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15:44 | 19-07-2010 | Internet, Politics | 1 Comment
интересная статья в New York Times о повсеместном использовании сетевых технологий в соверменной дипломатии:
On Twitter, [Jared] Cohen, who is 28, and [Alec] Ross, who is 38, are among the most followed of anyone working for the U.S. government, coming in third and fourth after Barack Obama and John McCain. This didn’t happen by chance. Their Twitter posts have become an integral part of a new State Department effort to bring diplomacy into the digital age, by using widely available technologies to reach out to citizens, companies and other nonstate actors. Ross and Cohen’s style of engagement — perhaps best described as a cross between social-networking culture and foreign-policy arcana — reflects the hybrid nature of this approach.
политика тоже старается быть модной: сегодня в одном списке находятся и Леди Гага, и Барак Обама, и Ким Кардашян, и все-все-все:
Two of Cohen’s recent posts were, in order: “Guinea holds first free election since 1958” and “Yes, the season premier [sic] of Entourage is tonight, soooo excited!” This offhand mix of pop and politics has on occasion raised eyebrows and a few hackles (writing about a frappucino during a rare diplomatic mission to Syria; a trip with Ashton Kutcher to Russia in February), yet, together, Ross and Cohen have formed an unlikely and unprecedented team in the State Department. They are the public face of a cause with an important-sounding name: 21st-century statecraft.
налицо смена коммуникаций и дальнейшее ускорение (перестройка и гласность?):
Traditional forms of diplomacy still dominate, but 21st-century statecraft is not mere corporate rebranding — swapping tweets for broadcasts. It represents a shift in form and in strategy — a way to amplify traditional diplomatic efforts, develop tech-based policy solutions and encourage cyberactivism.
однако, не все так радужно:
Is this growing fascination with social media a mere sign of our desperation with other, more conventional instruments of diplomatic leverage? Perhaps so.
так и есть — достаточно вспомнить прошлогодние иранские выборы, помноженные на беспомощную официальную позицию США:
Most of the news that reached the West from Iran came via YouTube and Twitter. In June of last year, three days into the postelection protests, a Twitter post by the opposition candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi alerted Cohen that Twitter was scheduled to go down for maintenance. Cohen sent an e-mail message to Dorsey, the site’s 33-year-old chairman, without running it up the chain of command. Dorsey went to work — “I was definitely raising my voice” trying to find a way for the service to stay up, Dorsey told me. The New York Times broke the story of Cohen’s e-mail message. A flurry of public speculation ensued as to whether keeping Twitter up contradicted the president’s stated policy of nonintervention in the Iranian election.
и что случилось? ровным счетом ничего:
Will the oppressed masses in authoritarian states join the barricades once they get unfettered access to Wikipedia and Twitter?
This seems quite unlikely. In fact, our debate about the Internet’s role in democratization—increasingly dominated by techno-utopianism—is in dire need of moderation, for there are at least as many reasons to be skeptical. Ironically, the role that the Internet played in the recent events in Iran shows us why: Revolutionary change that can topple strong authoritarian regimes requires a high degree of centralization among their opponents. The Internet does not always help here. One can have “organizing without organizations”—the phrase is in the subtitle of “Here Comes Everybody,” Clay Shirky’s best-selling 2008 book about the power of social media—but one can’t have revolutions without revolutionaries.
можно, впрочем, и по-другому — так, в Российской Федерации, например, авторитарный двухглавый орел использует Твиттер для манипулирования балансом власти между “головами” — на первый взгляд смотрится потешно, однако, что это, как не тот же поход в массы, что был озвучен выше?
самое, то есть, интересное:
According to data compiled by the East German government, East Germans who watched West German television were paradoxically more satisfied with life in their country and the communist regime. Speaking in 1990, the East German writer Christoph Hein spoke of the difficulties of mobilizing his fellow citizens, pointing out that “the whole people could leave the country and move to the West…at 8 p.m.—via television.” Ironically, the fact that Dresden—where the 1989 protests started—lies too far and too low to have received Western broadcasts may partly explain the rebellious spirit of the city’s inhabitants.
The parallels to the Internet with its endless supply of online entertainment are obvious: Twitter and Facebook might make political mobilization of the kind that is required to topple dictators harder, not easier.
все понятно?
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