You Can Change The World!

The effects of glocalization on online petition platforms

Last Saturday thousands of people protested in Amsterdam against the infiltration of TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) in the Netherlands. The TTIP is a bi-lateral trade agreement between the European Union and the United States. Important segments of the agreement are that the TTIP gives big companies more action power and it reduces a nation’s standards (think of environmental or banking legislations for instance) and lawful regulations that could be preventing big companies from distributing their products. In many cities in Europe people protested against this EU-US agreement, because they generally feel that the profit and commercialization interests will come to surpass the care for human health. People's thoughts about the TTIP were massively shared through online platforms specialized in call-to-action and online petitions. Those are petitions that are signed online, usually through a form on a website, and can be filled out by anyone in the world who has access to the internet. In today’s blogpost we will introduce a new kind of world citizen who increasingly feels that local issues should be a global responsibility.

In this blogpost we would like to make use of the analysis of glocalization, social movements and the concept of community media by Vicki Mayer. Mayer is a professor of communication and media at Tulane University. Glocalization refers to the idea that producers need to change international media products to the standards of local sites (Mikos and Perrota in Mayer 12). Mark Deuze, a scholar working for the University of Amsterdam, writes about glocalization in a similar way, stating that the concept is characterized by “the mutually reinforcing developments of localization and globalization” (59). At the same time, Mayer takes into account that social movements are becoming more and more global due to the use of the internet (13). In her article she addresses multiple theories about community media production, but for this blogpost we will use Ellie Rennie’s definition in which the “stabilizing [of] non-profit and non-governmental media production” and “media literacy and consumer education” are key (19). Deuze equivalently refers to community media as “communities of interest around content” (79). Furthermore, Hesmondhalgh and Baker note that these online media communities result in a new kind of consumer, one who not only signs petitions, but also has the possibility to produce them (387).

In the last few years the internet has witnessed a rise in the amount of online petitions on popular websites like www.change.org, www.ipetition.com or avaaz.org. Online petitions often serve the purpose of signing for or against something and use the medium as a means to transcend national borders and get international support. These websites have different sectors for petitions, from stop-shotgun, to animal ethics, to our example of TTIP. People now realize that they can unite in a way that has never been done before, namely transnationally. This could result in the rise of a new kind of community, characterized by its ability to affect change without being limited to territorial borders.

Online petition platforms can be seen as a type of ‘community media’. Despite the fact that they do not revolve around the production of media for the purpose of profit making, they do attempt to reach international audiences to encourage (local) change and call-to-action. In this sense, online petitions can be considered glocalized: they mobilize people on a global scale in order to attempt local change (Mayer 12). People end up forming online “communities of interest” around content that is meaningful to them or they become advocates in fighting for things they believe should change (Deuze 79). With enough pressure from said internet communities, who sometimes even enter the realm of internet vigilantism, change does occur. An example of this is the case of the dentist who killed Cecil the lion. He had to close his practise as a result of much negative attention in the media and pressure from the internet. Victories for online petition communities are felt both locally and globally when change occurs. Participants will feel more empowered, which will strengthen and promote the building of these kinds of communities.

Petition sites do not only encourage audiences to take part in a social movement, but many also invite the audience to actively partake in creating petitions to meet their own political ends (Mayer 13). This new wave of online-activism that transcends national borders and motivates the audience to be involved in global affairs is not a hype, but rather a new characterization of the new kind of “citizen of the world”. A citizen of the world is someone who is not only concerned with national affairs, but also feels responsible for events occurring in other parts of the world. In order to relate this to the TTIP example and the rise of petition sites, we need to acknowledge that people from around the world are able to unite believing that they can make a change. They consolidate to address a particular government’s decision on a continental scale. Protestors against the TTIP treaty join together, because it enables big US companies to sue EU governments.

In conclusion, in recent years a new kind of world citizen has arised on the internet: one who feels the need to participate in global affairs as well as being connected to the local. Online petitioning is a prime example of a media platform making use of this development. Online petition websites have become increasingly more popular over the years, and they can be seen as a reflection of community media and glocalization. The TTIP treaty is but one example of the many ways in which people from all over the world are becoming increasingly engaged with local affairs. Through online media platforms and communities, we are turning essentially territorial issues into a global concern.

Thesis statement: Online petition platforms are mirroring developing concepts in the field of the creative industries such as media community and glocalization, resulting in a new kind of world citizen #TTIP

Initials: GK, RO, AL

Works Cited

David Hesmondhalgh & Sarah Baker (2011), ‘Toward a Political Economy of Labor in the Media Industries’, in: Janet Wasko, Gragham Murdock & Helena Sousa (eds.), The Handbook of Political Economy of Communications. Blackwell Publishing, pp. 381-400.

Vicki Mayer (2013), ‘Making Media Production Visible’, in: Vicki Mayer (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies, Volume II: Media Production. Blackwell Publishing, 2013.

Mark Deuze (2007), ‘Creative Industries, Convergence Culture and Media Work’, in: Media Work. Cambridge & Malden: polity, pp. 45-83.