Social change movements are the opportunities for citizens to speak up about their thoughts and concerns. Finally, they can take a step to prove their point. A few important aspects of social change are participation, a meaning claim, and a valid point. All of these can be successful with proper communication. In the book ‘Citizens’ Media and Communication’, Development in Practice, vol. 19, no. 4&5, pp. 443-452, “This introductory article finds that citizens’ media and communication is about more than bringing diverse voices into pluralist politics: it contributes to processes of social and cultural construction, redefining exclusionary norms and power relations. Local participation, ownership and control can allow people to reshape the spaces in which their voices find expression.”
Today I will compare and contrast the communications strategies used in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement and the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. The Civil Rights Movement took place during the 1950s and the 1960s; it was a struggle. The blacks were trying to gain equal rights under the U.S. government. After the Civil War, slavery was abolished, but that didn’t stop people from discriminating against blacks. By the mid-20th century, African Americans decided to mobilize and began to fight for equality. Meanwhile ,the Egyptian Revolution took place in January 2011, when activists decided to stage an uprising about many issues people living in Egypt were facing, like poverty, unemployment, government corruption, and the fact that President Hosni Mubarak had been in power for over 30 years.
How did both social movements become successful? Communication. Each social movement used different strategies to achieve their goal. However, some approaches were the same, such as , informing people on where to go and explaining what was happening. Both movements came up with their own logos and approached newspapers to feature them on the front page with a clear message to the rest of the population. These are just some of the ways used to communicate with the rest of the population.
The Egyptian Revolution, surprisingly, had very minor use of social media and social documentation, but social media played a role in connecting protestors to one another based on a study data..“The Tahrir Data Project gathers empirical data on media use during the Egyptian revolution of January and February 2011. The Project consists of three data sets documenting media use by protesters, by coordinators, and by transnational audiences. Preliminary descriptive analysis of the data suggests that social media use was not dominant in demonstrations but may have played an important role in connecting and motivating protesters.” A famous social media outlet called Twitter played a major role during this social movement when the #jan25 tweet became one of the most tweeted tweets for quite some time.
The protestors and the Egyptian government had two different ideas of communication. The people where arranging and signing up on new social media outlets, posting and sending personal messages on Facebook, tweeting, and texting to friends and newspapers/magazines about their minute by minute movements and plans. The revolution was often referred too as “The Facebook Revolution” because this is how it all started, a single frustration post became a revolution and an uprising. Facebook was like the dictionary, if the news was on Facebook, it meant it was true. The organizers of the January 25th protest wanted to make sure the people were expressing their concerns, that was another way to use Facebook as “feedback” to what could happen in the next days of the protests. It was almost like having two worlds. A virtual world on Facebook and the real world at Tahrir Square. The citizens were doing everything possible to make sure that all types of media were getting the correct information to keep the chain of news going.
The Egyptian government had other plans in ensuring the news outlets heard their side of the story regarding the uprising. The government included spies within the protest crowd to get all the latest news on their communication plans so they could shut them down before things got out of hand. Obviously, this didn’t work. The national media channels and newspapers were under strict supervision of the “truth”. The Egyptian government shut down cell phone lines, arrested staff members from Al Jazeera who were deemed threatening to the state and targeted foreign journalists to send them the latest news through their perspective. Not only that, but they shut down and blocked off the internet for a whole week. Strategic decisions were taken to stop the uprising, but the citizens and the army were one hand at that point.
Alternatively, the Civil Rights Movement used violence to stop the growth of the protests. If black men were seen talking to white women or white men, they were automatically arrested or beaten-up. Protestors communicated verbally by knocking on doors and sharing their plans, and they had signs everywhere. They were nonviolent, and as others saw how peaceful things were, more joined the safe protests. The violence was coming more from the police. The words used at protests and in posters were carefully picked to send the message. More or less, the radio was present at the time, which allowed for people to listen to podcasts and news reports to understand this movement. “Traveling down the highway in Alabama listening to Neil Young sing “Southern Man” and following that with video clips of the fire hoses and police dogs in Birmingham, followed by the words of Dr. King upon the church bombing that killed four young girls is a profound experience. We weren’t there, and we would never claim to fully know the thoughts of those who were, but yet we could feel the history. We were moved by it.” said David Domke.
Youth play a vital role in any social movement because they are the future. Social movements often try to change things for future generations. The Civil Rights Movement drew children, teenagers, and young adults. They were drawn in because of the strong support of their elders in helping shape their future path. Joyce Ladner said when asked to answer why did so many young people decide to become activists for social justice? “The Movement was the most exciting thing that one could engage in. I often say that, in fact, I coined the term, the ‘Emmett Till generation.’ I said that there was no more exciting time to have been born at the time and the place and to the parents that movement, young movement, people were born to… I remember so clearly Uncle Archie who was in World War I, went to France, and he always told us, ‘Your generation is going to change things.’”
Freeman Hrabowski, another young boy at the time of the movement decided to join when he heard about the protests in church on a Sunday night. He was then arrested, but many images of police and dogs attacking young kids drew much attention to the topic nation-wide. Hrabowski remembers that at the prison, Dr. King told him and the other children, “What you do this day will have an impact on children yet unborn.” He continues, “I’ll never forget that. I didn’t even understand it, but I knew it was powerful, powerful, very powerful.” Years later, he became the President of the University of Maryland where he supported African American students as a result of his experience.
It’s people like Hrabowski and Ladner who made a difference by using their experiences to change the future. The images they had were used to raise awareness about the topic and help take action to better the community. People need to be aware of racism and take action to prevent it. In this society, we are raised with racism in our media and it can make us have unintentional bias against black people. Because of media, many black people are afraid to embrace their culture, such as eating fried chicken or eating watermelon because they do not want to be laughed at nor accept a stereotype.
The Square, a documentary by Jehane Noujaim, that tells the true story of the ongoing struggle of the Egyptian Revolution through the eyes of six very different protesters. Starting in the tents in Tahrir Square in the days leading up to the fall of Mubarak, we follow the characters on a life-changing journey through the euphoria of victory into the uncertainties and dangers of the current 'transitional period' under military rule, where everything they fought for is now under threat or in balance. That’s the official blurb of the film. In 2011, young Egyptians protested to transform the government and demand change. The film provides a scope of what the revolution was like through the lens of the start of the movement. Cairo’s Tahrir Square is the heart of the city and the heart of the film. The film shows “the life-and-death” struggles between the authorities, state, power, and the people.
Apart from communication, photography also played an important role in raising awareness about the topic. Many photographers risked their lives by being part of those protests, some even get arrested. James A.Michener Art Museum, presented “A Time to Break Silence: Pictures of Social Change”, an exhibition that features 31 pieces of visual documentation of the protests from the Civil Rights Movement. An example is an inspirational photo from Martin Luther King’s famous speech. Not only does it feature images but also call-to-action images from King’s famous speech. “Photographs are a powerful medium to convey social unrest and change, and the historical photographs in this exhibition reveal struggles that are both widely shared and intensely personal,” said Kelsey Halliday Johnson, executive director of the SPACE Gallery in Portland, Maine and former Michener curatorial fellow in photography and new media, who curated the exhibit. “I know this show will resonate with today’s audiences as much as it will with those who experienced the era and the turmoil depicted in these photographs.”
An article names: From King to Spring: Parallels Between the Civil Rights Movement and Egypt’s Revolution. The Egyptian revolution and the Civil Rights Movement yearly anniversary are only days apart. “A riot is the language of the unheard,” King revealed. “The rule of law, for everyday Egyptians and Africans Americans, afforded no due process or relief, while the very government entrusted with the duty to protect sought to only persecute and prosecute.” Both social movements are diverse. The Civil Rights Movement was largely an African American population while the Egyptian Revolution consisted of mainly Muslims with the support of others. These movements allow people to break the barriers between religions, color, and sexuality, and look through them to get the maximum change. Both movements started at famous locations to prove a point. Copts and Muslims were protecting one another to show solidarity. The reality is that both countries need to work on certain issues affecting their citizens and they are both struggling in different aspects of the government. Through the protests illustrated in this paper, one can see the importance of communication in movement building in order to effect change in their individual governments.
Lisa Tremper Hanover, director and CEO of the Michener Art Museum said, “These images are especially meaningful in today’s social and political landscape and give us pause to as we continue to navigate important issues in our nation and in the world.” Photography and communication go hand in hand for any social movement to succeed. It takes one brave soul to start a revolution and a bold society to finish the journey.