The Presidential debates this election year were—to put it mildly—theatrical. This was the first year I followed the debates on social media platforms (Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook), and much of what people seem to be searching for is something funny to latch onto to create the next great internet meme. Early in the third debate, it was clear that Barack Obama’s comments about “horses and bayonets” was going to be an early winner (see here, here, here and here). And in the first debate, Romney’s comments regarding equal pay for women included the poorly worded phrase, “I went to a number of women’s groups and said, ‘Can you help us find folks?’ and they brought us whole binders full of women.” While his story about the event he was mentioning has been challenged, others rightly asked what saying “binders full of women” might have done to Romney’s chances of winning the election. On social media, people were almost instantaneously outraged, and responses to Romney’s comment illustrate some of the new ways and spaces in which political protest takes place.
“Binders Full of Women” became an instant internet sensation, spawning its own Facebook community (now, with over 350,000 “likes”) in minutes. Research is only beginning to discuss what this might mean and whether things like this actually matter. For instance, a small but fast growing area of consumer research tracks Facebook fan counts against daily share stock prices. There’s an enormous correlation, even on a day-by-day basis (see here for the research, and here for some commentary). If Facebook can help us track changes in stock prices, what else can it tell us?
Political protest and civic engagement have always taken on new forms to respond to inequalities and injustice in new ways. A recent form of protest utilizes the “customer review” function at Amazon.com. If you look up the Avery Durable View Binder with 2 Inch EZ-Turn Ring on Amazon, you might notice something a bit odd. The binder has been reviewed by over 1,000 Amazon shoppers. This is a high number when you consider that the same binder with the 1.5-inch spine only has 17 reviews.
Inequality by (Interior) Design 