New paper / When the town square is online … / The Conversation / 01.04.2014

When the town square is online, power lies with the people

Vincent F. Hendricks

The Conversation, 01.04.2014

In the age of information, we no longer need to leave the house to shape democracy. We’re heading towards a world in which the traditional sites of protest are sitting alongside online forums, which are becoming an extremely powerful democratic tool.

During the Tiananmen Square protests, the Chinese regime was acutely aware of the threat posed by thousands of unarmed students and workers occupying a public space, so it sent in soldiers and tanks to take them on. The most powerful image from the time was taken on 5 June 1989, when a young student, later nicknamed the Tank Man or Unknown Protester, armed only with two plastic bags was able to stop a column of Chinese tanks.

He was able to do it because common knowledge is an extremely potent weapon: everybody was watching, and everyone knew that everyone was watching, and everyone knew that everyone knew that everyone was watching and so on. That left the Chinese government exposed. When public space meets common knowledge, power can shift from established authority to the people.

Read the rest of the article here or Journalist’s Resource, Harvard Kennedy School, 02.04.2014