social media activism and the barriers from a regime

"In a movement that involves such a wide variety of people, communities and perspectives, it can be difficult to find a way to coalesce everyone’s political agenda. Social media overcomes this issue, acting as a public platform airing competing opinions. As Setright explained in the case of Nicaragua, “Social media was a key tool which everybody used to organize, protect each other, collect evidence, discuss political tactics, expose paramilitary violence and build new exiled communities.”

In April 2018, Nicaragua experienced a civic insurrection during which numerous citizens reacted against the authoritarian government of President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega. 

Growing up, I heard a lot about the Nicaraguan regime because my dad was born and raised there. Most of his side of our family still lives there to this day.

It was thanks to social media that we were updated with all the horrors that were going on in his country. Thanks to social media, many of Nicaragua's citizens found their voices and bravery to share what was happening with the rest of the world. 

My roots are not as deeply connected to Nicaragua as my fathers are, but these events spurred a lot of emotion. Here is social media being used for a vast movement, which gave me a better picture of living in my dad's country. It helped me better understand bits and pieces of his life, because they were still taking place. 

Since the insurrection, Nicaragua has passed laws restricting content on social media. This webpage provides insightful information on what took place in the country and the laws passed since then. 

I also enjoyed reading this article, Nicaraguan activist shares social media’s role in politics, by Mary Retta. The whole article was a good read. I was especially curious about the course Eva Woods Peiró, professor of Hispanic Studies at Vassar College, taught called "Decolonizing Digital Media."


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

the lurker life

One of the wonderings that arose for me this week came from Dr. Dennen's topic in our weekly discussion on communities and networks - how would you define and differentiate them. In my thinking of what a community was, I thought about the role of the person partaking in a community, etc. That led me to think about the role of a lurker in online communities. I have considered myself a lurker for the past couple of years to remain private, but also because I sometimes don't have the confidence to post or engage in conversations. However, I consider myself a part of "online communities" where I am just absorbing the knowledge shared by others. So I wonder...can lurkers be considered part of the community? Probably not, depending on the expectations set by a specific online community.  Anyways, I was reminded of an article I skimmed some time ago about the negative consequences that lurking may have. I am trying to remember the article, but it was similar to this article
Read more

staying connected, countries apart

Image
My mom (right ) with my grandmother (center), her twin/my aunt (left), and her brother/my uncle (in the back) in Costa Rica. While reading this week's chapters, mainly chapter six, discussed in my previous post, I couldn't help but think about my mom and her family and how ICTs have helped her and us (her kids) remain "networked" with her family in Costa Rica.  My parents are both immigrants. My dad was born in Nicaragua, and my mom was born in Costa Rica. My parents got married in Costa Rica and lived there for a bit. Around 1990, they decided to come to the United States, where some of my dad's relatives were already living. I was born shortly after. Due to many complications, my mom has never had the opportunity to travel back to her home country. It has been as old as I am, 31 years, since my mom saw her mom and siblings in person. Growing up, I saw how ICTs and their advances brought my mom closer to her family, although they were countries apart. My mom, gra
Read more

reddit - finding comfort and resources in an online community

I want to preface this post by reflecting on how I am tweaking my blog as we progress into this course. Some of the ideas I adopted from seeing my classmates' blogs, such as using labels. I have decided to use a new label for posts with bits and pieces of my personal life. I tend to tie in prior knowledge and experience with what we're learning in class because that helps me "anchor" my learning and retain it much better. Although this post is about Reddit, there is a personal experience tied to it. This week, we were encouraged to explore the realm of Reddit. For some time, I had just been a lurker of subreddits...usually, I would google a question that would lead me to a subreddit.  "A subreddit is a specific online community, and the posts associated with it, on the social media website Reddit." Eventually, I decided to make an account to "upvote," join communities and comment on certain posts. Some of them are for learning purposes, like r/Inst
Read more