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<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/bratich06222009.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/bratich06222009.html<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">June 22,
2009<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>Iran, Social
Media and the Rise of Genetically Modified Grassroots Organizations
<br><br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">The
Fog Machine </b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>By
JACK Z. BRATICH <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">O</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>ccasionally, an event gushes through media
channels, spectacularly belying the notion that news outlets have major
ideological differences. The current surge is a Green Wave,
emanating from Iran. But there is more going on here than a uniform
support for the anti-Ahmadinejad forces. We are witnessing something
older, what media scholars have called the “technological sublime”.
In this quasi-mystical sentiment, each media development brings with it a
promise for a new age, even revolutionary. The twittering enthusiasm over
the role of social media in the election protests has invoked this
archaic link. <br><br>
Let me say upfront that <br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>1) I’m not interested in supporting Ahmadinejad’s regime nor the
theocracy that would be preserved whether he or Mousavi were elected.
These internecine battles within a religious state, resulting in a palace
coup at best, are not my concern. <br><br>
<dd>2) I don’t disagree that there are democratic aspirations circulating
on the streets and in the air from Iran. Any mass mobilization of
opposition will contain these and a variety of other impulses, including
patient Shah-era vestiges and neoliberal/traditionalist hybrids. The
point is to not mythically dissolve these differences into a wave.
<br><br>
<dd>3) Most importantly, I do believe that networks, technical and
social, have a role to play in composing and organizing oppositions. I
fully support a number of domestic cyberactivist projects, so there’s no
use Luddifying me. Rather, the point is to understand the contexts and
alliances that shape an event. Every network has a number of layers: it’s
time to unpeel one that involves some not-so-new patterns. <br><br>
</dl>We can start with a telling anecdote. State Department advisor Jared
Cohen earlier this week emailed the co-founder of Twitter, requesting
that they postpone a scheduled maintenance downtime. The reason? It
was a critical moment for the demonstrators, and service needed to go
uninterrupted. Twitter complied. The fact that a US government official
is able have such pull, while not surprising, tends to get lost in a
green wave of reports about social media belonging to “people
power”. Who gets to place these calls and get results?
<br><br>
Cohen’s access should be even less surprising, given his role in State
Department efforts to harness the power of social media. To wit, his role
as press contact for the Alliance of Youth Movements. Launched in late
2008 with a Summit in NYC, the AYM gathered together an ensemble of media
corporations, Obama consultants, social network entrepreneurs, and youth
organizations, under the auspices of the State Department.
Representatives came from Media Old (MTV, NBC, CNN) and New (Google and
especially Facebook). The AYM produced a Field Manual and a series of
How-to videos (How to Create a Grassroots Movement Using
Social-Networking Sites, How to Smart Mob, How to Circumvent an Internet
Proxy). The goal was to have youth leaders from around the world learn,
share & discuss how to build powerful grassroots movements.<br><br>
A few months ago, I wrote about this Alliance, calling it a “Genetically
Modified Grassroots Organization” (GMGO). Neither wholly emerging from
below (grassroots) nor purely invented by external forces (the
Astroturfing done by public relations groups), these emergent groups are
seeded (and their genetic code altered) to control the direction of the
movement. <br><br>
Through the How-to videos we are incessantly reminded about the code of
this genetically modified activism: Make sure you avoid violent
extremism. Respect property. Use leaders. Speak forcefully without being
incendiary. Avoid obscenities and violent imagery. Use as your model Cold
War Latin American anti-Communism (anti-Castro, -Chavez, -FARC).
<br><br>
And these are purely exports: Apparently the election of Obama means not
only that social networks are electorally effective, but that they no
longer need to be used for organizing within the U.S. Now it’s just time
to sit back and click your social media support for sanctioned
“democracy” movements elsewhere. <br><br>
And in case we had doubts about whether these protests were democratic,
thankfully they’ve been given an official color. Green is the shade of
this season’s infowar-paint. We don’t know if Gene Sharp, the
Albert Einstein Institute, or the National Endowment for Democracy (the
folks who influenced other branded youth movements and color-coded
oppositions such as Serbia’s Otpor and the post-Communist Oranges of
Ukraine) were directly involved in Iran. But Sharp’s fingerprints (even
if only via printed matter) are all over it. In any event, US ambitions
of destabilizing Iran have been well publicized, reported by Seymour
Hersh among others. <br><br>
What would clear proof look like in an infosphere that is cloudy (perhaps
deliberately so)? There is no direct evidence that the Iranian election
was stolen either, but that hasn’t prevented U.S. journalists from
operating as though it were so (“faith-based reporting” as Dave Lindorff
calls it). Wild speculations, repeated through media channels, come
easily out of what media scholar Jayson Harsin names diffuse “rumor
bombs.” What are the “facts on the ground” when social media produce a
bottom-up mist? In these latest infowar escapades, we need to
revise our concepts: not the fog, but the fog-machine</i> of war.
<br><br>
One thing is clear: cyberwar has once again taken front stage. Here
traditional ambitions meet new technical developments. And there’s even
an “old media” angle here. In November 2008 French authorities jailed
readers and a suspected author of The Coming Insurrection</i> for
“associating with a terrorist enterprise”. The Tarnac 9, as they’ve
come to be known, were accused of being inspired by the manifesto/manual,
pseudonymously penned by The Invisible Committee. <br><br>
The book’s recent translation into English (and last week’s smart mob
prank-reading at a New York City Barnes and Noble) might be a portent of
media-galvanized domestic action. Will Jared Cohen’s efforts to
“counter-radicalize” foreign populations find a domestic twist? How do we
distinguish among cyber-assisted youth movements? While Gene Sharp’s
books are secreted into populations via well-funded sources and
considered inspiration for people power, other books are deemed terrorist
tracts worthy of criminalization. For some youth movements, we change our
Facebook profile pics; for others, Facebook ‘em, Danno!<br><br>
Immediately, the hackles are raised: “These tracts espouse violence while
the Sharpies are nonviolent!” But let’s not let delude ourselves into
thinking the State Department has suddenly been stricken by pacifism
fever. Cyberwar is part of information war connected to broader warfare
(in which State violence is not very far behind). In the big picture,
networked “people power” should be nonviolent because violence belongs
exclusively to the State. Nonviolence from below, violence from above.
Remember that Otpor destabilized from the streets, but NATO bombs rained
from the sky. Will this Green wave wash over Obama’s public reticence,
resulting in an American thumbs-up to Israel’s recurring announcements
about launching strikes? Which alliance-cloud is on the horizon:
one that saturates the soil for the spread of anti-repressive measures
everywhere or one that unleashes a torrential downpour of condensed
violence? <br><br>
Jack Bratich</b> is Assistant Professor of Journalism and Media Studies
at Rutgers University. He is also a zine librarian at ABC No Rio in New
York City. This summer he will be co-teaching a course on Affect
and Politics at Bluestockings Bookstore through their Popular Education
program. He can be reached at
<a href="mailto:jbratich@gmail.com">jbratich@gmail.com</a><br><br>
Related Links/Further Reading<br><br>
GMGOs: Direct(ed) Action and social movement
networks<a href="http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/imr/2009/02/03/gmgos-directed-action-and-social-movement-networks">
http</a>
<a href="http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/imr/2009/02/03/gmgos-directed-action-and-social-movement-networks">
://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/</a><br><br>
The Youth Movements How-To
Hub<a href="http://youthmovements.howcast.com/">
http://youthmovements.howcast.com/</a><br><br>
The Rumor Bomb: <br>
<a href="http://flowtv.org/?p=2259" eudora="autourl">
http://flowtv.org/?p=2259<br><br>
</a>Liberating Lipsticks and Lattes <br>
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/<br><br>
<br><br>
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