Today’s Bangkok Post reports that a Thai cinema chain has declined to screen Mockingjay – the latest in the Hunger Games series.

Hunger Games was incredibly popular in Thailand, and the three finger Hunger Games salute was used by anti coup protesters immediately after the coup as a means of mocking the military. In a nicely Orwellian touch, the military responded by making the three fingered gesture illegal when used in public.

There’s of course the political protest story here, but there’s also another story – about how a globalised media influences the iconography of protest, in just the same way that protesters in Tharir square in Cairo held up signs saying ‘Game Over’ when Mubarak fell.

Five, ten years ago this wouldn’t have happened. It would have been flags, banners, and slogans screamed through loudhailers.

Globalisation and the communications and internet revolution is changing the world, but not necessarily in the ways we expected (or predicted) …