Black Lives Matter is now a network as well (24, Alicia Garza). The #blacklivesmatter keeps the movement alive on a grass-root level in the public sphere and the network itself keeps it organised.

Sources:

“Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement documentary (2016).” Youtube, Uploaded by Manufacturing Intellect, 8 April 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIoYtKOqxeU.

Tufekci, Zeynep. “Introduction”, Twitter and Teargas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest. 2017, pp. xxi-xxxi.

Garza, Alicia. “Black Love-Resistance and Liberation” Race, Poverty & the Environment, Vol. 20, No. 2, Alive! Strategies for transformation (2015), pp. 21-25, www.jstor.org/stable/43873216, Accessed 5 December 2018.

missy-magazine.de/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/DSC_7426.jpg. Accessed 5 December 2018.

How has music consumption changed recently?

Music consumption has changed radically in the last two decades from buying CDs in a shop to downloading files illegally on LimeWire to streaming online, for example, Spotify.

People used to download a lot of music online illegally since there weren’t any regulations before to control the issue. After regulations were put down, most likely because it affected the economy; “the GAO study found that the estimated losses in the US economy due to piracy accounted for $58 billion in output and $2.6 billion in tax revenues (BPI, 2010: 24), and people got caught, because of regulations for example when “In April 2009 Sweden implemented a local version of the EU Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive that gave copyright owners the right to request the IP addresses of suspected illegal file sharers by personal experience” (Jewitt, Robert, and Majid Yar, 4), *I find it harder to download nowadays and *I have to think twice before committing a crime that *I can get caught for.

Nowadays, *I actually pay for music, through Spotify.

Before I would not have streamed music since the internet was so expensive to pay for. It would have seemed useless to stream the song once instead of just downloading it at home. However, the developments of technology and access to the internet almost everywhere have made it possible to stream easily. It’s so incredibly easy to have Spotify on your phone instead of carrying CDs and Walkman’s around. It’s the simplicity of having almost all the music in one app that draws people, myself included, to stream music on Spotify.

Also, I think people respect music more now. “By positioning the paying consumer as a stakeholder in cinema, especially younger tech-savvy demographics, recent antipiracy efforts have sought to promote respect for the creative sector and its various employees, whilst at the same time raising public awareness of legal alternatives to piracy.” (Jewitt, Robert, and Majid Yar, 6). I think this works for music as well. People are realising the worth of the artists more and more by being exposed to the promotion of creativity on different mass media online.

People also consume music on Youtube. Here we combine two types of art in one, filmmaking and music. Music videos can draw people into listening to music. For example, Childish Gambino’s track ‘This is America’ caused a lot of hype because of its strong political statement.

It’s hard to say where the future in music consumption lies but I think people will have more respect for artists and will more and more consume legally online since there are more platforms like Spotify (on which you can stream free as well with the only cost of hearing advertisements), Deezer and Youtube.

* Where I have referenced to myself, I really mean my anonymous friend. I cannot be legally held accountable for committing any crimes that have been confessed here. The person in question shall remain anonymous.

Sources:

Jewitt, Robert, and Majid Yar. “Consuming the Illegal: Situating Piracy in Everyday Experience.” Convergence 19:1 (2013), pp. 3-8.

Barekat, Houman. “No More Heroes: How Music Stopped Meaning Everything”.

Tag: online

Consumption: The Music Industry