Cute Cat Theory Of Digital Activism
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Cute Cat Theory Of Digital Activism
The cute cat theory of digital activism is a theory concerning Internet activism, Web censorship, and "cute cats" (a term used for any low-value, but popular online activity) developed by Ethan Zuckerman in 2008. It posits that most people are not interested in activism; instead, they want to use the web for mundane activities, including surfing for pornography and lolcats ("cute cats"). The tools that they develop for that (such as Facebook, Flickr, Blogger, Twitter, and similar platforms) are very useful to social movement activists because they may lack resources to develop dedicated tools themselves. This, in turn, makes the activists more immune to reprisals by governments than if they were using a dedicated activism platform, because shutting down a popular public platform provokes a larger public outcry than shutting down an obscure one. The Internet and censorship Zuckerman states that " Web 1.0 was invented to allow physicists to share research papers. Web 2.0 was c ...
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Web 2
Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, and devices) for end users. The term was coined by Darcy DiNucci in 1999 and later popularized by Tim O'Reilly and Dale Dougherty at the first Web 2.0 Conference in 2004. Although the term mimics the numbering of software versions, it does not denote a formal change in the nature of the World Wide Web, but merely describes a general change that occurred during this period as interactive websites proliferated and came to overshadow the older, more static websites of the original Web. A Web 2.0 website allows users to interact and collaborate with each other through social media dialogue as creators of user-generated content in a virtual community. This contrasts the first generation of Web 1.0-era websites where people were limited to vie ...
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Technology In Society
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, industry, communication, transportation, and daily life. Technologies include physical objects like utensils or machines and intangible tools such as software. Many technological advancements have led to societal changes. The earliest known technology is the stone tool, used in the prehistoric era, followed by fire use, which contributed to the growth of the human brain and the development of language in the Ice Age. The invention of the wheel in the Bronze Age enabled wider travel and the creation of more complex machines. Recent technological developments, including the printing press, the telephone, and the Internet have lowered communication barriers and ushered in the knowledge economy. While technology contributes to economic deve ...
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Internet-based Activism
Internet activism is the use of electronic communication technologies such as social media, e-mail, and podcasts for various forms of activism to enable faster and more effective communication by citizen movements, the delivery of particular information to large and specific audiences as well as coordination. Internet technologies are used for cause-related fundraising, community building, lobbying, and organizing. A digital activism campaign is "an organized public effort, making collective claims on a target authority, in which civic initiators or supporters use digital media." Research has started to address specifically how activist/advocacy groups in the U.S. and Canada are using social media to achieve digital activism objectives. Types Within online activism Sandor Vegh distinguished three principal categories: active/reactive, mobilizing and awareness raising-based. There are other ways of classifying Internet activism, such as by the degree of reliance on the Internet v ...
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The New York Times Magazine
''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine Supplement (publishing), supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. The magazine is noted for its photography, especially relating to fashion and style. Its puzzles have been popular since their introduction. History Its first issue was published on September 6, 1896, and contained the first photographs ever printed in the newspaper.The New York Times CompanyNew York Times Timeline 1881-1910. Retrieved on 2009-03-13. In the early decades, it was a section of the broadsheet paper and not an insert as it is today. The creation of a "serious" Sunday magazine was part of a massive overhaul of the newspaper instigated that year by its new owner, Adolph Ochs, who also banned fiction, comic strips and gossip columns from the paper, and is generally credited with saving ''The New York Times ...
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Cats And The Internet
Images and videos of domestic cats make up some of the most viewed content on the World Wide Web, particularly image macros in the form of lolcats. ThoughtCatalog has described cats as the "unofficial mascot of the Internet". The subject has attracted the attention of various scholars and critics, who have analysed why this form of low art has reached iconic status. Although it may be considered frivolous, cat-related Internet content contributes to how people interact with media and culture. Some argue that there is a depth and complexity to this seemingly simple content, with a suggestion that the positive psychological effects that pets have on their owners also hold true for cat images viewed online. Research has suggested that viewing online cat media is related to positive emotions, and that it even may work as a form of digital therapy or stress relief for some users. Some elements of research also shows that feelings of guilt when postponing tasks can be reduced by ...
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Twitter Revolution
Twitter Revolution is a term used to refer to different revolutions and protests, most of which featured the use of the social networking site Twitter by protestors and demonstrators in order to communicate. Events known as Twitter Revolution * 2009 Moldova civil unrest, claiming that the elections, which saw the governing Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) win a majority of seats, were fraudulent * 2009–2010 Iranian election protests, also known as Green Revolution and Facebook Revolution, following the 2009 Iranian presidential election * 2010–2011 Tunisian revolution, also known as Jasmine Revolution and Wikileaks Revolution, in which the regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was ended after 23 years * Egyptian Revolution of 2011, in which the regime of Hosni Mubarak was ended after 30 years *Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine, beginning in November 2013. *2021 storming of the United States Capitol, on January 6, 2021, rioters supporting United States Preside ...
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Arab Spring
The Arab Spring ( ar, الربيع العربي) was a series of Nonviolent resistance, anti-government protests, Rebellion, uprisings and Insurgency, armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in Tunisian Revolution, Tunisia in response to corruption and economic stagnation. From Tunisia, the protests then spread to five other countries: Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain. Rulers were deposed (Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Muammar Gaddafi, Hosni Mubarak, Ali Abdullah Saleh) or major uprisings and social violence occurred including riots, civil wars, or insurgencies. Sustained street demonstrations took place in Morocco, Iraq, Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan. Minor protests took place in Djibouti, Mauritania, State of Palestine, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and the Southern Provinces, Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara. A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world is ''Ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam, ash-shaʻb yurīd ...
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Digital Utopianism
Cyber-utopianism or web-utopianism or digital utopianism or utopian internet is a subcategory of technological utopianism and the belief that online communication helps bring about a more decentralized, democratic, and libertarian society. The desired values may also be privacy and anonymity, freedom of expression, access to culture and information or also socialist ideals leading to digital socialism. Cyber-populists like the M5S use the wonder associated with digital technologies aka the digital sublime to develop their political vision. Origins The Californian Ideology is a set of beliefs combining bohemian and anti-authoritarian attitudes from the counterculture of the 1960s with techno-utopianism and support for neoliberal economic policies. These beliefs are thought by some to have been characteristic of the culture of the IT industry in Silicon Valley and the West Coast of the United States during the dot-com boom of the 1990s. Adam Curtis connects it to Ayn Rand's Obj ...
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Bread And Circuses
"Bread and circuses" (or bread and games; from Latin: ''panem et circenses'') is a metonymic phrase referring to superficial appeasement. It is attributed to Juvenal, a Roman poet active in the late first and early second century CE, and is used commonly in cultural, particularly political, contexts. In a political context, the phrase means to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction, or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace, by offering a palliative: for example food (bread) or entertainment (circuses). Juvenal originally used it to decry the "selfishness" of common people and their neglect of wider concerns. The phrase implies a population's erosion or ignorance of civic duty as a priority. Ancient Rome This phrase originates from Rome in ''Satire X'' of the Roman satirical poet Juvenal (). In context, the Latin ''panem et circenses'' (bread and circuses) identifies the only r ...
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Collateral Freedom
Collateral freedom is an anti-censorship strategy that attempts to make it economically prohibitive for censors to block content on the Internet. This is achieved by hosting content on cloud services that are considered by censors to be "too important to block," and then using encryption to prevent censors from identifying requests for censored information that is hosted among other content, forcing censors to either allow access to the censored information or take down entire services. See also * Cute cat theory of digital activism * Domain fronting * Lantern (software) * Refraction networking * Telex (anti-censorship system) Telex is a research anti-censorship system that would allow users to circumvent a censor without alerting the censor to the act of circumvention. It is not ready for real users, but a proof-of-concept mock system exists. As of 2018, Telex has evo ... References {{Reflist Computer security Secure communication Internet censorship ...
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Self-censorship
Self-censorship is the act of censoring or classifying one's own discourse. This is done out of fear of, or deference to, the sensibilities or preferences (actual or perceived) of others and without overt pressure from any specific party or institution of authority. Self-censorship is often practiced by film producers, film directors, publishers, news anchors, journalists, musicians, and other kinds of authors including individuals who use social media. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees freedom of speech from all forms of censorship. Article 19 explicitly states that "everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." The practice of self-censorship, like that of censorship itself, has a long history. Reasons for self-expression Psychological People often communica ...
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