A Resonant Purpose

Above: Two Citizen Movements Working for Social and Economic Justice. At Left, in early 2011, hundreds of thousands gathered for rallies on the grounds of the WI Capitol; At Right, in that same year, Occupy Wall Street participants maintained an ongoing presence at New York's Zucotti Park.

When massive protests sprung up at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison earlier in 2011 in response to draconian anti-worker, anti-education legislative proposals by the new governor and legislature, people across the nation and the globe reached out in solidarity. Many of them had learned about developments in Wisconsin through the Social Media. In the months since then, a massive movement for workers' rights, open government, quality education, and responsive healthcare is taking hold in the US and well beyond, most recently exemplified by the Occupy Wall Street movement. While the venue and name may change over time, this movement is here to stay, and resonant non-violent protest movements everywhere are gaining strength from the organizing power of the web.

In that same spirit of solidarity, through this blog, Wisconsin activists hope to share what we have learned through our use of on-line organizing with participants in the Dec. 17-18th Netroots New York conference at Pace University, where several Wisconsinites will be presenting. As a prelude to the conference, we share these samples of innovative organizing from the Wisconsin Uprising linked to social media. Thanks to all who have produced the contributions linked to here, and to all who shared their favorite social media examples, with special thanks to Joanie Juster. Working together, we can and will make a difference!

The blog format was the fastest and most efficient way to bring together these clips for conference goers. Nonetheless, it is a topically-arranged list of content trying to fit into a chronologically-based blog format. A couple of navigation tips: 1) If scrolling through the contents in the order postings are presented, be sure to select "Older Posts" to reach additional listings beyond the bottom of each page, and 2) an ad hoc "Table of Contents" can be found in the Blog Archive list at lower right.

WI CAPITOL PROTESTS

Happy Third Anniversary, Wisconsin Capitol Protests
Please venture further into this site to an archive of representative social media from this important social movement, which is still making its presence known three years later.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Foreign Coverage Often Trumped US Mainstream Media

Some of the most illuminating posts placed on the Media Coverage of WI Protests Facebook page we created were examples of coverage by the foreign media, whose reporters often took much more time talking to the protestors, and less time tied up with the official propaganda being put out by the Walker administration.  They even offered some of the only cogent analysis available about the fact how the mainstream media in the US was often missing the boat when it came to this home-grown pro-democracy rally story.

From Russia Today -- The Other Story: Home Made Uprising in Madison Wisconsin

A scathing and spot-on piece of analysis by the Russian RT news service, about how US mainstream coverage has obsessively covered pro-democracy protests in Egypt, Bahrain, and throughout the Middle East--but has failed to adequately cover the pro-democracy protests in its own Middle West.



As the accompanying narrative puts it: "The turbulence in the Arab world has drawn the full attention of the American media. Riots and demonstrations in Libya and Bahrain are dominating the news channels' at primetime, and the newspaper front pages. As Lauren Lyster reports, while U.S. leaders fly the flag for popular uprisings thousands of miles away, it's a very different story at home."

from the Youtube page of RT

Al-Jazeera was also a pervasive presence on Madison streets, offering frequent and in-depth reporting



Example of coverage from The Guardian: Wisconsin protests continue against 'union bashing'-- Thousands stand up for collective bargaining rights as Republicans set to replicate move to cut union rights across US



 Image from Cairo that received widespread distribution in various social media

Be sure to click on the "Older Posts" link below at the bottom of this page for many more examples of creative and inspiring social media examples from the Wisconsin Uprising....
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