I am a big fan of the RSAnimate series which take audio from interesting talks and add complimentary animations to visually represent the speaker’s story.
This RSAnimate video was “adapted from a talk in 2009 where Evgeny Morozov presents an alternative take on ‘cyber-utopianism’ – the seductive idea that the internet plays a largely emancipatory role in global politics.”
Evgeny Morozov was mentioned in 3 out of 3 of our (graduate) readings as a skeptic of the power of social media to elicit social change but this video really helps to highlight his criticisms of the “naive belief in the emancipatory nature of online communication” [Pollock, J. (2011). Streetbook – How Egyptian and Tunisian youth hacked the Arab Spring. Technology Review, (September/October). Retrieved from http://www.technologyreview.com/web/38379/]
31 October, 2011 at 2:25 pm
Hello Michelle,
I just watched this video and found it very informative and entertaining. The creators of these animated videos do a fantastic job of explaining Morozov’s lecture and utilizing visuals to bolster his opinions.
As for the content, I find myself completely agreeing with all of Morozov’s criticisms. The internet has been seen as the enlightened communication – a tool to connect humanity and pioneer us into “cyber-utopianism.” However, as the video acutely demonstrates, a tool is dependent on how it is used, not what it was meant for. If a tool can be used for other than its desired purpose, the product of that tool may be different as well.
The internet is a multi-multi-multi-faceted tool. It is limitless in its potential to connect, distribute, create, etc… So it should be obvious that with as much potential the internet has to do good, people can find a way to corrupt its use. Take the examples Morozov gave; authoritarian leaders utilizing loyalists to censor pages they find demeaning to the public, counter-measurements taken on SNS’s to find activists involved in a protest and blacklist them, or even the apathy of the younger generation and their complacency with “lolcatz!” These examples are quite ‘cyber-distopic’.