Week nine considered the internet and globalisation global markets and globalise resistant. The presentation group provided a good base knowledge of the subject and applied the theories raised in their presentation to today’s society by giving examples of movements that have become global. The Castells reading ‘Networked social movements. Global movements for social justice’ he comments on movements becoming global “(Castells,M 2012:210)They are connected throughout the world, they learn from other experiences, and in fact they are often inspired by these experiences to engage in their own mobilisation.” I found this part of the reading extremely helpful and it worked as a foundation of knowledge regarding globalisation prior to the lecture and seminar. It also enabled me to consider questions ahead of the seminar, such as how has social media influenced globalisation and at what rate. As seminar preparation I found a protest campaign and researched how networked media technologies are used to organize it. The campaign that I researched was the ‘Women’s March’ because I believe that it is a very relevant and significant campaign regarding today’s political climate, particularly in America. I found the majority of seminar questions straight forward in regards to their answer, however one question particularly resonated with me “How do today’s media aid globalisation?” I found this question interesting because when I began to consider it I realised that the two converge and that globalisation in today’s society relies on the media to work as a catalyst. This exemplified by Castells comment on networks “networks are within the movement, with other movements around the world, with the internet blogophere, with the media and with society at large” (Castells, M. 2012:221) I found this topic very interesting and feel as though I learnt a lot during the seminar due to my participation and detail in both the presentation and during the lecture.
Bibliography
Flew, T. (2005), New Media Melbourne: OUP (177-186; 190-198; 228-230)
Steger, M.B. (2003) Globalization: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press (Ch. 1)
On new media, online activism, new social movements Juris, J, S (2004) ‘Networked social movements. Global movements for social justice’ in Castells, M (eds.) The Network Society. A cross cultural perspective pp. 341- 362. Edward Elgar
Gladwell, M. (2010) Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted, The New Yorker, October 4, 2010. URL http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell
Halliday, J. (2011) ‘London Riots: BlackBerry to help police probe Messenger looting ‘role’’, The Guardian, August 8, 2011. URL 24 http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/aug/08/london-riots-blackberry-messenger-looting