Time: Person of the Year did ‘more than press “like” on a Facebook page’

By {/%BYLINE%} {%AUTHOR%}Michael Sebastian{/%AUTHOR%} {%TITLE%}Time: Person of the Year did ‘more than press “like” on a Facebook page’{/%TITLE%} {%ALTERNATIVEURL%}{/%ALTERNATIVEURL%} {%IMAGE%}/Uploads/Public/time-person-of-the-year-2011.jpg{/%IMAGE%} {%ROLE%}87d65c27-6e78-4e5c-b423-78d47d4f2768{/%ROLE%} {%KICKER%}Media Relations{/%KICKER%} {%CATEGORIESID%}9b04de1d-f7bc-4de7-842e-c9c833ff24e9{/%CATEGORIESID%} {%CAPTION%}The magazine named ‘The Protester’ as the person of 2011. The author of the story explained why.{/%CAPTION%} {%BODYCOPY%}Time magazine’s pick for Person of the Year in 2011 is familiar in theme. In 2006, it gave “You” the honor. Then, the decision to choose not a single person, but instead something emblematic of a trend—in that case the trend was social media—is similar to this year’s choice, The Protester, because the generic face of dissent reflects the global spread of revolution, dissent in 2011. It’s not one person; it’s a movement. To shed more light on the magazine’s decision, Time managing editor Richard Stengel talked with Kurt Andersen, who wrote the cover piece on the Person of the Year. Andersen told Stengel: “Protest has fallen out of fashion as a political tool over the last 20 years … Not only did protest come back in this big, globally contagious way this year, but we are two regimes down, counting. There’s this incredible effect that makes it the biggest deal in more than a century in terms of this global sense of protesting against governments that are perceived as corrupt, ineffectual, consequence flowing from that.” In a video posted on Time’s website, Andersen, Stengel discussed the genesis of this year’s global upheaval in Tunisia, the role of technology, social media. “The degree to which social media were important to those revolutions, protests has been understated,” he said. For instance, social media “mobilized, directed people” to places like Tahrir Square in Cairo. “What’s amazing about this year is that there were these tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people all over the world—and not all young, although mostly young—who were stepping up, doing more than pressing ‘like’ on a Facebook page,” Andersen said. “I don’t believe this is going to be the fad of 2011,” he added. Here’s the full video: (Image via, via){/%BODYCOPY%} {%ID%}10307{/%ID%} {%DATAID%}b1e61237-1189-4c73-b889-9c8e6d5eb595{/%DATAID%} {%CanonicalUrl%}{/%CanonicalUrl%} {%PUBLISHDATE%}12/14/2011 2:56:58 PM{/%PUBLISHDATE%} {%LINK%}https://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/10307.aspx{/%LINK%} {%BYLINE%}Russell Working
Dec. 14, 2011