Changing the World

                The author of Changing The World is Nicholas Mirzoeff. He is a visual culture theorist and professor of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University. His research is mainly in the general field of visual culture. In the past few years, Nicholas have concentrated in four areas which is, visuality, texts for general academic use, work with contemporary artists, and contributing editor for online project.

                He started his introduction about the EZLN (Zapatista Army of National Liberation / Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion National) and what is the function of the group was formed. Mainly, the group was formed was to create alternatives to globalization for the local Maya and other groups, concentrating on civil rather than armed resistance. On sub-heading about Rebel Cities, he wrote about global cities around the world, become places of protest. He mentioned about the financial order had broken down due to the government converted people’s money to repay international loans. Then there is a new movement for self-representation that began in Latin America spread worldwide and it gained global attention with the Arab Spring and the subsequent global Occupy movement in 2011. The aim of this movement is to find new means to represent people.

                In his sub-heading of 2011 and after: North Africa, he focused on social media and others forms of peer-to-peer communication. He stated that Facebook did not cause the revolution, but it allowed for the dissemination of information. Also, facebook was used to communicate news and dates for action. He also said that social media enabled people to set aside the unseeing of this crisis required by the regime. Social media had catalysed the movement in ways that had not been seen before. The People Demand the Fall of the Regime is about Tahrir movement.  

                 

            2011:Occupy Wall Street, is about visual activism and visual thinking. In July 2011, the Canadian magazine, Adbusters launched a call to ‘Occupy Wall Street’. On July 2013, Adbusters posted on blog to invite 20,000 people on September 17, to flood into lower Manhattan and occupy Wall Street for a few months. Adbusters hope protestors could take over the Wall Street itself. Later than, a Tumblr called ‘WeAreThe99%’ was created to allow people share their stories, and to represent themselves. Tumblr is an easy-to-use blogging site that really popular among teenagers nowadays.

                Spray here for social movement, was about the distribution of photographs and video on social media showing police violence. On 24 September 2011, thousands of people watched a video of the pepper-spraying of three young women by a New York Police Department officer. Once again, a photograph of a woman being pepper-sprayed went viral. The 99% Tumblr and the pepper-spray video went viral in part because their audience were adapt at sharing and disseminating media content. Perhaps, visual imagination, visual thought and visualizing combine to make worlds that we live in and seek to change is based on Nicholas opinions on how to make the world we live in to be a better place. Overall, this book is recommend to heavy thinker reader.