The tea party movement was a movement that focused on a reduction in the size and scope of the US government. This movement started in the late 00s and was based on the ideas of the original Boston Tea Party. Their main advocation was to “Stand for economic freedom which means a growing economy with reduced tax rates and reduced government spending so we all have a chance to earn more money and businesses can hire more people.”

The tea party was a mix of both grassroots protests and organized protests mainly headed by the “Intellectual godfather” of the movement, Ron Paul. Some of the earliest protests were against the taxes on sugary foods and drinks in New York in 2009. Their method here was almost an exact copy of the original tea party as they emptied bottles of soda into the Susquehanna River. Their next target for protests was the Affordable Care Act.

After these protests, the group was endorsed by Trump in his 2016 election campaign and was cited as the highest-supported candidate by the party at around 37%. His endorsement brought back some light to the group but overall it was still losing the fire.

I would say the main reason we do not hear much about this group anymore is because of their dated ways of spreading their message. It was a very grassroots movement at the beginning and it was mainly run by an older generation that didn’t take advantage of the current technology. Much of the advertisement and messaging was done by word of mouth or in person which lead to small but well-knit groups. These groups could accomplish things on a local scale but when they would attempt to make a large change it was rather unsuccessful as no one knew what was happening with the dated and poor communication.

Currently, they have basically been abandoned by the republican party as a whole and tend to just participate in more local movements rather than attempting to participate at the national scale.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement

Action

One of the countries we talked about in class was Myanmar. In their case, they were using cell phones as a way to communicate safely and as a way to spread their message to a more international audience. As much as the incumbent military would try to stop or at least slow their progress, it was to no avail. The citizens were too motivated by the current oppressive government that they found ways around whatever blocks were put in place by the government.

Communication

The people of Myanmar would use apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, and YouTube to communicate with each other and the international audience who was watching everything happen from the outside. They would use signs that were in English to post online so a much larger group of people could be informed about what they were protesting, and the current status of the protest. By taking advantage of these social networks, much larger groups of people could form to fight against the oppressive military. An example was given where a doctor was taken into custody by the military, and a live stream was used to spread the word that the raid had occurred and people were needed to protect this doctor that was helping the resistance.

Bypassing Restrictions

These people also had to bypass the restrictions that the government was putting on cellular providers and networks. They would block the IP addresses of popular social apps in an attempt to restrict the reach of the protests. They were unable to simply revoke internet access as many of the regular functions of society had moved to the internet after COVID and would be shut down by killing the internet. In order for the protesters to continue to fight they would download VPNs to bypass the network restrictions and post pictures and videos to public pages where others could see and take action.

Conclusion

By utilizing cell phones and technology, the people of Myanmar were able to spread their protest internationally and maintain the democratic integrity of their country. Technology allows us to show the facts from every perspective if used correctly. When our politicians participate in the technology we have available, we can heavily strengthen our democracy as it provides a unique insight into most of our population that hasn’t been available before.

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/in-myanmar-a-digital-savvy-nation-poses-a-new-challenge-for-the-military

If we consider the internet to be a public sphere, much of the widespread controversy that occurs online could also be considered to be counter publics and disruption to the public sphere. An example of this can be seen in the hijacking of the #myNYPD posts. Here users are seen taking advantage of what was supposed to be a promotional campaign for the NYPD. The goal was to have people share the good moments they had with the NYPD but instead, people would share pictures of police violence and general callouts against the NYPD. Posting something like this was always going to be risky for the NYPD as there are many very mixed opinions about the department. When having mixed views like this, often the most vocal people are the dissenting viewpoints leading to the counter posting from many people. Once this counter-push began there was not much the NYPD could do as the post was already out and gaining traction.

With places like Twitter now trying to promote “Free Speech” and attempting to remove platform censorship, pushback like this is hard to mitigate. Even if the NYPD had gone about the situation differently by doing something like privately accepting images and descriptions through email or a website, the odds are that the same people who were counter-posting before would have just used the positive posts as places to start with their counter-arguments. Either way, we still end up with a major disruption in the attempted message of the NYPD and honestly they are probably worse off after the attempt at a publicity stunt than before.

In the Reuters article we see how once a small counter public exists, it tends to rapidly expand and grow into other areas that are completely unrelated to the original reason for the counter public. “[The crowd] began to reflect a much wider array of right-wing grievances and causes than vaccine mandates and wearing surgical masks.” What started as a rally for changing COVID mandates turned into a conspiracy theory witch hunt. All it takes is a few people with a stronger message and a bit of convincing to take a moderate crowd and fully polarize them on an issue. The main resilience to this is trying to educate people by giving them facts and research but people will sometimes still just believe what they think is right and ignore facts/make up their own

Jackson, Sarah J., and Brooke Foucault Welles. “Hijacking #MyNYPD: Social Media Dissent and Networked Counterpublics.” Journal of Communication, vol. 65, no. 6, 2015, pp. 932–952., https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12185.

Tanfani, Joseph. “Trucker Convoy Leaves DC Area, but a ‘Movement’ Rolls On.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 2 Apr. 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trucker-convoy-leaves-dc-area-movement-rolls-2022-04-02/.

Censorship in the media is a weird subject. We preach the idea of free speech and that all voices should be heard however companies like DirecTV are public companies and are allowed to effectively control who has access to what media through their TVs. However, they also have a responsibility to give all sides of the information. This is what the given article is about. Was DirecTV attempting to censor Republican voices?

It is well known that CNN tends to be a more democratic and liberal-leaning news outlet I’m generally cautious with any political statements especially from opposing viewpoints. The article is fairly accurate with its claims, however there are very obvious attempts to make it follow the general “CNN Agenda”. The article says things like “But that gesture hasn’t quelled Republicans, who are now using this contract dispute as another example illustrating that conservatives are supposedly under attack by leftist, corporate forces.” (Darcy, 2023). This frames the republicans who are against DirecTV’s actions as drama stirrers. However accurate or inaccurate this depiction may be, they are still within their right to call out the contract dispute and use that reasoning to look into the company. There is also no guarantee of the price that newsmax demanded from DirecTV as the only figure that was provided was “tens of millions of dollars, according to a person familiar with the matter” (Darcy, 2023). This number, according to the article, has not been confirmed by either involved party so its accuracy is also in question.

Opinions aside, CNN is using this dispute and the republican response to frame a narrative that the republicans are crying wolf about being attacked by “leftist, corporate forces” (Darcy, 2023). This fits into their general political leanings and the agenda they would want to be pushing to anyone who may come across the article.

Source:

Darcy, Oliver. “Republicans Are Lashing out at DIRECTV for Supposedly ‘Censoring’ Conservative Voices. Here’s What’s Really Going on | CNN Business.” CNN, Cable News Network, 2 Feb. 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/01/media/republicans-directv-reliable-sources?utm_source=business_ribbon.