Social Movements and the Relationship With the Mass Media

The media conglomerates can sometimes hinder the visibility of new themes developed in the public sphere by the social movements mainly due to the technological and practical limitations developed and used by these means traditional, which hinder the creation of interactive spaces that lead to reflection,  so fundamental to the movements publicize its causes in the public sphere and are able to influence and convince your audience of the legitimacy of same(Downing, 2001).

 

In light of these difficulties to make themselves visible, building sites official entities, the existence of mailing lists, blogs, twitters and emails are important elements for social movements, in order to counteract the passed perceptions the public spheres by the mainstream media. The need for social movements to distance themselves from an interpretation of themselves based only the perception built by the mass media meets these devices, allowing a counterpoint to external views constructed by the media newspapers, television and radio. It is an attempt to win some autonomy in relation to said means "official" interpretation of the practices and very meaning of social movements. 

The Internet provides the conditions for a reflective process of receipt of messages happens, unlike traditional media. First, it's about a device in which interactions can take different forms - one for a for many, many to many, many to one, in which information and communications can circulate at the local, national or global levels and comparatively with low entry barriers, thus allowing the disinformation, so dear to social movements (gravels function sometimes tendentious and sometimes not reflective of traditional media channels) if develop and reach spaces and individuals at lower costs than through traditional means of information and communication. 

 

According to Salter, The Internet can be seen as a foundational medium for civil society and the informal public sphere. The Internet social-movement Enables groups and organizations to communicate, to generate information, and to distribute this information cheaply and effectively, Allowing response and feedback.. This implies that the movements found on the Internet a means capable of providing the necessary conditions for the creation of information channels and communicative alternative to large mass media. These electronic spaces fundamental to civil society actors can interact through the exchange of information and insights on certain issues. Social movements, understood here as social sphere resonators, they are capable of bring to the public sphere issues that until then were silenced. The Internet offers space for these issues are themed, articulated and publicized, thus making it possible to include, by producing and distributing information those who previously found themselves "non-existent".

The growing interaction between contemporary movements and the mass media It has led to an increasing professionalization of its members, who spend develop framework strategies and preparation of actions in accordance with the demands and expectations of the mass media. This relationship becomes an two-way street, in which both parties are guided and are guided by each other in definition of issues that should or should not be made public and what should be the
interpretations given to certain facts considered or not as relevant. The Internet can be used both in order to create spaces expression, which are free of the constraints inherent in the traditional circuit production and dissemination of information, as to be perceived as creating support susceptible symbolic spaces to be appropriated by the actors in the journalistic field mass.

 

By Lyimo Joseph

BAPRM 42597