Keyword: Occupy Johannesburg

How the Internet has Made Social Change Easy to Organize, Hard to Win

Picture: Ahmed/img.li Video Today the speed at which we spread information is so fast that a single email can launch a worldwide awareness campaign, as with the Occupy movement. Yet as techno-sociologist Zeynep Tufekci seeks to show, the ease of social media can actually hurt social change in the long run. From Gezi Park to the Arab Spring to Ukraine to Hong Kong, she shows how today's movements can miss out on the benefits of doing things the hard (and slow) way. Technology does empower in multiple ways, but easier...

Why Didn't Occupy Wall Street Transform into a Political Movement?

Picture: Bob Jagendorf/Flickr Video Tuesday marked the two-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, America’s protest movement, which decried economic inequality and inspired a string of occupy movements around the world, including Occupy South Africa – Operation Ubuntu. The Real News Network’s Jessica Desvarieux talks to Nathan Schneider, the author of “Thank You, Anarchy: Notes from the Occupy Apocalypse”, about why Occupy Wall Street did not transform into a political movement. Given growing...

Manuel Castells: "Social Movements are Destined to Die"

Picture: Atomische • Tom Giebel/Flickr Video How did the financial crash in Iceland inspire the Spanish Indignados and Occupy Wall Street movements? Why did the Arab Spring in North Africa end with Islamists running Egypt? How did the peaceful movement against a dictatorship in Syria degenerate into an all out civil war? World famous Spanish sociologist, Manuel Castells, best known for his research on the information society, communication and globalization, talks about the emergence and characteristics of new social movements around...

Taking Stock of the Occupy Movement One Year Later

Picture: glennshootspeople/Flickr Video “By using the simple slogan of the 1% and the 99%, the Occupy dynamic was able to raise questions of inequality. Globally the question often put to people is the issue of poverty. Poverty is quite different to inequality. When you talk about poverty, the reaction could be charity. One feels bad for the poor, you want to have soup kitchens, etc. But inequality doesn't really always give you the sense that the answer is charity, because inequality tells you that whereas some people are...

Al Jazeera Documentary: History of Occupy Wall Street

Picture: www.anticapitalistes.net Video Highlighting the birth of a truly global social movement against economic injustice, this superb documentary by Al Jazeera's Faultlines details the history of the Occupy Wall Street movement, clearly identifying its links to earlier occupations in Egypt and Spain. According to Al Jazeera, Occupy Wall Street "has created a space in the American consciousness to believe in a different type of political power. One controlled, not by politicians or corporate money, but by people taking...

How Financial Crisis, Economic Inequality, Social Media, and More Brought Revolutions in 2011

Picture: www.alternet.org Sarah Jaffe - Journalist Paul Mason covered the uprisings of 2011 as they occurred. His new book "Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere," explains why they all happened at once. We're at an inflection point in history, a shift not just in our politics but our consciousness, says Paul Mason, BBC Newsnight economics editor, author and journalist. From Madrid to Madison, Tahrir Square to Syntagma Square, London student occupations to Occupy Wall Street, Mason has covered the uprisings of 2011, and...