21st Century Change Movement

By CYTaylor, on September 8th, 2009

Can you believe how much of an impact social networking is having on the change movement occurring in Iran? It’s fascinating to see news organizations like CNN relying on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook as sources to update us about what’s happening on the streets of Tehran. Reporters are resorting to social networking sites because foreign news organizations have been banned from reporting on protests without first obtaining permission from the Iranian government.

What’s happening in Tehran is a 21st Century Change Movement, live and in living color. It’s a movement being led by a young generation of Iranians – many are younger than the country’s 30 year old regime. According to reports, Iranian youth are influencing their parents in much the same way that American youth persuaded their parents to vote for the black guy with the funny name for president. It’s exciting, refreshing, contagious, dangerous and — with social networking — it’s engaging. This is an example of what NY Times columunist Thomas Friedman alluded to in his book, The World is Flat.

The images of young Iranians with cell phones taking pictures of the protests and uploading them to the Web for the world to see, lends even more immediacy to what’s happening in Iran. Iranian students attending college in the U.S. are maintaining contact with friends and family back home and updating their Facebook pages. Heck, even opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has a Facebook page with over 71,000 supporters!

Yeah, we’re all reaping the benefits of what used to be called new media, which now has evolved into social media. It’s not going away. It’s ubiquitious and a huge part of our lives. Even my 90-year old grandmother, who claims to know very little about the Internet, recognizes how social media is impacting change around the world.

Social media was a big contributor to Obama’s success in winning the White House. Let’s see how it plays out in advancing change in Iran and other countries around the world.

Oh, by the way, the U.S. should not “meddle” in this situation. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with taking a hands-off approach to letting Iranians settle this on their own. It’s a perfect example of democracy at work, albeit a loose version of democracy.

Note to Iran: The world is still watching despite the ban on foreign journalists.

Elcorin

June 21, 2009 at 1:35 am · Reply

Hi,
tayloryou.com to GoogleReader!

Jenna

June 23, 2009 at 9:58 pm · Reply

Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your site and wanted to say
that I have really enjoyed browsing your blog posts. Any way
I’ll be subscribing to your blog and I hope you post again soon!

Cathy Taylor

June 24, 2009 at 6:31 am · Reply

Hi Jenna, Thanks for your comments and thanks for stumbling upon my site. Yes, I am working to post more often as I just sort of got into this earlier this year. Been having lots of fun with it and appreciate the encouragement from you and others who’ve asked to see more. So, I will commit to making it happen.

Thanks again for visiting and keep in touch.

PKG

June 24, 2009 at 10:22 pm · Reply

You hit it right on the nose! Social networking is REALLY changing things, and it’s gone way beyond teenagers texting their BFFs. I just came from a dinner party in Los Angeles that included a 30-something French business woman who is living in London. The evening was spent mostly talking about Twitter and how she is tracking the “revolution” in Iran. Six months ago would Twitter, as a NEWS source, have been the first thing she checked when she got off her plane from NYC today? Times are changing fast and so is social networking. Terrific post!

June 25, 2009 at 7:53 am · Reply

@ PKG: Twitter appears to be on to something and it could be something big. One of the first photos of the U.S. Air flight that landed in the Hudson River several months ago came from a guy who saw it, snapped a photo with his cell phone and uploaded the image to Twitter. He evenutally ended up helping many of the survivors, letting them use his phone to call loved ones. When he got his phone back, he had tons of tweets from people who saw the image. Another example of how technology is being infused into our lives.
Thanks for checking out the post.