An MIT graduate student I know wrote the following about the Iranian post-election protests, after I asked what he thought of the use of technology there. Money quote:
The crux, I think, is this: twitter et. al. provide more interesting and useful communication tools. But communication isn’t enough, you have to wield power, and power doesn’t happen on the Internet… Communication is still really important to enable action. But that communication doesn’t have to be new or fancy, and it may work better if it isn’t.
So what’s next in digital activism technology? There’s a great quote in this Time article: “The sky is falling, but here we are — millions of us — sitting around trying to invent new ways to talk to one another.” I think there’s something to that, and I think there’s something of a distraction and time sink that the Internet brings to efforts to enact meaningful social change. I think we might be better served learning about what to say to one another than what incremental improvements we can make to the medium. Learning how to influence people and change their minds, get them to be more aware of the plight of everyone else. My personal research goals are around finding out how to get technologists to listen more deeply to communities in need about what their problems are, rather than what seems cool or exciting or technically challenging to the technologist.
Full email after the cut.
