From February 11th to the 20th of 2021, an unprecedented winter event impacted the southern half of the United States, but especially the state of Texas. Wind chills were below zero degrees, the weather was in the 30s, and Texans experienced their coldest winter storm since December 1989 (National Centers for Environmental Information). Although controversy, Texan officials have estimated that 246 people died in over a week due to the freezing temperatures, lack of necessities (i.e., water, non-perishable food), and road accidents during the storm (Svitek). During this time, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) almost immediately flew to Cancun International Airport with his family to escape the storm, stating that he wanted “to be a good dad” by taking his daughter out of the situation (Goldmacher and Fandos).

Below is one of the many memes created by Texans to criticize Cruz’s flight:

This meme, which derives from the movie Titanic, showcased Texans’ frustration with (1) Cruz’s hasty, non-transparent, flight from Houston, and (2) his familial excuse, which in the views of many, was pathetic. Additionally, to add more context, this meme was uploaded to Reddit’s r/Texas page–showcasing that it was both a local (i.e., Texas) and nationwide issue/event. In a similar vein, online people used hashtags to mock Cruz, such as #FlyinTed and #FledCruz (Goldmacher and Fandos).

The Cruz meme showcases issue salience, especially two years since the Freeze. Issue salience refers to the depth of thought (including if, and how, people seek and retain information) and it is used as a basis for political judgment and behavior. Prior to Thanksgiving 2022, Texas was forecast to have another intensive storm. Twitter users circulated the memes and hashtags once again, with one user tweeting “Major snow storm is going to dump on Texas. Are you packed?” to Ted Cruz (Skinner). Others then joined in, asking “Anyone know where Ted Cruz is heading?” and “Have you booked your flight to Mexico yet???” (Skinner). Even years after the initial freeze in 2021, Texans (and Americans alike) refuse to forget about Ted Cruz’s hasty escape from his constituents.

 

Works Cited:

Goldmacher, Shane, and Nicholas Fandos. “Ted Cruz’s Cancun Trip: Family Texts Detail His Political Blunder.” The New York Times, updated on 19 February 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/us/politics/ted-cruz-storm-cancun.html.

“The Great Texas Freeze: February 11-20, 2021.” National Centers for Environmental Information, n.d., https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/great-texas-freeze-february-2021. Accessed 16 April 2023.

Skinner, Anna. “Internet Mocks Ted Cruz Ahead Incoming Texas Snowstorm: ‘Are You Packed?’. Newsweek, 23 November 2022, https://www.newsweek.com/ted-cruz-mocked-texas-snowstorm-cancun-1761902.

Svitek, Patrick. “Texas puts final estimate of winter storm death toll at 246.” The Texas Tribune, 2 January 2022, https://www.texastribune.org/2022/01/02/texas-winter-storm-final-death-toll-246/.

Monks, also called the Sangha, are highly respected in Burmese society due to their values and promise to the faith. Almost eighty-eight percent of the population practices Theravada Buddhism (U.S. Department of State). They’re most known for their bright-color, saffron-like, robes. The Sangha have a “ubiquitous presence” nationwide, including small agrarian villages, cities, and monastic colleges (PBS).

In August 2007, Myanmar experienced severe economic turmoil, pushing civilians to clash with the military in anti-government protests. At the time, Myanmar ranked among the twenty poorest countries in the world, with many of the population living on less than 200 USD annually (Casey). The protests were sparked by state-enacted fuel price hikes, which went up as much as 500 percent, which affected the price of public transportation (Casey). During the protests, Myanmar monks formed the All-Burma Monks’ Alliance, later referred to as ‘the Saffron Revolution’, in September after three monks were injured when military troops violently forced a peaceful demonstration (HRW).

The Reasons Why It Failed

Lack of Leadership

Although the Saffron Revolution, a smaller movement within the  2007 nationwide protests, had leadership (i.e., U Gambira, who worked with several other monks since 2003 to start their rebellion), the general public’s objectives were mixed. Overall, Burmese citizens looked toward a democratic system to fix their woes. However, beyond a few notable figures, there were no stable organizations–mostly due to the political opportunity and junta crackdown on dissent–that would have guided the country through a smooth process. Because of this, the military was able to install a civilian-military rule, which suppressed ethnic and religious minorities while silencing opposition, that did not further democratic standing in Myanmar.

Strong Figure, But No Actions

Due to the immense respect that civilians had (and have) for monks, civilians protected many of the Sangha that participated in the revolution. In fact, the BBC reported that during the protests “human chains” would form, where “the monks [were] in the middle and ordinary people [on] either side [of them]…” (BBC News). Monastery raids happened, arresting hundreds of monks, but the Burmese yelled out slogans, including that they were monk murderers.

Conclusion

Although the revolution was not entirely successful, as Myanmar never became a democracy and there are even fewer civil liberties for the population, social media and novel mobile phones allowed the nation to spread news worldwide. Despite the military’s attempt to block the Internet and its websites, activists were able to circumvent it in order to maintain international favor. Currently, Burmese monks have backed the army, through radical figures like Ashin Wirathu. It is hard to tell if the movement solely failed because of these determinants, or if there is any additional variable (or multiple), that those studies did not factor in.

 

Works Cited

“Burmese riot police attack monks.” BBC News, 26 September 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7013638.stm.

Casey, Michael. “Monks Put Myanmar Junta in Tight Spot.” The Oklahoman, 21 September 2007, https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2007/09/21/monks-put-myanmar-junta-in-tight-spot/61710189007/.

“Commentary: Saffron Revolution.” Religious and Ethics Newsweekly, PBS, 28 September 2007,  https://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2007/09/28/september-28-2007-commentary-saffron-revolution/4310/.

“Crackdown: Repression of the 2007 Popular Protests in Burma.” Human Rights Watch, 6 December 2007, https://www.hrw.org/report/2007/12/06/crackdown/repression-2007-popular-protests-burma.

“2020 Report on International Religious Freedom: Burma.” U.S. Department of State, 12 May 2021, https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-report-on-international-religious-freedom/burma/.

After three years of restricted public events, due to the novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19), Seoul experienced one of the biggest crowds of people on Halloween 2023 (Harrison and Earl). People ventured to Itaewon, a foreigner district within Seoul, and engaged in nightlife. However, the fun came to an end as dozens of calls to 911 sprouted due to immense crowds in a packed alleyway. Some reports noted that almost 100,000 people were packed into the narrow alleyway (Marsh and Ng). Of the eleven calls dialed within a four-hour timeframe, many individuals commented on the “utter chaos”, “out of control” situation, and feeling of being “crushed to death” (Choe). Only at 11 PM–almost five hours since the initial call requesting crowd control–did the police arrive on the scene. Then, scenes of chaos–people unconscious on the ground–occurred. Due to the tragedy, over 150 people died due to asphyxiation or other breathing-related issues.

In the aftermath of the crowd crush, the South Korean police department–and politicians–utilized various victim-centric rhetoric. Press releases, immediately after the crush was made public, theorized that the crush was caused by people rushing to see a celebrity in the crowd. However, witness statements directly refute the claims (Butler). In fact, survivors of the event told international news media that, despite the nearest police station being less than 500 feet away in conjugation to the calls, there had been a significant lack of police presence (Choe). According to cell phone footage captured, the impact of the crowd crushing was in full force by the time officials arrived on the scene (Choe). These actions (i.e., calling the police multiple times, filming the progression of the crowd, and reporting experiences to international audiences) have allowed neutral actors to have a clearer picture of what occurred that night. Below is a picture reconstructed by international media to describe the context in which the crowd crush was able to form.

Cell phone usage in South Korea has only benefitted victims and survivors to tell their stories. Since the democratization period, South Korea has had multiple experiences of shaming and blaming victims rather than taking official responsibility. Specifically, the Itaewon Crowd Crush Tragedy exemplifies how important the use of mobile phones can be to keeping the government transparent and accountable under criticism.

 

Works Cited:

Butler, Toby. “Seoul crowd crush: history suggests authorities may try to blame the victims.” The Conversation, 15 November 2022, https://theconversation.com/seoul-crowd-crush-history-suggests-authorities-may-try-to-blame-the-victims-194466.

Choe, Sang-Hun. “Pleas for Help Went Unheeded for Hours in Deadly South Korea Crush.” The New York Times, 1 November 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/01/world/asia/south-korea-crowd-crush.html.

Harrison, Virginia, and Carly Earl. “A visual guide to how the Seoul Halloween crowd crush unfolded.” The Guardian, 31 October 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/31/how-did-the-seoul-itaewon-halloween-crowd-crush-happen-unfolded-a-visual-guide.

Marsh, Nick, and Kelly Ng. “Itaewon crowd crush: Senior officials spared blame in report.” BBC News, 13 January 2023,  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-64258669.

 

Counterpublics emerge as a minority, disadvantaged by the majority, with an exaggerated intensity that makes them unavoidable in the public sphere. Compared to Habermas’ The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Counterpublics emerge because of the failure of a successful public sphere. These characteristics include: (almost) universal access to the space, free of coercion, equality rather than hierarchy, rule of law, and quality participation (“Jürgen Habermas and the Public Sphere”). The rise of the radical feminist movement, embodied by Megalia (메갈리아), showcases what happens when public spheres fail to be successful.

 

 

Megalia, which started in 2015 after the combination of the popularity of an alt-right men’s website and the continued, indiscriminate gendered violence that South Korean women experienced, was a radical community–in the same vein as the U.S.’s 4Chan–which emphasized the discrimination and violence South Korean women faced while demeaning men. When opponents of the ‘Megalians’ emerged, they retorted that their extreme tactics were the point in order “…to turn it around so men and women alike can witness it [discrimination] in its honest, raw form…” (Singh). As Nimalan Yoganathan writes in “Black Lives Matter movement uses creative tactics to confront systemic racism,” the “dominant society” tolerates forms that match the status quo and completely dismisses and shames counterpublics that are “too radical”. Megalia has created novel vocabulary and expressions through its mirroring technique, in which they take discriminatory words/phrases about women and make them about men. An example of this is 성괴, which was used as slang for women who became botched through plastic surgery. However, under Megalia, this term became used to refer to men who paid for prostitution, an issue in South Korea (Kim). Other examples are 씹치남 (kimchi-nam) referring to men with small genitals, 꽁치남 (gongchi-nam, lit. mackerel man) referring to men who do Dutch pay which is uncommon in Korea, and 자슬아치 (chasul-achi) for men who sexually take advantage of women (Kim).

 

 

Despite Megalia’s mirroring techniques and controversies, the online community participated in many real campaigns. Some of these include crowdfunding for anti-hidden camera adverts to be promoted in the public transportation system in Seoul, the capital of South Korea (Singh). (The spy camera pornography industry is very popular among men and dangerous for women in South Korea.) Megalians also encouraged politicians who led campaigns to shut down Soranet, a South Korean porn hub that was affiliated with spy camera footage and underage prostitution (Singh). They also campaigned against misogynistic, and somewhat dangerous, imagery of men committing violence against women on magazine covers, and have garnered millions of KRW for feminist projects (Singh). Like what Yoganathan argues BLM has done, Megalia has utilized radical tactics to bring the issue of gendered violence and discrimination to the forefront through visible tactics, like mirroring, and invisible tactics such as endorsing candidates and individually donating money to a feminist cause.

 

 

In order to build resilience to counterpublics or digital propaganda that disrupts the public sphere is, as Bjola and Papadakis write, “overcoming cleavages” (21). In the case of Megalia, overcoming this barrier between feminism and men in society would dissolve the need for a counterpublic. Not only are South Korean women seen as “misandrists” but one woman stated that “…there’s a certain stereotype and stigma that comes with that title here” (Lee). Bridging the gap between what feminism is and how it applies in the daily lives of South Koreans, would help to lessen the understanding of feminism between young South Korean men and women.

 

Works Cited

Bjola, Corneliu, and Krysianna Papadakis. “Digital propaganda, counterpublics and the disruption of the public sphere: the Finnish approach to building digital resilience.” Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2019, pp. 1-29. Accessed 16 February 2023.

“Jürgen Habermas and the Public Sphere.” Media Studies, n.d., n.a., https://www.media-studies.ca/articles/habermas.htm. Accessed 16 February 2023.

Kim, Youngmi. “Mirroring Misogyny in Hell Chosun: Megalia, Womad, and Korea’s Feminism in the Age of Digital Populism.” European Journal of Korean Studies, vol. 20, no. 2, 2021, pp. 101-133. Accessed 16 February 2023.

Lee, Sunny. “Why Korean Women Are Hesitant To Label Themselves Feminists.” VICE, 16 February 2020, https://www.vice.com/en/article/v74zd3/korean-women-feminists. Accessed 16 February 2023.

Singh, Emily. “Megalia: South Korean Feminism Marshals the Power of the Internet.” Korea Expose, 30 July 2016, https://koreaexpose.com/megalia-south-korean-feminism-marshals-the-power-of-the-internet/. Accessed 16 February 2023.

Yoganathan, Nimalan. “Black Lives Matter movement uses creative tactics to confront systemic racism.” The Conversation, 30 July 2020, https://theconversation.com/black-lives-matter-movement-uses-creative-tactics-to-confront-systemic-racism-143273. Accessed 16 February 2023.

Within a year of each other, both Myanmar and Ukraine devolved into political turmoil. Although the situations are not entirely synonymous, the two countries’ similar landmasses, population sizes, and proximity to powerful authoritarian regimes draw close comparisons in the differences in media attention (Theresa). Under the Agenda Setting theory, the American public has felt closer to the issue occurring in Ukraine than the political instability that is happening in Myanmar.

 

 

Agenda Setting

Agenda Setting theory argues that the media can and does have a strong effect on the general public through rhetorical techniques, such as the frequency of stories and the connection to the public (“Agenda Setting.”). Since 2020, the American mass media has taken wildly different approaches to different regions of the world. In Ukraine, after the invasion of Russian troops, both national and local news media repeatedly showed images of the war-torn country, the stories of people volunteering their lives for the cause, and the diligent work of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine. However, Myanmar, which experienced a chaotic coup d’etat, has had virtually no coverage since it first happened in February 2021.

 

How Has Agenda Setting Affected the Western Media’s Involvement in These Conflicts?

When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the world stood still. Through a series of coordinated missile and artillery attacks on Ukrainian cities–including the capital, Kyiv–the world witnessed, read, and listened to the disturbing news of the Russian invasion (Zinets and Vasovic). Many Ukrainians were killed in the initial days following the invasion, causing civilians to take arms against the Russian military. Social media campaigns were utilized to spread more information about what was occurring in Ukraine, which unintentionally persuaded international citizens to join in aiding Ukrainians. This includes monetary assistance, donated to multiple domestic and international organizations, as well as physical assistance by fighting in the Ukrainian resistance. Media outlets, such as CNN, regularly covered news stories about American citizens who have been killed in battle fighting in Ukraine. In fact, the images used regarding Ukraine and its citizens, are often of resistance or displacement in neighboring countries (Kalita). However, this framing is not extended to other countries.

 

 

In the same month, but a year prior, Myanmar experienced a coup d’etat by the military junta on February 1, 2021. Immediately after the coup, nonviolent resistance movements sprouted resulting in a violent response by the Tatmadaw, the official name of the Myanmar military. More than 1,000 protestors were killed and more than 7,000 people were imprisoned in the first week of the coup (Kalita). After only a month of sporadic reporting, in part due to journalistic crackdowns by the Tatmadaw, Western media platforms have completely forgotten about the human rights violations and instability in the country. Both the People’s Defense Force (PDF), made up of civilians completing civic disobedient acts, and the National Unity Government (NUG), comprised of elected politicians from the 2020 election, agreed that it was up to the Burmese people to take back their country as the West and its media refuses to acknowledge the political instability as it has in Ukraine (The Irrawaddy).

 

 

Conclusion

Why is there such a divergence in the media attention between Ukraine and Myanmar? While there are divergence factors between the two countries, agenda setting may be the answer. The public’s opinion about Myanmar may adjust if mass media platforms change the agenda and framing of the military coup that took place over two years ago.

 

 

Works Cited

“Agenda Setting.” BC Campus, n.d., https://opentextbc.ca/mediastudies101/chapter/agenda-setting/. Accessed 31 January 2023.

“Int’l Community Can’t Be Relied on for Myanmar Democracy Movement or People’s Safety: NUG.” The Irrawaddy, 14 September 2021, https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/intl-community-cant-be-relied-on-for-myanmar-democracy-movement-or-peoples-safety-nug.html. Accessed 2 Feburary 2023.

Kalita, Jayanta. “With Ukraine in the Limelight, Spotlight on Myanmar Fades.” The Irrawaddy, 11 March 2022,  https://www.irrawaddy.com/opinion/guest-column/with-ukraine-in-the-limelight-spotlight-on-myanmar-fades.html. Accessed 2 Feburary 2023.

Theresa, Naw. “The Russian Invasion of Ukraine Through a Burmese Lens.” The Diplomat, 11 March 2022, https://thediplomat.com/2022/03/the-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-through-a-burmese-lens/. Accessed 2 Feburary 2023.

Zinets, Natalia, and Aleksandar Vasovic. “Missiles rain down around Ukraine.” Reuters, 24 Feburary 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-orders-military-operations-ukraine-demands-kyiv-forces-surrender-2022-02-24/. Accessed 2 Feburary 2023.

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