[Air-l] social movements / social software

[Todd Davies]

What is new for me, looking at Myspace's role in political organizing, is 
how Internet software that has been designed primarily for getting fun 
information about other people (pictures, interests, etc.) for social and 
dating purposes seems to have potential for sparking political involvement 
across distances, in a way that both text-based Internet and mass media 
are less suited to.

We know from studies of political attitudes and behavior that personal 
contacts are very important motivators for altering both. Gustavo, the 
high school student whose interview I posted, describes the Myspace 
slideshow of a march in california as "the main thing that got my 
attention" and spurred him to organize where he lived in texas.  Without 
inferring too much about what he was initially looking for on Myspace that 
morning, I can certainly imagine how someone might feel motivated to 
become an organizer after seeing pictures of peers elsewhere marching for 
a cause one shares an interest in.

In earlier times, a cute and funny campus organizer might come to your 
dorm room and casually tell you about a rally, or a cool and slightly 
older kid down the street might be a member of an activist group and get 
you interested in it.  These people still exist, of course, but now they 
can be thousands of miles away with profiles you are checking out 
anonymously on Myspace.  That seems a lot more compelling at the 
pre-commitment stage than watching a news report about a march, or getting 
an email message from someone you don't know and can't see.  Then, once 
you've decided to organize, you contact your friends and schoolmates using 
phone trees, email, flyers etc., because those are more effective media 
for targeted communication within one's preexisting network.

Myspace seems more suited to the initial stage of political involvement, 
providing the spark of interest that comes, for example, from curiosity 
about another person and what they are doing, and a desire to compare it 
to what *you* are doing -- sitting in your room looking at Myspace 
profiles, perhaps, while others just like you are marching for your 
rights.  A tool for doing that across distances, available to and used by 
most young people, was missing in earlier eras.  It will be interesting to 
see how much difference it makes.

Todd

Todd Davies                   ***  email: davies at csli.stanford.edu
Symbolic Systems Program      ***  phone: 1-650-723-4091
Stanford University           ***  fax: 1-650-723-5666
Stanford, CA, USA 94305-2150  ***  web: www.stanford.edu/~davies