wk 12: The Yes Men & Witness.org
As discussed extensively throughout the semester, digital technologies have paved the way for further increasing the popularity of civic journalism and freedom of expression.
As shown by activist campaigners, such as ‘The Yes Men’, and the Australian version in ABC’s ‘The Chasers’, media channels are used to successfully capture the public’s attention. These groups often imitate figures of authority or reprise events with the goal of exposing corporate or government “EVIL” agendas – for the public’s interest of course.
Witness.org is an organization, which promotes “the use of video and online technologies to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations.”
Without succumbing to political discussions, especially with the current global financial crisis, exploitation of mainstream media is somewhat reasonable. Personally, it is not only an informative source, but also a rather a entertaining one. Must we always have to accept bad news? However, these groups often encourage viewers that it is acceptable to disrespect the decisions of politicians or disregarding the recommendations of experts, for the sake of generating comic scripts. It is always wise to gain two sides of a story – not every government initiated media releases are necessarily negative. After all, a country’s governing body is to serve what is best for their nation – in utopia!
Although their intentions are represented in digital forms through TV, radio or the Internet, these groups support the traditional means of protesting in achieving effective ways to communicate their ideas and objections.
