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sheila mclean

McIntyre, J (March 10, 2011) Only some revolutions will be televised - 2 views

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    The author of this article, Jody McIntyre, is a journalist and political activist. The article was published in Jody's regular blog for The Independent. This article is not a scholarly article, rather an opinion piece. The source (The Independent) is reliable. McIntyre has also written for The Guardian, the New Statesman, Electronic Intifada and Disability Now. By focusing on recent events south of Yemen, and in particular the 'million person march' in early March 2011, the article highlights how broadcast media is focusing on events in Libya, while ignoring political unrest in other areas. McIntyre relates how Al Jazeera, the Qatari-based news channel, tends to "choose" one uprising at a time to focus on and "leading the gaze of the public" (McIntyre, 2011). McIntyre asks whether "a revolution on the Egyptian model" would have succeeded without the media attention it received. New media sources, and the Internet in particular, have allowed the public "to follow these uprisings in a way that would never have been possible in the past." (McIntyre, 2011) Traditional broadcast media organisations, such as the BBC, "can no longer monopolise our opinions". By viewing Twitter feeds we are "seeing events as they happen, not as they are reported". (McIntyre, 2011) McIntyre highlights an important point - although the public are not "seeing" these events in the traditional sense (via television broadcast), they are "seeing" them unfold through collaborative social media. The public are not just "seeing" events unfold, they are also disseminating the news. McIntyre, J (March 10, 2011) Only some revolutions will be televised The Independent - Independent Blogs. Retrieved April 9, 2011 from http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/03/10/only-some-revolutions-will-be-televised/
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    A very interesting comment and article Sheila and I agree that the author "...Jody McIntyre, is a journalist and political activist ... This article is not a scholarly article, rather an opinion piece" (McLean, 2011). Jody McIntyre has written a variety of articles on many different topics within the political activist discourse. However, has anything really changed? In 2005, I had hired out the movie Hotel Rwanda that was a new DVD release, without realising that it was "The true-life story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who housed over a thousand Tutsi refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda" (Hotel Rwanda, 2004). After watching the horrifying scenes, I then searched the Internet for further information. Whilst questioning myself "How did I miss this war in 1994?" A few years later, I was able to determine that it only briefly touched the traditional news broadcast reporting in a world wide scale. I mean who cared that "An estimated 1 million people were killed within a three month period in 1994" (GlobalSecurity, 2011)? I cared, and very strongly. Today, traditional news media is still missing many details of what is happening around the world. Events that do get reported seem, at times, to be glorified to entertain the consumers. Where traditional media fail to inform the public, the certainly is a broader world of informative available from many different sources and for many different reasons. This is where sites such as Avaaz and many others help spread the news about global issues where people-power now has the action over the traditional way of doing too little, too late, due to being uninformed. No one person controls the content published on the Internet. However, there are groups that control what is televised, when it is televised and where. References: GlobalSecurity. (2011). Rwanda Civil War. GlobalSecurity.org. Retrieved from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/w
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    Jody McIntyre highlights the fact about the important role the Internet and Twitter have been playing in the mass information exchange during recent political protesting in Yemen and countries across Northern Africa. An information share and exchange through individual use of the Twitter and the Internet has been providing access to people's information instead to mass information filtered through major media like BBC, Al Jazeera and other. As Jody McIntyre states, the Twitter feeds are representing the events as they happen, not as they are reported. I fully agree with Jody McIntyre, there seems to be a domino effect surrounding the political movements in the Northern Africa. What started in Tunisia has been carried over to its neighborhood. The main difference is the protests are of different ratio and longevity reflecting a deep cultural and political constitution experienced by each particular country. 'Whilst the media continue to focus exclusively on events in Libya, the huge march in the south of Yemen was ignored', writes Jody McIntyre. It is known, the media works in an organized way, placing their correspondents in areas where information or reports are of 'hot topic'. When analyzing the Twitter media where the Twitter usage is based on its availability amongst people and not on strategic positioning of media outlets, it is obvious the Twitter is being a portable and convenient communication tool accessible by those who can afford it, and its affordance was possible in the Northern Africa where third world description is still in existence.
Chris Johnson

The limits of the 'Twitter revolution' | Anne Nelson | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk - 3 views

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    Nelson, A. (2011). The limits of the 'Twitter revolution. The Gaurdian  Retrieved 11th April 2011, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/24/digital-media-egypt   
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    This article by Anne Nelson argues against the idea that Twitter was strongly influential in the recent uprisings in Egypt. She backs up her statement by pointing out that there "were well under 15,000 Egyptians tweeting, out of a population of more than 80 million" and that some of those may not have even been inside Egypt. Her figures were intimated from figures released by Social Media Intelligence company "Sysomos" (O'Dell 2011), who after analysing 52 million Twitter users, Found that only 14,642 identified their location as Egypt, Yemen or Tunisia (O'Dell 2011). The majority of these, however, were identified as originating in Egypt. O'Dell's article points out that even these numbers are suspect as it is likely that a percentage of Twitter users in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen do not provide location information in order to protect their identities (2011). Nelson also remarks on the ineffectiveness of other online tools, for instance a Crisis-mapping application named Ushahidi. While she admires the utility of Ushahida, Nelson is quick to point out that crisis maps, particularly those covering low grade problems are generally not sufficiently supported by volunteers willing to update them. Evgeny Morozov coined the term slacktivism "to describe feel-good online activism that has zero political or social impact. It gives those who participate in 'slacktivist' campaigns an illusion of having a meaningful impact on the world without demanding anything more than joining a Facebook group" (Morozov 2009). Nelson clearly feels that the majority of online activism falls into this category. REFS: Morozov, E. (2009). The brave new world of slacktivism. Retrieved from: http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/05/19/the_brave_new_world_of_slacktivism O'Dell, J. (2011). How Egyptians Used Twitte
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    Anne Nelson's article comes to the conclusion that "the new digital technologies are powerful tools in moments of crisis, but they cannot substitute for sustained citizen activism". (Nelson, 2011) Nelson points out how "in Egypt, there has been a lot of emphasis on Twitter, but the data suggests that there were well under 15,000 Egyptians tweeting, out of a population of more than 80 million". Nelson also makes reference to "slactivism" "where it's easier to click a "like" button on Facebook than it is to participate in a crisis-mapping platform." , and brings up a "notion of citizenship that involves more than one-click participation". I think that Nelson is missing the point here. Egypt may have been labelled the "Twitter Revolution" and the "Facebook Revolution" by the media, but this was not because of citizens and a "one-click participation", instead social media was used very successfully to mobilize citizens, who then faced real dangers when they took their protests to the streets. As Howard (2011) points out, there are dangers in both "overemphasizing and ignoring the role of digital media in political change in Egypt and Tunisia". While Nelson may not have ignored the role of digital media in Egypt, I think she has certainly under-emphasized it in this particular article. REFERENCES: Howard, P (February 23, 2011) The Cascading Effects of the Arab Spring Miller McCune Magazine Retrieved April 13, 2011 from http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/the-cascading-effects-of-the-arab-spring-28575/ Nelson, A. (2011). The limits of the 'Twitter revolution. The Guardian Retrieved April 14 2011, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/24/digital-media-egypt
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    I agree Sheila, many of these articles seem to be missing the point, there seems to be a real criticism towards the effects that social media has had on the protests in Egypt. I keep hearing statements like "Social media is not a substitute for individual action" (Nelson, 2011). Many of these articles seem to be coming to the conclusion that social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook are seen as taking the sole responsibility for the events that have been played out in recent months. I have not seen one pro Twitter article that has put the credit directly in the hands of social network platfroms. Many articles in favor of social media state that they do not give absolute credit to Twitter or Facebook in the successfulness of the protests. For example (Morozov, 2009) states that social media does not take credit for all the peoples contribution and determination to be involved in the protests but it still is an extremely useful tool for the collaboration and organization of people on such a large scale, playing an important role in facilitating these protests. Social media is a very successful collaboration tool that is used in conjunction with society to gain results. Social media did play an extremely vital part in the organization and efficiency of these protests that cannot be denied. But it was individual action and determination that aided these people to contribute and gain results. Perhaps it should not be called a "Twitter Revolution", as this is where I think criticism and confusion has come about, the headline does place a biased opinion in favor of Twitter. Regardless of the attitudes towards social medias role in these events, its effectiveness in these matters has shocked the world and demonstrated how powerful it is as a communicative tool.
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    Nelson makes a strong argument suggesting the 2011 Egypt uprising was not necessarily fuelled by social media; instead she links it to years of oppression and dictatorship as the main triggers. On the flipside, many of Nelson's statements need to be challenged. Firstly, she states that only 15,000 Egyptians were tweeting - out of a population of 80 million - throughout the protests. What she fails to mention is that less than 20% of Egyptians actually have Internet access (Internet World Stats, 2011). In addition, many of these users also reside outside of Cairo and may not have directly participated in the demonstrations. Lastly, the Internet and SMS services were shutdown in Egypt two days after the initial January 25th demonstration and this act would drastically reduce numbers as the only way to circumvent the block was through dialup or a voice-to-tweet service. An interesting concept raised in this article is 'slackivism', a term coined to describe the attraction of getting caught up in the euphoria of online activism. The benefits however have little or no impact on society because clicking a 'like' button within a Facebook group is far from participatory and adds very little value to the cause. Instead, Nelson argues that web users need to be better educated in the use and the expectations of crisis-mapping platforms to effectively participate. Sukey , an anti-police kettling web application is a recent example of internet enabled, active participation. Its use during a recent political demonstration in London resulted in successful, non-violent outcome (Kingsley, 2011). This was attributed to activists working together and feeding information from Twitter, Google Maps and news feeds into Sukey to counter the act the police kettling. This example highlights that technical aptitude and active participation are required to effectively coordinate a internet enabled, protest. Internet World Stats - Usage and Population Statistics. (2011
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    References: Morozov, E. (2009). Moldova's Twitter Revolution. Retrieved April 13, 2011. From http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/07/moldovas_twitter_revolution Nelson, A. (2011). The Limits Of The "Twitter Revolution". Retrieved April, 16 2011. From http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/24/digital-media-egypt
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