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Theory: The Streisand Effect
Written by Mary on April 22, 2008 – 2:16 pm -
The Streisand Effect refers to instances when Internet censorship has the opposite effect, actually increasing distribution and awareness of the censored material.
Origin of the Term: In 2003 singer Barbra Streisand sued photographer Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for $50 million dollars to force them to remove a picture of her home (see above) from a series of 12,000 pictures of the California coast taken to study the effects of beach erosion. As a result of this peculiar law suit, the picture of her home was disseminated on the Internet and many more people saw it than would have if she had not tried to censor the image.
Application for Activists: How can activists apply the Streisand Effect as a means of countering Internet censorship? The key to the Streisand Effect is distributing the censored material and publicizing the instance of censorship. Without these two elements - distribution and publicity - censored material will not be viewed by a wide enough audience to counteract the original effect of the censorship. The end goal is to show your government that censoring content has the reverse effect, and thus discourage your government from censoring
From a technical perspective, the best way to distribute censored content is by e-mail, though feeds can also be used, as in the case of Amnesty International’s Irrepressible campaign, which allows bloggers to publish a feed of censored blog content on their own blog.
Tags: amnesty, censorship, facebook, USA
Posted in Americas, Blogs, Digital Images, Listservs, Social Networks, Theory | No Comments »
Theory: Tactics Are Not Strategy
Written by Mary on April 2, 2008 – 3:25 pm -So far I have been writing about the tactics of digital activism without explicitly stating what a “tactic” is. However, a recent e-mail from a DigiActive team member showed me that in fact the definition of what a tactic is - and how it is different from strategy - is not clear. The purpose of this post is to clarify that critical difference between tactics and strategy and how they relate to digital activism.
When explaining the difference between tactics and strategy, I find an analysis of the roots of the two words extremely helpful. Strategy comes from the Greek work “strategos” meaning “general.” Tactic comes from the Greek work “taktikas” meaning “foot soldier”.
As you can see from the image below, the strategy (general) guides the tactics (foot soldiers) within an activist campaign. Tactics are the actions which allow you to achieve your strategic goal.
Tags: neworleans, nptech
Posted in Americas, Theory, Video | 1 Comment »