Chinese bad romance.

Freedom of speech and Internet are supposed to be the perfect couple since plurality and thousand pages of information about any topic maintain alive their love’s flame. As a normal marriage, they experience some rows like Wikileaks or the Sinde Law, but they always get reconciled saying “we are democracy’s most powerful expression. It doesn´t matter the existence of annoying people like hackers or Anonymous because they are cybercriminals” .Satisfied with the excuse, they sleep together again as if nothing had happened. Every country and relationship has secrets, even the most democratic one. We don’t have to wash the dirty linen in public, but when it comes to countries like China, we are talking about the laundry. This fantastic couple splits up when Governments strick their (big) nose in their business. This meddler lover makes them to sign up the divorce with one word:censorship. Chinese Government has drawn its authoritarian modern expression under the excuse of protecting morals, national security and ethics. Their Facebook is called  renren and Google exists, but censoring pornographic considered content and political events like the Tiannmen killing or number 64, being substituted by their official search engine, Baidu. 

Mainstream population does agree with this because they have been educated to blindly trust their Government. If they initiate a campaign against Google describing it as pervert and pornographic enemy, they will believe it. A Chinese teacher commented me one day that they could access to international servers by getting a foreign IP direction, but there are nonconformists who protest against this situation. Last February 20th we could watch in Shangai and Hong Kong’s streets lots of Chinese students who were

organized by a mysterious American webpage called Boxum  to Spread up the Jasmine´s

Revolution. It was not an important group of people and they were dispersed without any complication.   

Apart from this,China enjoys a protest platform run in foreign countries called China Digital Times,  an online newspaper where is possible to read about how the Internet problem works in the voice of European and American people. Forgetting what happened on February, there is not a solid activism because of the “informatization” into all spheres of life.Why? It´s logical: cyberactivism needs social networks, and if they are controlled by the Government…where is the action? On the other hand, the Jasmine´s Revolution has fewer possibilities to success in China than in Muslim countries for reasons like these (among others): its society is not as polarized as the Muslim one, where there are plenty of poverty stricken areas. If you can´t feed your family, you´ll be angry with the Government. China will beat the USA by 2030…   such a powerful country must be really economically developed, isn´t it?  Second, Muslim webs are not as inhibited as Chinese ones. They enjoy Facebook and Twitter, so their desperation for democracy was a bomb that would explode sooner or later. Third-as a curiosity- This kind of revolution is usually made by young people, and Chinese students do not have enough time to enjoy any kind of social networks because of the amount of work they are obliged to do…Even on Weekends they are made to go to school!

This “democratic” relationship we’ve mentioned before does not have any future in countries like China… yet. Cyber activism can turn into a powerful tool in the Great Asiatic…Why not? Democratic or not, it is time to assume that 100% Governmental transparency is a fairy tale, if not What’s the point of politics? Cyberactivists, you have lots of homework to do…

No one can´t read my yellow face.

Wherever you are from, you know what irony, happiness, sadness or anger is. Words change according to a country, but feelings keep being the same. They are universal because we are  human beings (except the majority of politicians and the fauna of yellow press). As Aristotle´s said, a person is a zoon politikon, we want someone to know our feelings and emotions. I’m not being philosophic; I want to translate this into Internet´s interaction and participation terms. When we write a comment, it is common to be interested in give expression to an emotion in order to avoid misunderstandings or intensify what you said. What would you do in this case? You’ll use an emoticon.

This smiley face was created by Scott E. Fahlman in 1982. By this year, there were problems to know if someone that posted a message on the Carnegie Mellon online bulletin wanted to be serious, ironic or funny. That was the birth of the J and L idea, then came the explosion of this phenomena in chats, forums, social networks…anything implying some kind of feedback! Some of these pictures have developed beyond its yellow faces and have specialized in specific social networks, like the image of the “Like Button” in Facebook, Tuenti´s icon or the (now forgotten) place where they became famous: Messenger. An emoticon worths more than a thousand words and helps the user to be interpreted in the best way. Let´s have a look to this conversation:

If Yaiza had not written an XD, Jo would have been offended, because she didn’t know that it was in a good sense. The XD emoticon is probably the most versatile one, because it means happiness, auto depreciation, LOL (Laughing Out Loud), to blaspheme and is a good way to avoid reading never-ending messages and stay like you’ve done it. A written “XD” in the right moment can save your life. I wish I could put a face like this.

Some time ago I read an article in El PAÍS about how emoticons are utilized in marketing campaigns. Commercial firms like Dan'Up, Pokémon, Veas, Tampax, Coca-Cola, Sony Ericsson, Emi Record, Nestlé, Johnson & Johnson, Durex, BMW, Xbox, Fanta, Sony PlayStation, Peugeot and Danone use them in their products. As you can observe, these goods are destined to a young market segment because of their constant use. 

The Spanish Government also resorted to them in order to prevent the spread of AIDS.

We still prefer express ourselves in an analogical way than in a digital one, but the point of the Digital era is not only to be closer to reality, but expand its possibilities. Despite the fact that emoticons keep the same (or similar) in a global sphere, a challenge like unify all languages in an Internet one is an excess. I know that its “global” essence makes the necessity of creating something able to beat this “Babel Tower” but we must remember that each language means its own culture and way of life. It involves a national identity and the world is not ready (yesterday, today and maybe never) to become a political Pangea. Even Internet can´t change this.

A cuantocabron post without desmotivaciones.

http://www.cuantocabron.com/http://desmotivaciones.es/

Monday: 18:00 pm.

You know you should be doing your homework and hands and project, but you are not. Instead, it’s been half and hour since you switched up the computer to check your mail. You don’t now how, but you have ended up laughing at the cartoons of cuantocabron.es and desmotivaciones.es…Why the hell they are so addictive?

I´m sure you know what are both web pages about, but for those who appreciate their time they consist on funny pictures uploaded by users who are obliged to follow a common item, like a funny face  in the first case or a black frame in the second one.  These images are not made by one person, but for lots of users who want to share their ingenious ideas. John Pavlik would have described its content as the fourth form, because it has been exclusively designed to a digital environment.

 Not only they publish their images but they moderate the best ones. They act like both publishers and published because you can twit about them or share your impressions on Facebook. Combine this great feedback doses with a great amount of user-generated content and you get it: some of the most popular webs among Spanish young population. They are not still on the rankings, but about six cartoons are uploaded per day and each of them has 2000 votes on average, and they offer links to past posts. Of course, companies have approached this opportunity to take up this web with banners, drawing an advertising model in terms of business.

Why it rules? These webs are related with funny anecdotes of our daily life, so everyone feels identified in one way or another. Furthermore, is becoming usual that real conversations among friends end in the same way that these pictures do. Here it is an example:

 Maybe it is not the best one but…It´s something

All types of humour are collected in this page: yellow, stupid, political, critical… Cartoons are wit and easy to recognize, so everyone knows Yao Ming, Challenge Accepted, Forever Alone or the annoying Trollface. Once they catch your eye it is impossible to stop. Same story is repeated in Desmotivaciones but the essence keeps being the same: comedy. Life and media are so full of tragedy that we need to disconnect… and Salvame Deluxe is not the best option (at least for me).

As I said, both webs are a great example of how user-generated content is invading Internet. We are so sick of the same stuff provided by companies that we decide to create our own world. This kind of civil participation shows that all we have some creativity inside of us and ideas are not personal, so why not share it? 

Now, it’s 19:00 PM of a Monday afternoon and you are in the same situation as the beginning. Of course, your mail has not been checked yet. I don’t want to be weary but the more pages you visit the least you’ll sleep. Please, would you mind to take your duties seriously?

 Ok…

Participatory what...?

Yesterday my 14-years old sister came into my bedroom jumping with a great smile on her face: “Look” she said “My blog has 200 visits…200!” I got surprised. She just had made it one week ago and it was one of this teenage spaces talking about hot guys, make up or clothes. It was not the professional stuff I used to think about blogs. You know, lots of journalists, politicians and important people enjoy a blog and they are supposed to be very followed…But my sister?!

I only needed a few minutes surfing in the net to realize how mistaken I was. There are Blogs about almost everything! Music, technology, parodies, science, stories… The spread of what we can call “informal information” was heavier than the formal one. The number of followers does not depend on how serious or important you are, but whether your posts are attractive to the audience or not.

The popularity of Blogs shows that everybody has a story to tell and they find in the Internet the best tool to get their target. User generated content is more than a trend, is the evidence of a society that wants to be heard and does not hesitate in publishing what it thinks. That is the reason why posts on blogs tend to be around a personal opinion. That differs from the (supposed) objectivity of professional journalism. It is claimed that nowadays everybody can turn into a newsmaker and that is true, they can be witness of an event and create news but do they know how to deal with it? More than a danger to this job, new ways of interaction are a help because thanks to them is faster to get what the hell is happening. The point is in the capacity of adaption to this communicative revolution that is affirmed to have dismissed the expression gatekeeper. I do not think that it is (already) as unemployed as is tended to say because in some points, they still decide what to publish and what not to. Do we know about Wikileaks before it appeared in the main newspapers? …I don’t think so.

Civil participation can be defined in one word: “feedback”. It does not make any sense to shout if nobody is listening. Furthermore, this someone must write you a comment to encourage you to keep on shouting. We repeat the same multiplied by millions of users and voilá! There is this digital and global community where the information runs in an unsuspected speed. We could call this the “user’s rebellion”, a fact that has showed its power in the different revolts that are taking place in the Muslim countries or the activist group Anonymous, which organizes itself through social networks. Participatory journalism is changing the world as we know it, we all know this tale. By the way, I prefer to call it “participatory sourcing”. More than journalists, civil society has turn into the professional’s best source.