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As children we tend to see our elders and guardians as leaders, showing us right from wrong and teaching us how to fend for ourselves in this harsh world. In our teen years, we often rebel against parental guidance, as we are prone to see parents more as autocrats at this time and no longer as leaders. Once we reach early adulthood, we will have acquired enough knowledge to keep ourselves alive and stay healthy on our own. From here, we can fully assimilate into society; however, this is not without the help of many other leaders and institutions. We have relied upon leaders for the entire duration of our species existence, in present day, we seek Government services when we are in need of financial aid or medical attention, we search the web when we want to learn something, we contact the authorities when we are in need of legal assistance. Leadership is not something that is imposed on people by any one group of individuals, it is a quality in which humans are born with. The leader guides others, so too the leader is human and must seek out leadership, direction, and enlightenment, in order for them to follow the right path for their themselves and their followers. Every social organization demands some sort of leadership, even within “leaderless” events, a figure of authority is usually organically selected – in an almost primal manner. With Tufekci’s writing in mind, the following essay will dissect the topics of protest, society and their connection to social media and the necessity of leadership roles.
Tufekci has a broad background. Specializing as a ethnographer, sociologist, and programmer, she studies how technology shapes society and encourages social development. Present internet-derived protest movements, are the primary topics found in Twitter and Tear Gas. As an onlooker, author, and volunteer, Tufekci delves deep into how modern social movements have been affected by the rise of the internet and what that means for future protests and social developments. Tufekci’s novel is a combination of her own data-analysis and anthropological investigation, with the research of others and data collected from social media platforms. ‘The internet similarly allows networked movements to grow dramatically and rapidly, but without prior building of formal or informal organizational and other collective capacities that could prepare them for the inevitable challenges they will face and give them the ability to respond to what comes next.’ Tufekci refers to this phenomenon as, “tactical freeze”. This makes movement-groups less able to adapt and improvise their tactics. Tufekci isn’t necessarily arguing that contemporary protests are less effective, but more so that they are different. Successful movements must learn to understand these newfound differences and utilize the advancements they have been given, while minimizing the present disadvantages. Protests are an excellent example of a response that corresponds to one of several underlying motives shared by individuals of a group. In her book, Tufekci develops a series of classifications for talking about social movements. The three categories she discusses include: narrative capacity, disruptive capacity and electoral and/or institutional capacity. Narrative capacity, is the ability to alter the shape of the conversation, just as Black Lives Matter did in regards to police violence and Occupy Wall Street attempted to do for wealth inequality. Disruptive capacity, is the ability to halt usual business. Lastly, there is the electoral or institutional capacity, which incorporates the ability to vote, fundraise, lobby, and so on. This classification of protests helps to assist the government in improving it’s reaction to protest events. For example, in 2015, the Chinese government responded to protesters in Hong Kong by not engaging with them at all, this completely avoided and disregarded videos and photographs that would later become viral and attract the world’s attention. Instead, they instructed their police to hold back and waited for the excitement to de-escalate, from lack of attention.
Human’s naturally thrive off the energy around them and in most cases this energy needs to be tamed by a figure of power. If leaders did not exist in society, no change would occur due to our natural ways of disorderliness. In the end, what these protest-groups want is recognition, as they feel that the subject they are protesting is not being given enough attention. With the rise of the internet, came a new and efficient way to spread information quickly among social groups. Meetings, discussions, etc. can now all take place in a more accessible online-environment. Leaderless online social-movements can be problematic at times, as it is difficult to display direction or a solid-objective when there is no one incharge. Communicating a message via social media, without any sort of leadership, can unfortunately have a broken-telephone effect on the receiving end, thus, leaderless movements are generally less organized or planned. This lack of planning and organization can lead to confusion and disorder among protesters. Leaving everyone in charge, unfortunately leaves no single person in charge, thus, these movements are more likely to fuel violent intentions among members of the protest. Members of a leaderless movement group may also experience frustration and angst, when unable to seek help or assistance, due to a lack of HR protocol. Leaderless movement groups can also unfortunately resort to using methods of overpowering, after attempts to attract more members fails due to a lack of hierarchical structure. It is crucial for movements to identify the institutions that have the appropriate power to help implement the change they seek. This hierarchy of leadership roles, may include the media, police, government resources, educational system, or any other organizations that may benefit the cause. As important as group-support is to a movement, without leadership and help from institutions, drastic changes in society are unlikely to occur. For instance, In Serbia, from 1998 to 2004, the revolutionary group known as, “Otpor”, was the target of police brutality and many arrests; however, the group saw these arrests not merely as acts of violence or aggression, but as an opportunity to form positive relations with the police. Eventually, when the police had to make a decision whether they were to join the movement or continue with arresting/resisting, they chose to join the ranks of leadership within the social movement. The protesters were even later trained by the police to defend themselves and the officers, if any provocation was to arise. This is why pillars of authority are a necessity when attempting to create a successful and efficient movement within the constructs of society. Leadership helps design a movement that does not consist of overpowering or overruling but rather, one that is centered around inclusivity and teamwork.
As many people are aware, the ‘Occupy’ movement was started by a group of younger activists who took hold of Zuccotti Park, located in Manhattan. They protested against economic and social inequality. Similarly, Otpor was a group in Serbia that sought to overthrow the Milošević government, run by the much disliked, Slobodan Milošević. However, despite their similarities, the results the two groups achieved, could not have been more different. In the case of Occupy movement, the protesters involved gave up in a few short months and accomplished very little. Otpor, on the other hand, not only successfully overthrew the Milošević regime, but went on to enlist activists in the ‘Georgian Rose Revolution’, the ‘Ukrainian Orange Revolution’ and the ‘April 6 Youth Movement’, and these are just a few of the many movements Otpor went on to assist in. The main reasons for the differences in outcome, was the absence of leaders and the confused motives in the Occupy movement. While Otpor had one clear goal, to depose Milošević, it was difficult to understand what Occupy was looking to accomplish. Clarity of purpose and achievability among all members of a large group, is necessary in order to create a successful movement.
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