However, just couple of days ago, I read something in CNN that really intrigued me. It is the fact that the guy (his name is al-Zaidi) who threw his shoes to Mr.Bush actually has hundreds of thousand fans in Facebook ! Surprisingly, what Facebook has shown is that al-Zaidi's angry expression resonated with those beyond his religion and region. Facebook users from around the world has became al-Zaidi's fans and supported what he did to Bush (at least virtually). People started to shoot out their opinions freely in Facebook, knowing that they will not be punished or be ashamed of what they have said.
After reading the news, I started to realize that Computer Mediated Communication(CMC) has really affected our lifestyle. A few decades ago, people used to go around protesting just to get people's attention. But with the existence of Internet and the World Wide Web, People just need to sit down in front of their computer and start voicing out their opinions freely. The shoes throwing incident perfectly illustrates this matter. The fact that CNN covered the news really proved that CMC has evolved into something that is not a mere simple online socializing. But rather, it becomes a medium to voice out serious matters.
3 comments:
CMCs to me grant people an alternative way to live their lives. With its prevalence, much documentation can be done with ease, especially so, in the case of elites like Obama and McCain. Their usage of twitter, the micro-blogging and social networking extravaganza raised eyebrows. In your case of protests, activists now can work and plan with the comfort of their bedroom. Gone were the days when people distribute flyers and spread through the word of mouth, travelling miles just to get attention. Now it is more focused and precise, organizing movements with the relative ease of a click of the mouse.
What an insight! This is so true that CMC has become a medium to voice out concerns. Even political concerns. CMC in the form of facebook in this post is a very powerful source of voicing out opinion and you pointed out well how the shoe-throwing incident at bush has lead to much attention at the "shoe thrower". It is surprising how this guy became popular through such an act.
Internet or the New Media has indeed made our lifestyle very comfortable.People are now trying to venture into new areas as everything is just a click away.As a matter of fact people are dependent on CMC in every walk of their life whether it is to email someone, or to extract information from the web, to stay in touch with friends or to create communities to voice ones opinion. The shoe thrower fans have certainly made complete use of the internet ,and are pretty much successful in acheiving their goal. I personally never liked Bush as the US president and glad that its Obama now.Hence I don't really criticize the act and would definitely like to meet the person who had guts to do it.:D
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