Journalism and history: either ‘patriotic’ or truthful’

Natalie Fenton comments on claims that the internet is “an organizing model for a new form of political protest”, but she also draws attention to Gramsci’s view, that forms of protest such as ‘the scream’ are not necessarily “truly political”. They can appear to be expressed in a political vocabulary, yet they are rather emotional, unfounded in rational terms, I would add. Although Fenton aims to offer a strong argument in favour of including radical or left-wing politics as an important factor in any analysis of protest and digital media, I suggest a broader and more general reading of her interesting analysis. Thus, for the purpose of the present note, I propose that we keep the possibility of some protesting views being more emotional and less political; based more on myth and imagination rather than on verifiable information. [Opening paragraph]