There is a great back-story to Monday's protests in Los Angeles regarding the immigration debate raging away in the USA right now. FastCompany.com tipped me off to it. The story is how it is that 500,000 people knew where and when to go for the protest. Half a million people learned primarily from two sources: radio and social networks.
I checked out Blogging.LA to learn more about the protest itself and the great thing about it was there were no arrests, no violence but lots of passion for this hot button issue. The reason it is a hot button issue is because like so many other major issues of our day (social security; health care; poverty etc.), immigration has been ignored until it (and the other issues) reach some sort of crisis point and everyone rushes to judgment. That is not the way good laws are made. I believe we have a simple guidepost regarding the immigration issue in the US and that is the inscription on the Statue of Liberty. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free." End of political comment.
I do want to return to the protest and how it was organized. Half a million people in one city were mobilized via Spanish radio and via web based social networks. In this election year, if I'm running a political campaign, I am paying a lot of attention to what happened in Los Angeles on Monday. A candidate on the wrong side of a hot button issue might find themselves staring out at a half a million people who are not there to support him or her, but rather to remind the candidates who is their real boss.
And from a non-political communication point of view there are two take aways. Radio still works and the new social networks are finding their voice.
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