Slow-drip
coordination with other groups.’
Of course protest groups are not the only
example of a smart mob; governments and
their military strategists also make use of such
technology. Governments can also call upon
companies to curtail the use that might be made
of mobile phones by protesters. In an article in
the Independent on Sunday (13 February 2011)
entitled ‘What are the business ethics of revolu-
tion 2.0?’, Margaret Pagano notes that during the
protests in Tunisia and Egypt which were current
at the time, the governments were successful in
persuading some mobile operators and Internet
service providers to shut down their networks.
However, it seems that quite a few protesters
managed to fi nd ways round this.
Smartphone What is usually considered to
mark the diff erence between the mobile phone
and the smartphone is the latter’s capacity to
key into the internet, plus the availability of
innumerable ‘apps’ (or applications). Th e video
as well as photographic capacity enables users
to join the ranks of citizen journalists (see
journalism: citizen journalism), be their
own feature and short documentary fi lm-maker,
participate in social networking (see network-
ing: social networking), post contributions
to YouTube and download music, fi lms, radio
and TV. Th e smartphone allows users to operate
across informational, entertainment and social
platforms. It has been judged a powerful weapon
of communication and record in assisting the
mobilization of popular political protest (see
smart mobs).
By 2011 smartphones were outselling desktop
computers, largely because these handheld
devices can do most things that computers can
do. The smartphone can translate words and
signs, tell you where you are and where your
friends are, give you the menu of the restaurant
up the road or in Hong Kong or San Francisco,
and keep abreast of the latest exchanges on
facebook and twitter.
Whether the smartphone actually improves
the quality of communication in all ways and
at all levels is seriously open to question. It
makes it easier, facilitates greater diffusion,
is infi nitely faster than pen on paper, but it is
capable of proving an instrument of distraction
especially in face-to-face communication. See
apple macintosh; google; media activism;
microsoft windows; podcast; technol-
ogy: the consumerization of technology.
SMCR model of communication See berlo’s
smc model of communication, 1960.
Smiling professions Namely, the media, andSlow-drip Term sometimes used to describe the
regular, long-term coverage of certain issues by
the media with a view to infl uencing the forma-
tion of opinion; a softening-up process that
builds evidence and feelings in preferred direc-
tions. See effects of the mass media.
Slow motion Has been used varyingly in the
cinema to convey dream-like or fantasy situ-
ations, to emphasize reactions such as grief or
bewilderment, or to concentrate attention upon
happenings which in real life would be here
and gone before the full visual impact has been
made. In contrast, accelerated motion has been
generally used for comic eff ects, especially by the
early silent-movie comedians whose own actors’
timing was rendered even more remarkable by
the speeded-up action.
Reverse motion is another technique by which
the cinema defi es time: that which can happen
can unhappen. In October (1927), for instance,
Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948) uses the magic
of reverse motion to show a statue of the Tzar,
previously smashed to pieces, miraculously
restored, thus portraying with impressive
symbolism the restoration of the old order.
Lastly, there is stopped motion, using either
still photographs or stopping the action of an
otherwise moving sequence by repeating the
same frame when editing the fi lm. Th e freezing
of action may signal transition from one time-
zone to another, or may be used for special
emphasis or sometimes to underscore comic
eff ects or impressions. See shot.
Smart mobs Term used by Howard Rheingold
(2002) to describe protest groups that mobilize
support for demonstrations through the use of
the mobile phone and the social networks that
these give access to. He argues that President
Joseph Estrada of the Philippines was the fi rst
head of state to be ousted by a ‘smart mob’ in
- Other instances of the eff ective use of the
mobile phone to organize protests include the
1999 demonstration held outside a meeting of
the World Trade Organization in Seattle, and the
Fuel Protests in Britain in 2000.
The mobile phone facilitates not only the
mobilization of support for a protest, but also
the progress of a demonstration, for example the
eff ective deployment of ‘swarming’ strategies in
a protest. In Smart Mobs: Th e Next Social Revo-
lution (Basic Books, 2002) Rheingold describes
‘swarming’ strategies with reference to the
‘Battle of Seattle’: ‘Individual members of each
group remained dispersed until mobile commu-
nications drew them to converge on a specifi c
location from all directions simultaneously, in