Branding and Events

We've been watching the Egyptian protests unfold over the last couple of weeks, waiting and wondering; conjecturing and comparing.

Reading the articles and commentaries about the "Twitter Revolution" and other quickly-branded events and phenomena made me wonder if the tendency to name these events is a by-product of the 24-hour news cycle.

News channels have even more airtime to fill with content than ever before. The pressure to analyze and speculate about an event's impact and meaning -- as the event is happening -- must certainly be increasing.

It seems to me that news media have been attempting to report the outcome, impact and lasting effects of these events -- sometimes in the very early days of a movement or economic trend. I noticed this with coverage of world events in recent years such as the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine, as well as the discussion of the American financial situation and housing bubble, and now with the Egyptian protests. It's quite premature, especially in light of financial phenomena, which usually are best studied after they've been inactive for a few months at least.

NPR reported on the naming of revolutions recently.  And they talked about the Ukranians actively seeking a good name for the movement and used the word "branding."
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/28/133293523/Name-That-Revolution

However, what I thought was most interesting about the segment, was the comment by a Tunisian resident at the end:

"We live inside, and for me it's just a Tunisian revolution. It's our revolution, Tunisia - not Jasmine or something else."


Does his statement imply that naming these events is an example our Western/imperialist behavior and attitudes? Are we attempting to understand and distill the experiences of some group of "other?" 


Perhaps it supports an assertion Nancy Morris made in her article, "The Myth of Unadulterated Culture Meets the Threat of Imported Media;" that foreign media don't really have the influence on a grand scale that we are concerned of exerting.


I'm not saying that technologies such as Twitter, text messages and YouTube didn't play a role in the event. We can't remove them from the time in which we live, so it's impossible to say whether coverage of events in Tunisia influenced Egyptians to protest their own situation or whether the Egyptians would have found another way to organize supporters or share their experiences as participants. 


Certainly these technologies have influenced communication between people, but I think their role in these movements is a lot more nuanced than the too-quickly-named event might lead one to believe. But we might have to wait for the results.