Reading Summation 7 – The art of protest by Reed, T. V.

This book is an overview of social movement in the U.S started form African American civil rights to recent day. Also, Reed talks how activists use different media of art for developing the movement for global justice, and introduced the effects of different mediums for Activism. All these connections for politic, culture, and human life are encouraging people through activism. Also, The art of protest is a great text book of activists that including mobilization, organize, and how to participate. Reed points out ”Culture is always entwined with social, economic, and political forces, but they in turn are entwined with culture”(P.314) which give me a basic idea for  an argument of my thesis- “What is Taiwanese culture ?” If culture relates to social, economic, and political forces, what is the appearance and composition for a colonized country?  If protest is a way to force social changes, will it be a key element for defining a culture?

In different chapters, Reed includes different mediums and pop culture of activism, such as songs, drama, poetry, Cowboys vs Indians, rock music, graphic art, and new media. In the chapter nine: new media, Reed, describes the importance of the use of internet, and the advantage of using internet is to bring people who live in different place together. Also, the advantages of laptop computers and cell phones which are portable are the important tools of activism. Reeds believes that new media will be the links for all movements. In the book, there are some cases for using new media for activism, such as the Battle(s) in Seattle, the Anticorporate University, blockades, and the action factions and debt elimination/economic development groups. Battle(s) in Seattle is a movie that bases on the protest activity at the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999, and the film includes some issues of WTO, such as increase hunger, promote the socio-economic gap between rich and poor, and death of people.

In my personal experience, another movie: Across the Universe which was a musical drama, is another resource of activism. Although it is not a protest activity movie, it includes many elements of movements, such as music (The Beatles) and Hippie culture in the time of Vietnam War. Also, it uses many metaphorical ways, like strawberry as the bombs. The critiques of this are averaged, but it gives me many basic ideas of American activism about race and anti-war.