English version:
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
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Text from Guila Priol
How are social phenomena changing due to the digitalization of our communication? Giulia Priol, a student member of the editorial team, has devoted her research and reflections to a question that cannot be answered conclusively in an ongoing and complex process of transformation and innovation. However, a comparative look at a few selected phenomena over time – such as protests, fan cultures or e-mail communication – shows how we are changing ourselves and the societies in which we live through the possibilities of digitization.
Protest
Is it true that we are living in a time of unprecedented mass protest movements? Never before have so many people taken to the streets to protest. One explanation often given for this is that digital networking via the Internet, social media and messenger services has made it easier to mobilize people. However, if we take a look at the past, we can also find massive protest movements with high numbers of participants that did not have the networking tools of digitalization available to them today. So how has our protest behavior changed as a result of digitization?
In 2020, even though public life had been largely paralyzed by a pandemic, millions of people in the U.S. took to the streets to protest police violence and racism. The trigger was a May 26, 2020 video showing the killing of African American George Floyds by a white police officer, which spread furiously on social media. In July of that year, the New York Times wrote that Black Lives Matter could be the largest protest movement in U.S. history. Between 15 and 26 million people, it estimated, were in the streets.¹ Large crowds had already gathered to protest in previous years. For example, in September 2019, Greta Thunberg, the initiator of the Fridays for Future movement, met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Montreal. Afterwards, 500,000 people gathered on the streets of the city – and were simultaneously supported by many people in other cities around the world – not only there, but also in many other cities around the world.²
However, if we take a look at the past, we can also find examples of protest movements with very high numbers of participants: In the course of the Civil Rights Movement or the Vietnam War, several hundred thousand people repeatedly took to the streets in the USA in the 1960s and 1970s. In Germany, too, protests of up to 500,000 people took place during the Easter marches in the 1960s or due to the NATO double decision in 1979, as historian Dieter Rucht describes – and without the Internet or social media.³
Back then, it was often smaller groups that organized these protests – and in which individuals served as the face of the movement, says Guiomar Rovira-Sancho, a communications researcher at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico City. She researches how protest movements have changed and evolved over the years, and talks about it in our interview. The organizational effort for protest actions, she says, was greater back then – and the individual protest movements generally had a longer lifespan. What can be observed since the beginning of digitization is an increasing individualization of activists. As a rule, protesters today no longer belong to a particular ideological group, party or organization, she says. Instead, diverse and well-connected groups take to the streets together.
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Taking to the
streets to protest
is inevitable.
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It seems obvious that more people can be mobilized via the Internet: Everyone can be reached at any time, information can be circulated more quickly, and it is easier to form groups of like-minded people or at least people who think alike in a protest context. Political scientist Anita Breuer of the German Development Institute also points out that in many countries with restrictive regimes, social media quickly became the only way to get protest movements going in the first place and to defy the political censorship of the media as information channels. This was the case, for example, with the Arab Spring in 2010, the Gezi Park protests in Turkey in 2013, or those against the pro-Beijing government in Hong Kong since 2019. By contrast, social media would have had a relatively small effect on protest behavior in Western cultures for a long time.⁴
But that is precisely what has changed in recent years, since more and more people in Western cultures are also participating in political debates and expressing their opinions via Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. In particular, there has been a massive increase in the number of people who join a protest movement, for example by liking, uploading a profile picture used for a protest movement or sharing content. But because these expressions of protest often do not go beyond digital expressions of displeasure, these forms of online activism are often criticized as so-called clicktivism. And even former U.S. President Barack Obama spoke out against replacing physical protest with online activism in an interview during the Obama Foundation Summit 2019.⁵
However, to hastily label the latter as useless, Rovira-Sancho says in our interview, is a hasty reaction. Hashtags, for example, are not protest movements per se. Their use, however, causes direct actions and reactions on the Internet that often precede physical protest actions. And there’s often much more behind a hashtag, says Rovira-Sancho: Hashtags unite grievances and problems under one term for many people – and, if used repeatedly, can be quickly recirculated. This would simplify the spontaneous organization of protest actions and in turn enable permanence. The interesting thing, says Rovira-Sancho, is that each online protest action and campaign is thereby different and yet the same, and can often be found globally. In this respect, online activism is one of the most useful tools for her to start a global conversation. Nevertheless, the communication scientist emphasizes: “Taking to the streets to protest is unavoidable. Because that’s the meeting place where we’re not just shadows on the Internet, but make ourselves vulnerable as human beings.” It is here, he said, that the physical scale of protest behind the voices on the web first emerges. At the same time, she says, we now have many new opportunities to participate in protest actions that have only been made possible for us by digital networking in the first place. “That,” she concludes, “is neither good nor bad. It’s the way things are – and we need to make the best use of it.”
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Larry Buchanan/Quoctrung Bui/Jugal K. Patel: „Black Lives Matter May Be the Largest Movement in U.S. History“. In: New York Times (3. Juli 2020)
nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/03/us/george-floyd-protests-crowd-size.html
Greta Thunberg leads 500,000 people at Montreal climate rally“. In: Deutsche Welle (27. September 2019)
dw.com/en/gretathunberg-leads-500000-people-at-montrealclimate-rally/a-50617527
Dieter Rucht: „Protestbewegungen“. In: Wolfgang Benz (Hg.): Die Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Band 3: Gesellschaft. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer: Taschenbuch Verlag 1989, S. 311-344
econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/112163/1/208465.pdf
Anita Breuer: „The Role of Social Media in Mobilizing Political Protest“, Discussion Paper, Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik, Bonn (2012)
die-gdi.de/uploads/media/DP_10.2012.pdf
„Barack Obama takes on ‚woke‘ call-outculture: ‚That’s not activism‘“. In: The Guardian (30. Oktober 2019)
youtube.com/watch?v=qaHLd8de6nM
The full interview with Guiomar Rovira-Sancho can be found on our website at wittenlab.de.
More information about her work:
uam-xochimilco.academia.edu/GuiomarRoviraSancho
E-mail Communication
This year marks the 50th anniversary of a technological phenomenon that has revolutionized our communications from the ground up: e-mail.1 In particular, our everyday working lives would be unthinkable without it. The trend is upward: in Germany alone, 848 billion e-mails were sent last year – ten years earlier, only 217 billion. A time when sender and recipient could not exchange information within a few seconds is no longer imaginable, especially for younger generations. Collaboration must have been sluggishly slow and inefficient back then – or was it?
To answer this question, it is enough to look across the pond to the USA, or more precisely to Virginia. A 50-kilometer-long pneumatic communications system made of steel tubes still runs through the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency built there in the 1960s. At peak times, up to 7,500 messages per day were sent between the individual departments in small capsules at speeds of around 35 kilometers per hour. These were then sorted and distributed twice a day. What could have been observed behind these walls until the 1980s – if it were not for a secret service – was a classic example of asynchronous communication: the time-delayed process of message and response. With the invention of e-mail, such systems, which were also local, became obsolete. Since then, the distance between message and response has been steadily reduced by technology – and is now almost synchronous. And what has shortened at the same time is the time in which we expect to receive a response.
The most common response time to the 100 billion or so emails sent worldwide every day is now 2 minutes. For many, processing and responding to professional emails takes more than 3 hours a day – add another two hours if you count private ones. In addition to additional telephone and video conferences, meetings or conversations with colleagues – also forms of synchronous communication – there is hardly any time to concentrate on a task for a longer period of time. In short, the frequency and speed of today’s contact channels have little in common with the asynchronous communication that was the standard a few decades ago. But what has happened to our ability to pay attention as a result?
At the Department of Computer Science at the University of California at Irvine, Gloria Mark, professor of Computer Supported Co-operative Work, is looking at this very question. According to her research, people check their e-mail inboxes around 70 times a day on average – with some even increasing this number sixfold. Being alerted to the arrival of new messages by ringtones or push notifications each time distracts you from the work process you were engaged in. According to Mark and colleagues, after such an interruption, one does not simply return to the interrupted activity, but needs several minutes to find one’s way back to the preceding thought processes – if one is not interrupted by the next message.²
According to the scientist, our attention span has shortened considerably. And what is often referred to as multi-tasking is detrimental to our creativity and reduces the quality of our work. In combination with Facebook, Twitter and the like, which further shorten our attention span, the concentrated attention span of test subjects – the time before they get the impulse to distract themselves – still averaged 3 minutes in 2004. Today, this value has been reduced to 40 seconds.
Instead of increased productivity, these regular interruptions tend to lead to a counterproductive result. And as a result, we are faced with the development of a new de-synchronization of our communication: Because the more messages arrive at people with ever-decreasing attention spans, the more likely it is that they will become overwhelming. The response to the messages is postponed or suspended. The consequences are stress and frustration.⁴ Under these circumstances, it would not be surprising if some people within the four walls of the CIA were nostalgic for the pneumatic capsule system of the 1960s, when it was possible to respond confidently the next day.
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Joel Khalili: „Email is 50 years old, but there’s life in the old dog yet“. In: Techradar (24. März 2021)
techradar.com/news/email-is-50-years-old-but-theres-life-in-the-old-dog-yet
Gloria Mark/Victor M. Gonzalez/Justin Harris: „No Task Left Behind? Examining the Nature of Fragmented Work“. In: CHI 2005
ics.uci.edu/~gmark/CHI2005.pdf
Sophie Leroy/Theresa M. Glomb: „A Plan for Managing (Constant) Interruptions at Work“. In: Harvard Business Review 06 (2020)
hbr.org/2020/06/a-plan-for-managing-constant-interruptions-at-work
Gloria Mark/Daniela Gudith/Ulrich Klocke: „The Cost of Interrupted Work: More Speed and Stress“. In: CHI 2008
ics.uci.edu/~gmark/chi08-mark.pdf
Fan Cultures
The love of a band’s music has united people in the past as well as today. This is demonstrated by “Beatlemania,” probably one of the most far-reaching phenomena in fan culture to date. Long before the advent of digital networking, John, Paul, Ringo and George from Manchester brought together unparalleled crowds at their concerts and performances after their meteoric rise in the 1960s. They caused such an uproar that they eventually decided to become a studio-only band. Even then, their followers organized themselves into fan clubs that collected all available information about their idols, distributed newsletters and created fan magazines. New information and television news, however, came only sporadically and in bits and pieces. A kind of interaction that would be unthinkable today between world-famous artists and their fans.
Perhaps there are still those who have largely ignored the term K-pop – or those who only think of the hit song “Gangnam Style” by the South Korean musician PSY, with its funny dance style and colorful video. However, this genre has become a global mass phenomenon in recent years, with bands like Blackpink and BTS currently causing a state of emergency wherever they perform. BTS is made up of 7 members – RM, J-Hope, Jin, Jimin, Suga, V and Jungkook – and is currently the most successful boy band in the world. They are breaking records by the dozen: they are the first band since the Beatles to release four number one albums in one year. Their first English-language song, “Dynamite,” reached a record 100 million clicks on YouTube within the first 24 hours of release (it’s now more than 1.1 billion). A record they broke again just under a year later with their second English-language single, “Butter” – which made them the first South Korean band to earn a Grammy nomination. The group attributes much of their success to their exceptionally well-connected and dedicated fanbase, to which they have given the name Army (Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth).
Apart from the devotion of the fans and the scope of their success, BTS and the Beatles can probably be compared rather less. What is interesting, however, is how the networking of fans with each other and with their idols has changed. There are no longer fan clubs like in Beatles times. Instead, there are well-structured and organized fan sites that continuously disseminate pictures, news and videos about bands like BTS – and communicate with their fans via the artists themselves. The K-pop business in particular has recognized the possibilities of direct digital networking between fans and their idols and has focused on this from the very beginning. Young people are cast and trained as trainees over several years to become so-called idols – and network with their fans even before their debut. While the Beatles’ music label only published a monthly magazine, today BTS is in daily contact with its fan base via Instagram and Twitter, clip series on YouTube and its own app. The army is exceptionally well connected among themselves and responds to all impulses related to their idols within a very short time. Since the band’s debut, the number of BTS fans has risen into the triple-digit millions – and now exhibits enormous commercial and political mobilization power. Products mentioned, for example, in videos and pictures published by the Idols sell out within hours on all platforms in several countries. Army members are also increasingly throwing their collective weight behind political campaigns or raising millions in donations. The fact that this fan community is not to be trifled with was recently experienced by a Bavarian regional radio station, which found itself at the mercy of a global shitstorm within a few hours after a presenter made disparaging remarks about BTS.
The passion and hysteria of the fans, which had once led to the Beatles becoming a pure studio band, is now being used by BTS and their label in a targeted and controlled manner. The unprecedented support and degree of organization of the fan base is aptly summed up by band leader RM himself in the new single “Butter”: “Got Army right behind us when we say so”.
The consistency and unconditional loyalty of the fans has existed since the band’s debut in 2013 – and has enabled their music label Big Hit Entertainment to successfully go public in late 2020. Meanwhile, the group’s economic success is also a concern for the South Korean state.¹ No wonder: BTS, along with SAMSUNG and Hyundai, has become one of the country’s largest sources of income. The band generated $4.65 billion in 2019.² And for one in 13 tourists, it is the reason to travel to South Korea. Now, the South Korean state has passed a law that allows members of the band to complete mandatory military service even after they turn 30 in order to further their careers. An unprecedented exception. And besides Beatlemania, there is now a second term to describe the mania around a band: the “BTS effect”.
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Paulina Sajnach: „The Korean Wave: From PSY to BTS –The Impact of K-Pop on the South Korean Economy“. In: Asia Scotland Institute (22. Januar 2021)
asiascot.com/news/2021/01/22/the-korean-wave-from-psy-to-bts-the-impact-of-k-pop-on-the-south-korean-economy
Katarina Buchholz: „How Much Money Does BTS Make for South Korea?“. In: Statista (5. November 2019)
statista.com/chart/19854/companies-bts-share-of-south-korea-gdp
GIULIA PRIOL
Giulia Priol is a 5th semester philosophy, politics and economics student at UW/H. She is a member of the editorial team of WITTEN LAB Magazine.