Censored 2012 (63 page)

Together, the disempowering metaframes above suggest to the media audience that the outcome in a mass civil resistance is not determined by the movement, but by the oppressor. Thus, the metaframes are significant for two reasons: On one hand, they make it difficult for media and audiences to predict nonviolent success or to make sense of it when it occurs, and on the other, they must be entirely rejected by participants in a movement if the struggle is to succeed. No people power struggle can win if its adherents hold these perceptions, because by definition they run counter to the dynamics that make nonviolent civil resistance effective. It is just as important that media audiences are conscious of metaframes as of surface frames, and that we look for and understand the interactions between the two phenomena, particularly when interpreting the meaning in the events that take place in the context of a mass nonviolent struggle.

Given the persistence of metaframes and the power of media biases to shape our perceptions, it is critical that we take a moment to consider how media audiences can begin to counter pervasive, erroneous, and disempowering frames on stories of civil resistance and mass nonviolent action. First and most importantly, it is the task of the media audience to be conscious of the frames on the stories they are being told. One must ask whether a frame’s assumptions are valid, if they are being given enough information to draw a conclusion, and if so, whether the conclusion follows logically from the facts at hand. Correspondingly, it is critical that the media consumer be aware of his or her own biases and how they may be shaping his or her interpretation of the narrative.

More powerfully, conscious media citizens can take on the responsibility of “being” the media. Citizen journalism has replaced professional journalism in many parts of the world as the go- to genre
for the most sophisticated and insightful analysis. As a contributor to the media universe, it is essential that the citizen journalist use accurate language consistently. For example, instead of talking about the Burmese or Iranian governments as “restoring order,” a responsible journalist might talk about them as “attempting to suppress discontent.”

There is also a role for new media: Video journalism, blogs, Facebook, and Twitter are all venues where political grievances and advocacy can be aired and discussed. One of the advantages of much of these media is that information communication goes two ways. The media audience becomes an active participant in the discussion—a phenomenon that encourages empowerment and civic engagement, both of which (in addition to being democratic virtues) undermine the efficacy of the metaframes discussed above.

The use of Twitter during the Iranian uprising is instructive. During June and July of 2009, when the streets of Iran were full of election protestors, Twitter became a key source of information on the resistance and subsequent crackdown. The regime banned all nongovernmental media activity, making it very difficult for information to get out of the country. But clever Iranian activists adopted Twitter as their primary mode of communication with the outside world. And as the regime told one story, the people of Iran told a completely different one. As Iranian state news was claiming that only a handful of people showed up at a well-publicized Tehran protest, for example, thousands of independent “tweeters” were all saying otherwise. The Green Revolution has been dubbed “The Twitter Revolution” for the degree to which even legitimate, mainstream international media (such as CNN and BBC) came to rely on tweets as their primary, up-to-date sources of information for what was happening inside the country. This is remarkable because not only was the movement able to undermine the official version of the news and make the regime look silly, but it was also able to play a key role in telling its own story.

Despite mainstream media frames to the contrary, neither of the struggles discussed above are news stories that should be characterized simply as examples of failed movements and successful repression. Nonviolent movements can sometimes take years to achieve victory, but as long as people continue to resist, even under great personal risk, the struggles should be considered ongoing. Without open displays of
violence, it is much more difficult to keep the attention of an international audience, but without that attention (and ideally, subsequent solidarity), these movements’ tasks are made much more challenging.

As activists continue to learn how to use media to take ownership of their own stories, the conventional surface frames will begin to shift. And as conscious media audiences challenge erroneous or simplistic assumptions and engage in active news integration, the metaframes can also be undermined. Ideally, the common misconceptions about nonviolent action will diminish as knowledge about the phenomenon evolves. But it is up to us—as global citizens—to understand our responsibility in this dynamic. Ultimately our unwillingness to be complicit in sustaining conventional wisdom about civil resistance and nonviolent struggles will be the key to more responsible media coverage about this global force for freedom, justice, and democracy around the world.

DR. CYNTHIA BOAZ
is an assistant professor of political science at Sonoma State University in California, where her areas of expertise include political development and quality of democracy, nonviolent conflict and nonviolent struggle, and political communication with an emphasis on media coverage of democracy struggles. Professor Boaz is an affiliated scholar at the UNESCO Chair of Philosophy MA program in Peace, Conflict, and Development Studies in Castellon de la Plana, Spain. She is also vice president of the Metta Center for Nonviolence Education and on the board of directors for Project Censored/Media Freedom Foundation. She is on the board of advisors for
truthout, for
whom she is also a contributing writer. Over the past several years, she has contributed dozens of articles on the themes above to various venues including
truthout, Open Democracy
, Common Dreams,
Waging Nonviolence
, and the
Huffington Post
.

1
. A nod to the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, from whom this terminology is borrowed, and by whom much of the scholarly understanding about the dynamics of strategic nonviolent action has been gleaned. They can be found online at
http://www.nonviolent-conflict.org
.

2
. For a more comprehensive list of nonviolent tactics, see Gene Sharp’s “198 Methods of Nonviolent Action,” available through the Albert Einstein Institute:
http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations103a.html
.

3
. The author gratefully acknowledges Kurt Schock, who offers a comprehensive overview of, and response to, the nineteen most common misconceptions about nonviolent action in his book
Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements in Nondemocracies
(2004).

4
. Karatnycky, Adrian and Peter Ackerman.
How Freedom Is Won: From Civic Resistance to Durable Democracy
. Freedom House Report, 2005.
http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=137
.

5
. Peter Ackerman, “Skills or Conditions? What Key Factors Shape the Success or Failure of Civil Resistance?” (paper presented to the Conference on Civil Resistance and Power Politics, University of Oxford, Oxford, 2007).

6
. Shirin Ebadi, Naropa University, interview with author, October 9, 2009.

7
. The legal name of the country is Myanmar (which was renamed by the regime after 1988), but the people and their supporters continue to call the country Burma, in a rejection of the junta’s legitimacy. Most international organizations (including the UN) as well as most media, refer to the country as “Myanmar.” The primary exception is British media.

8
. A simple glance at the several hundred articles compiled from both struggles and linked from each one’s Wikipedia page shows a clear bias toward headlines that mention repression or violence rather than resistance. Only a tiny sprinkling of headlines uses terminology such as “movement” or “struggle”—most talk about “protestors” and “uprising”—and not a single one on either page uses the terms “nonviolence” or “nonviolent.”

by Ann Garrison

United States foreign policy is global military and corporate dominance and the control of resources required to sustain it. The US divides the world into six regional military commands and four functional commands, with a four-star general or admiral at the head of each. There are over seven hundred military bases worldwide. All else is detail, however myriad and multifaceted, and this is nowhere more stark than in Africa, where, in October 2007, the US formalized and further organized its longstanding military operations with the creation of AFRICOM, the US Africa Command. Since December 2007, two months after the creation of AFRICOM, the US has imported more oil from Africa than from the Middle East, and African resources have long been essential to both military and nonmilitary manufacture, and thus, to empire.
¹

Empire is not a simple national concept in a world dominated by minimally regulated or taxed multinational corporations and an international executive and über rich class huddling annually at the World Economic Forum, the North Atlantic Council, or the exclusive and secretive Bilderberg Conference. However multinational empire may be, it is still defended, first and foremost, by unparallelled US military might.

Canada is now the mining superpower in Africa, and throughout the rest of the world.
²
The US is the military superpower and the largest weapons manufacturer and exporter. Canadian mining corporations depend on AFRICOM to secure access to resources; US weapons manufacturers depend on Canadian mining corporations for mineral manufacturing inputs.

In a March 2003
Buffalo News OpEd
, Council fellow Scott B. Lasenksy wrote:

When humanitarian foreign aid is indeed extended, however piously proferred, packaged, and promoted by celebrities like Ben Affleck, George Clooney, Bono, Don Cheadle, and Angelina Jolie, or by Christian evangelicals like Reverend Rick Warren, it must, as a matter of policy, serve the US geostrategic agenda, and serve to keep recipient nations aligned with Washington and its allies.