Social unrest and social media

London and Manchester are on fire, following police apprehension of a cab occupied by Mark Duggan, 29, and their subsequent shooting of him. Evidence has found that no bullets were fired by Duggan prior to his offing, as claimed by the British police.

Police harassment and assault of poor young men and women - particularly of poor Brits of African and West Indian descent - in London is known to be common. But, as in previous decades, this act moved young, poor Brits, long oppressed under the foot of neoliberal capitalism and rendered incomplete and
lacking through cultural fame and fortune hawking, from a state of everyday frustration to in-the-street insurrection. It moved them to lash out against the unjust and hostile treatment they and their neighbors regularly face as members of their society. It sparked them to resist.

Those resisting are termed "rioters" by the media. At this point, some seem to be. More importantly, though, while corrections were made recently in the media to change the M.O. of "rioters" from poor Brits of color to poor Brits, those in the street are named primarily as youth. And, as youth in the street, they are framed as “thugs.” These events have me wondering: when youth choose to rise up against the marginality they face due to their social conditions, what are their options? What control do they have over how their actions are framed once they are underway? With operations such as COINTELPRO ever present in social justice movements, what say do those who rise up to resist have in how this resistance becomes embodied and framed? Most importantly, maybe, why, within the current cultural context of decreased civil rights and protections in the interest of corporate profits and of lengthening marginalities within ever-lengthening adolescences, might youth resistance of this sort happen as rarely as it does?

The media points to social media as the key here. I remain unconvinced. On the other side of the technological utopianism cast upon the social media users leading “social media revolutions” in Egypt and Libya, British social media - now allegedly being used by some in England to announce looting sites and police arrival - is being charged with very distopian properties. As a result, pundits and editorials are calling for limiting social media privacies. While social media controls are far more tangible than social controls, this solution glosses right over the root causes of national social unrest in these recent cases. Here, the problem, the solution, hence, the issue is not the technology. At issue is the society that creates the technology along with the vast divides between the winners and the losers required by a system which present itself as a meritocracy but that operates through historical structural inequities. The issue is that youth and the poor will always fall on the loser side of this divide - a side no one wants to be on, a side that brands you a "have-not." The issue is also that under-30 population (read: poor, marginalized) amounts for the majority of the citizenry in a large number of countries with poor social supports now, and that the under-18 (read: poor, of color, marginalized) population is at historic highs within very inaccurately FOX News-termed and -defined "baby boomlets."

In fact, the birth booms of late surpass the baby boom, making them more aptly called "mega baby booms."

In the US, for example, the national birthrate has been on par with numbers seen during the 18 years of baby boom since 1987 - 23 years straight. At 4.3 million, the 2007 birthrate was as large as the most baby-producing year in the baby boom, 1957. A well-hyped "dive" and "plummeting" in the birth rate the next year brought the numbers down to 4.2 million, right in line with the top six years of the much-hyped baby boom.

Can social media address these issues? Perhaps, some might argue, by making people feel more or less socially or societally connected, by presenting certain perspectives of the world that shape understandings, and, through this by urging movement or quiescence.

But of particular interest to me is that these recent "mega baby boom" of youth representation in certain countries remain largely unpublicized. Why? I am not the only one who can read the Census or national demographic stats. In the US, perhaps this is unpublicized because time is needed to cover "news" such as sudden urgent debt, tea party rallies, and scandalously errant celebrities. Perhaps it is because news operations are poor tellers of history who are not interested in making themselves and their major donors feel less powerful. Perhaps it is because, if youth knew they were in the majority, they would not tolerate their marginality. Rather, they would organize and resist and take control of how their resistance was taken up and understood and portrayed.

Of course, resistance is not always a panacea. As we know from Willis, Bettie, Hedbige, Clark and others, resistance can further bind one to the shackles they act against. Still, those oppressed and critically aware within ignored power hierarchies will resent and challenge their society's preaching of meritocracy. They will seek ways to call out the system for its failures, for its inconsiderateness, for its partiality, for its racism, for its sexism, for its ageism, for its insults, for its lies.

Perhaps the mega baby booms of late remain unpublicized because youth knowing they are not marginal in numbers could lead to serious social unrest, and to acts that could challenge stability and question power, with or without social media.

Perhaps with social and critical awareness, social resistance might not be as easily framed as futile, as it now so plainly is.

While social media is not the issue here, it definitely plays a role. The cult of the individual so strong in neoliberal societies bereft of social supports has serious implications for both organizing and for social media use. Is social media involved in shaping social realities? Yes. Could this influence marginalized users' beliefs about themselves, about their world, and about resistance? Yes. Could this, in turn, shape the futility of resistance? Yes.

As simultaneously creative spaces promising wider-world connection, access, and community and owned spaces with interests in data and profits, social media can be understood to have seriously implications for youth social resistance.

At least I think so. What do you think? Comments or thoughts very welcome.