Check out this video to see how well the Chinese government’s plan worked: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuuddurPLV8&eurl=http://www.protectthehuman.com/videos/chinese-students-unaware-of-the-tank-man&feature=player_embedded

And these articles for more info: http://blog.taragana.com/n/twitterers-defy-chinese-censorship-break-silence-on-tiananmen-squares-tank-man-71606/

http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/06/02/china-shuts-down-twitter-and-bing-in-lead-up-to-tiananmen-anniversary/

Months later, a previously unknown Iranian woman named Neda became the symbol for the Iranian resistance when an amateur video of her death was uploaded to YouTube. The video went viral instantly and was discussed on almost every major news network. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/21/iran.woman.twitter/

The class should recognize that social media is no longer an expendable frivolity for teenagers. It, especially in the case of the Tank Man anniversary, represents the ultimate democratic forum for people to share with and educate each other on a global scale. It may sound a bit extreme to say that turning off Twitter can be labeled as censorship and oppression, but it is.

The class should also address the affects of modern international advertising, and how the same product is represented in completely different ways across different regions of the world. According to the following article from Variety magazine, the one-size-fits-all campaign has been abandoned in favor of custom-tailored campaigns to foreign markets. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118005858.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

Regarding Paramount’s recent “Star Trek” campaign, the article reads:

In the U.S., a one-sheet featuring the U.S.S. Enterprise was enough. But Paramount also had to interest overseas auds that haven’t warmed to the franchise in the past. So the studio circumnavigated the globe with splashy premieres, some before the movie’s U.S. debut, including the worldwide preem in Australia.

And while the film is a reboot of a popular sci-fi franchise, that isn’t the way it was sold in other territories.

In Mexico and Russia, for example, the pic’s poster features a huge column of fire coming down from the sky near the Golden Gate Bridge. In other territories where human drama is the appeal, the character of Captain Kirk was featured front and center, flanked by the characters of Spock and Uhura.

In Japan, the romance in a film is always played up, even when it’s a big tentpole like “Star Trek, since the demo known as “office ladies” is considered crucial to a film’s performance.

With that understanding, students can expand their “beat” on their aforementioned country to include an analysis of how they market a foreign (or domestic) product. This aspect of the students’ research would take into consideration the country’s culture, values, beliefs, tastes, etc. and identify the most effective kind of marketing for that region (i.e. engagement ads vs. hypertargeting). Would like country respond well to an interactive web-based campaign, following a Twitter feed or entering a Facebook raffle for free merchandise?