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Rosanna Mclaughlin
Rosanna Mclaughlin is an editor at The White Review.

Articles Available Online


The Pious and the Pommery

Essay

Issue No. 18

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Essay

Issue No. 18

I.   Where is the champagne? On second thoughts this is not entirely the right question. The champagne is in the ice trough, on...

Essay

April 2019

Ariana and the Lesbian Narcissus

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Essay

April 2019

‘Avoid me not!’ ‘Avoid me not!’                                   Narcissus   Let me describe a GIF I’ve been watching. A lot....

The world is seeing an increase in the use of social media as a tool for mobilisation and protest The so-called ‘Twitter revolution,’ a term used to describe the role of sites like Twitter in effecting change, has come to the forefront of discussion as popular uprisings sweep the Middle East Former US national security advisor Mark Pfeifle even went so far as to call for the social networking site to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize   After the recent blackout of all digital communications in Egypt, Twitter saw a surge of thousands of users relying on proxy servers to post live news updates to the world When Tunisian dictator Ben Ali fled government after 23 years in power, Twitter was there to give users a direct insight into events  Such sites, which disseminate information quickly, can be an essential tool in activism – they give the world an up-to-date and uncensored view of opinions and events, particularly those the mainstream media chooses to ignore But can there really be such a thing as a ‘Twitter revolution’?   Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker cites the civil rights unrest in America in the Sixties as evidence of the success of a movement without social media With sites like Twitter, he says, we are told that ‘the traditional relationship between political authority and popular will has been upended’, making it easier for people to voice their concerns The majority of people tweeting about movements are not, however, at the focal point of discussions Does this make a difference? In Egypt, for example, only 25% of the population have access to the internet  Does this not make Twitter merely a means through which western commentators can, in an abstract and non-attached way, feel tied to a movement? And does this tie to a cause define ‘activism’, or is it another case of the bourgeoisie thriving on novelty?   For Gladwell, activism is defined by ‘strong ties’ to others involved in a cause, rather than any weak ideological commitment This kind of attachment to a cause through personal relationships is less likely to occur through the impersonal

Contributor

July 2016

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Contributor

July 2016

Rosanna Mclaughlin is an editor at The White Review.

Ten Years at Garage Moscow

Art Review

November 2018

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Art Review

November 2018

When I arrive in Moscow, I am picked up from the airport by Roman, a patriotic taxi driver sent to collect me courtesy of...
Becoming Alice Neel

Art

August 2017

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Art

August 2017

From the first time I saw Alice Neel’s portraits, I wanted to see the world as she did. Neel was the Matisse of the...

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fiction

Issue No. 17

Boom Boom

Clemens Meyer

TR. Katy Derbyshire

fiction

Issue No. 17

You’re flat on your back on the street. And you thought the nineties were over.   And they nearly...

feature

October 2015

War is Easy, Peace is Hard

Alexander Christie-Miller

feature

October 2015

At around midday on 19 July, Koray Türkay boarded a bus in Istanbul and set off for the Syrian...

fiction

October 2012

Girl on a Bridge

Wayne Holloway

fiction

October 2012

Pirajoux… The middle of a hot endless summer, driving on the A39 through an as always empty central France,...

 

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