Journal #3 Talia Colarusso

Writing, technology, and circulation. While all very different in definition they are all three very closely related and intertwined within one another. The two articles I read tonight about the 1980's women's peace movement and the 2011 occupy wall street movement make it clear just how intertwined these three words are. Writing of course has been around a lot longer than all the technology we have today but that doesn't mean it hasn't always been a way of circulating information. In the article about the women's peace movement Margaretta Jolly talks about all these camps that sprung up. These women were writing letters back and forth all over the country. She talks about how hundreds of letters were sent to the camps every week, from supporters also fighting for the cause. At the same time hundreds of letters and reports were also being sent out every week. Spreading the word to ears across the country. "And like a spider’s web, the building of the network was never finished; it was continuously in creation, never static." The letters spread further and further creating a network of women who might have never met each other, but all were fighting for the same cause. The “web” that was created was cemented into history. Never could this event now be erased, the word had circulated.

Fast forward to the year 2011, technology is now at it's boom. It is now easier to circulate written information faster and more efficiently than ever. The movement (OWS) occupy Wall Street was actually started on twitter. It all began with the hash tag #occupywallstreet in one of the protesters tweets and blew up from there. Twitter continued to serve as the main platform for this movement, using it's maximum of 140 characters per post to relay short and effective tweets. Similarly to the “web” that had been created during the peace protests #occupywallstreet had cemented itself into history, even better it had cemented itself into the world wide web. A lot has changed from the year 1980 to 2011 but the way people spread the word is really not all that different. Now were just fighting behind a computer screen, no longer behind pen and paper. As you can see writing, technology, and circulation have always been intertwined and always will be.