Mediacology

Wall are communication devices - image by Antonio Lopez (see flickr sets)

Is China’s great “Firewall” having its Berlin Wall moment? Recall that the same year– 1989– that barriers crumbled between Europe and the former Soviet Union, we had Tiananmen Square and the strengthening of the electronic border around Chinese dissent. But the Chinese leadership must know that they are playing with digital fire as the proverbial foot is jammed on the economy’s gas peddle, which, like it or not, means greater integration into the global info economy, making an already porous border even more permeable. Despite the Berlin Wall’s seemingly stone-like invincibility, there was an indication that some day it would eventually crash: the ubiquitous cover of graffiti, AKA citizen diplomacy. Same can be said about that horrendous wall being erected across Palestine. Though walls close in as much as they lock out, inevitably they also become media themselves, that is, a medium of communication. Walls– whether made of solids or electrons– are membranes of semiotic worlds, and ideas are a bit like radio waves which magically disregard physical barriers. I was once reminded of this as I took a Mexican cab across the the US border into Juarez and the whole time the network of taxies were loudly chirping with their radios as if no border existed between them.

Walls of fear can be overcome - Chines riot police in Tibet
With the bold defiance of Buddhist monks against Chinese illegal occupation of Tibet, the coming summer Olympics might present the perfect catalyst that opens debate and spurns action on Tibet. But don’t expect the US to do much. With the Chinese holding purse strings on US bonds and an another military occupation across the globe of dubious legality, there is no moral or practical high ground for US officials to stand on. But there is us. So please do your part to dismantle the great Chinese Firewall and do something for Tibetans. You can start by going to Amnesty International and supporting this campaign to help Tibetan monks arrested for peacefully demonstrating.

The Whole World is Watching: China’s Media War:

With the advent of the World Wide Web, it was thought that such barriers to information would topple. Instead the Chinese government created what has ironically come to be known as “The Great Firewall of China,” a well-funded, sophisticated, and ultimately successful effort to control the Internet and ensure that reporting and discussion about Tibet and other sensitive subjects such as relations with Taiwan — or what really happened at Tiananmen Square — remained severely constrained.

Will the world media now allow the Chinese government to establish “information dominance” over the Tibetans – and the rest of us? Or will the protests succeed in focusing world attention on China’s human rights record ahead of the Beijing Olympics — intended by the Communist government to boost its international image?