What the Egyptian Revolution Taught Al Jazeera About Digital. Much has been made of the role that social media played in the Egyptian revolution, including the way international news network Al Jazeera used social media in its reporting. But the crisis also taught the organization a number of lessons about digital media — lessons we’ll see the impact of as Al Jazeera continues to cover ongoing turmoil in other parts of the Middle East. “I’ve always pushed our newsrooms to... go out and find stuff where people are putting it already,” said Al Jazeera English online chief Mohamed Nanabhay, with whom we had the opportunity to speak earlier this week at the TED conference in Long Beach, CA. Don't Call It a Facebook Revolution Nanabhay is quick to acknowledge the role social media played from a newsgathering perspective in Egypt, but he also dismisses some of the hyperbole that has emerged in the revolution’s aftermath.
“It’s not a Twitter or Facebook revolution... Live Blogging and Tumblr Emerge New Appeal With U.S. Wadah Khanfar Speaks at TED. On The Media: Transcript of "Andy Carvin and Twitter's New Journalism" (February 25, 2011) BOB GARFIELD: The significance of social media in the recent uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, compared to the role of Al-Jazeera, for instance, has been hotly debated.
What nobody disputes is their extraordinary success in getting news on the ground to the outside world, often within seconds. Some Twitter feeds have been ongoing timelines, often with audio and video links, in popular struggles against entrenched regimes. None has been more illuminating than that of senior strategist for NPR’s Social Media Desk, Andy Carvin, who for two months has been tirelessly, almost obsessively serving as a conduit in and out of Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and, for the past week, Libya. In so doing, he has embraced some conventions of reporting and defied others, as digital media play havoc not only with tyrannies, but with the journalistic status quo.
BOB GARFIELD: Hm, more like hashtag, you’re it. ANDY CARVIN: Yeah, it is [LAUGHS] more like hashtag, you’re it, absolutely. Middle East Turmoil - Timeline. Libya, YouTube, and the Internet. As the Arab revolutions of 2011 sweep through the Middle East and Maghreb, smuggling news out of Libya has changed from a process of secret satellite phone calls abroad to a matter of uploading videos to YouTube. Despite their authoritarian and sometimes violent natures, the old regimes in Egypt and Tunisia presided over societies with organized (if marginalized) opposition movements and a technologically savvy class with wide connections to both their ethnic diasporas and the wider world at large.
Libya has neither of those things (although, in the tech sphere, it has quietly been making money off fees from the wildly popular bit.ly site and other boutique URL sites with the .ly suffix for years). In many cultural respects, Qadaffi's Libya was closer to the hermetically-sealed world of North Korea than to its own North African neighbors. Thankfully, Libya is not as technologically sealed off from the outside world as North Korea. Why Not Call It A Facebook Revolution? Tunisians filled the streets with the help of Twitter.
Egypt's protests were coordinated on Facebook pages like that of Internet activist Wael Ghonim. Libyan dissenters spread the word about their "day of rage" last week the same way. And yet, in these heady days when the entire Middle East seems to be inspired to organize online in revolt against autocracy, it has become fashionable for experts to dismiss the role of social media in 2011's revolutions. "People protested and brought down governments before Facebook was invented," the New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell opined on February 2. True enough — and utterly irrelevant. Yes, of course, technology alone doesn't make revolutions; the will of the people is the most vital ingredient. Egypt’s Social Media Revolution by the Numbers. Thanks for stopping by! I appreciate it. If you enjoyed this post, please consider signing up to my RSS feed in your favorite reader or email.
Over the past few weeks, we saw unprecedented news coverage of a revolution in Egypt. Despite a lack in initial traditional media outlets and internet sources due to government intervention, the people were able to be heard via social networks. These networks were not the underlying reason for social change, but rather served as an avenue to provide the world with an unfiltered account of what was going on.
We are living in a day and age where real change is being made around the world and playing out in front of our eyes on the social web. To see the full presentation and graphs from the folks at .digitalrepublic|, click here. While the numbers are spectacular, the pale in comparison to what the Egyptian people were able to do. Enjoy this post? How to Help: Government 2.0 is too important to stop the fight #gov20 #opengov. Wisconsin Public sector Workers Fight for their collective bargaining rights I have been through some very interesting times as of late, the kind of things that make you think about who you are, what you fight for and your position in the order of things.
I have absolutely incredible friends and family that help me look at these things and have created a calm in me that is unparalleled. I thank all of you for your kind words. But while these things were spinning around, the proof was all around me that this fight is worth it, and it has nothing to do with me. In fact, my challenges right now amount to nothing compared to the fights erupting throughout the world.
Over the past few weeks the world has exploded in terms of activism and citizens demanding something new. At the very same time my friends and family in Wisconsin, where I was born, bred, raised and educated, became ground zero for the public sector employees battle throughout the United States. Thank you. Related posts: The faces of Egypt's 'Revolution 2.0' - CNN.com# A now-famous Facebook page was organizing people in Egypt well before protests broke out in January. Five anonymous people administer a Facebook page that helped fuel Egypt protests They communicated over the internet to avoid detection by police A Facebook event was created for January 25, the first day or protests (CNN) -- Dressed in black, they stood in silence on the banks of the Nile River with their backs turned to Egypt.
They had watched their homeland become a place of torture and repression. And now, in June 2010, they were making a statement. Instructions for the protest were clearly disseminated on Facebook: Stand 5 feet apart, so as not to break Egyptian laws against public demonstration; be absolutely silent; no signs; wear black, as determined in an online vote; stand on the banks of the river or sea for one hour only, then walk away. No one yet knew who had organized this protest against police brutality. Map: Tech and revolution in the region They gave it an ominous name: Egyptian Internet Blackout Pushed Protests to Streets. Phone Cameras Credited With Helping the World See Protests in Middle East. By uploading images of this week’s violence in Manama, the capital, to Web sites like YouTube and yFrog, and then sharing them on and , the protesters upstaged government accounts and drew worldwide attention to their demands.
A novelty less than a decade ago, the cellphone camera has become a vital tool to document the government response to the unrest that has spread through the Middle East and North Africa. Recognizing the power of such documentation, human rights groups have published guides and provided training on how to use cellphone cameras effectively.
“You finally have a video technology that can fit into the palm of one person’s hand, and what the person can capture can end up around the world,” said James E. Katz, director of the Rutgers Center for Mobile Communication Studies. In , cellphones were used to capture video images of the first protests in Sidi Bouzid in December, which helped spread unrest to other parts of the country. But journalists are not the only conduits. Through Protests, One Man Helps Define New Medium. Hide captionA shop in Cairo's Tahrir Square is spray-painted with the word "twitter" on Feb. 4, days after the Egyptian government blocked Internet access.
Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images A shop in Cairo's Tahrir Square is spray-painted with the word "twitter" on Feb. 4, days after the Egyptian government blocked Internet access. During the social-media-driven revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, many Americans discovered the social network Twitter for the first time. One of the most popular and prolific Twitter reporters is Sultan Al Qassimi, who tweeted minute-by-minute updates of the events in Egypt and Tunisia.
Qassimi is in constant motion. His body language matches the pace of his tweets. The 33-year-old businessman wrote the first draft of Middle East history in short sentences tapped out on his computer and his cell phone. "At the height — at the very peak — it was one every 45 seconds. But Qassimi wasn't even in Egypt. Hide captionSultan Al Qassimi's live Twitter page from Feb 17. Twitter. New Social Networks With Old Technology - What The Egyptian Shutdown Tells Us About Social Media. Abstract: Egypt is the latest in a series of countries to witness the powerful potential of modern social media to catalyse and mobilise people around social issues. The Egyptian government response was to have the internet and mobile networks completely shut down. This was, however, not the end of the role that social media ideas played in the events that followed. People inside and outside of Egypt collaborated to re-create the missing networks using the still-available technologies of landlines, dial-up and ham radio.
This paper argues that this use of pre-digital technologies to form the kinds of infrastructure afforded by modern social technologies is evidence of a radical change in people’s perceptions of their world and its connectedness. Social media has constituted a real change that goes beyond specific technologies. This flies in the face of many sceptical critics who argue that new technologies only reinforce old practices and social structures. Social Media and Activism. The Psychology of Social Media that Fuels Social Change. Even beforet Egyptian President Mubarak stepped down as protestors demanded, it was clear that Egyptian society has undergone a cataclysmic shift.
Much of this shift is due to the connectivity from new media technologies, such as Twitter and Facebook. Malcolm Gladwell has gotten a lot of flack for writing that social media isn’t really powerful enough to create real social change. As I (and many others) argued, that is patently wrong (See Psychology Today blog post “Four Ways Social Media Is Redefining Activism”). Egypt and Tunisia are excellent examples of why. Social change isn’t about the tools and it isn’t about how the relative “strength” of weak ties compared to other social movements.
(Note: It’s important to point out here that, contrary to popular interpretation, “strength” related to weak ties is not a descriptor of emotional engagement or attachment between ties like it sounds. In a recent Media Post article, Biz Stone put the power of social media rather succinctly: Connect: Protesters Use Google Moderator to Brainstorm Egypt's Future. Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who had an important role in Egypt's recent uprising, has used a product of his company to help sketch out the direction of the country's future. Ghonim has started a Google Moderator page for Egypt. Entitled, "Egypt 2.0, what does we need? What are our dreams?! " the page has 35,000 users so far. Together, they have listed more than 45,300 ideas. Contributors talk about a number of types of things. What was wrong with the way Egypt was run in the past? The most popular ideas float to the top of the page.
Ahmed Zidan, editor of Mideast Youth Arabic and ReadWriteWeb contributor summarized some of the most popular ideas for us. "Many popular ideas stress eduction, as they believe that the education of young kids is the most important investment to the future of the country. This really is ground-breaking, grass roots organization, expressed in the context of the social web. Special thanks to Ahmed Zidan. Other sources: Katie Jacobs Stanton. Revolution 2.0, phase two.
A long week ago (7 February), Egyptians had watched a young man weep on their TV screens. Wael Ghonim wept because he had just emerged from 12 days’ detention by state security. Because he hadn’t slept for 48 hours. Because he had been anxious about his parents and his wife, who had no news of his whereabouts, or condition, all that time. And because he had just learned of all the people who had been killed during the brutal repression of the protests which, as Admin of the "We are all Khaled Said" Facebook page, he had helped to trigger.
Egyptians watched him weep, and many wept with him. And the following day, the largest crowds yet descended on Tahrir Square, including many newcomers who were inspired by Ghonim’s tears to get down off the fence and join the protesters. Even at the time, the “Ghonim moment” seemed a decisive turning point. Ghonim’s TV appearance came at a crucial moment, just as the danger of the country being split in two was beginning to seem real. U.S. reaches out to Iranians in Farsi on Twitter. Twitter Feed Evolves Into a News Wire About Egypt. While people debated whether Web sites like Twitter were important in organizing protests in Tunisia and Egypt, Andy Carvin was organizing information about the protests in an innovative way. Andy Carvin of NPR used Twitter as a news wire about Egypt. Mr.
Carvin’s Twitter account was transformed into a personal news wire about Egypt and was widely praised in news media circles. By seeking out the voices of sources in Egypt and sharing them almost in real time on a social networking site, he “provided a hint of what news can look like in an increasingly networked media environment,” the Nieman Journalism Lab wrote in a blog post on Friday. For people who wanted to take the minute-by-minute pulse of a protest, Mr. His day job is at NPR, where he is a senior strategist who specializes in digital media. When attention turned to Egypt, he decided to use Twitter to the same effect. Why Social Media IS Helping Reinvent Activism. In a recent article in the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell critiqued social media’s contribution to actual change by claiming that it creates “slacktivisits”—i.e. a whole new generation of people who now have the opportunity to feel like an activist by simply clicking a button, but while in reality are doing very little.
Mashable, the Internet news blog covering social media news and tips, responded quickly to this article by posting a retort of its own defending the legitimacy of social media by citing many examples of successful philanthropy through social media platforms—examples that show how online activism can go beyond simply clicking a button. From President Obama’s extensive use of grassroots digital marketing to e-petitions that have helped change unjust laws and policies, the article demonstrates that one of social media’s biggest perks is its ability to organize a tremendous number of people in a simultaneous action—something that can make a big difference. Censorship of Cyber Space: Lessons from Egypt. The Social (Media) Revolution We Just Saw In Egypt. January 29th to February 4th - Cartoons of the Week - TIME.com. How We Use Social Media During Emergencies [INFOGRAPHIC] Revolution that began 18 days ago leads to Mubarak's ouster.
Did Facebook bring down Mubarak? Egyptian president steps down amidst groundbreaking digital revolution. From the Blogosphere to the Street: The Role of Social Media in the Egyptian Uprising. Wired and Shrewd, Young Egyptians Guide Revolt. Egypt: Social Media as a Life or Death Proposition. SPECIAL REPORT:Silencing Internet dissent amid tensions across the Middle East. Egyptians Gain a Voice With Social Media Service Used by Stars | Special English | Learning English. Kenneth Cole's Tone-Deaf Tweet! Vodafone's Coerced Texts! Salad Dressing Drug Charges! Business Misadventures in Egypt Multiply.
China, Twitter and 20-Year-Olds vs. the Pyramids. Facebook and YouTube Fuel the Egyptian Protests. #DemandAlJazeera: How Al Jazeera is using social media to cover Egypt—and distribute its content in the US. Why'd a Battle-Ready Mubarak Turn Egypt's Internet Back On? Stephen Balkam: Egyptians Demonstrate Digital Citizenship. Making sense of the internet and Egypt. How Egyptians Used Twitter During the January Crisis [INFOGRAPHIC] Noor Group DOWN: Egypt's Last Internet Service Provider Goes Offline. Palfrey in NY Daily News: Twitter and Facebook, step up – Egypt protests raise bar on corporate responsibility. How Journalists Are Using Social Media To Report on the Egyptian Demonstrations.
Is Egypt the next social media revolution? Google Executive Missing in Wake of Egypt Protests - Dispatch. Recap: 12 Stories of Egypt in Turmoil. How much did the Internet matter in Egypt? | Marketplace From American Public Media. Al Jazeera in Egypt is cable’s ‘Sputnik moment’ Revolutions: Don’t Shoot the Social Media Messenger. Al Jazeera English Blacked Out Across Most Of U.S. Egypt: A Nation Forced Offline. Dial-Up Provides Internet Access for Cut-Off Egypt (Updated) Despite Severed Connections, Egyptians Get Back Online - Nicholas Jackson - Technology. » One of Many Lessons to Learn From Egypt. Without Internet, Egyptians find new ways to get online. The Tweets Must Flow. Twitter Declares, "The Tweets Must Flow" We need a serious critique of net activism | Technology. Andrew McLaughlin: An Open Letter to Dr. Tarek Kamel, Minister of Communications and Information Technology of Egypt.
A Primer On Following Egyptian Protests On Twitter : The Two-Way. Reports say Egypt Web shutdown is coordinated, extensive. The role of the Internet as a platform for collective action grows. Spotlight on Social Media, Crowdsourced Translation, Egyptian Protests and Diplomacy. Visualizing Egypt's Internet Blackout [GRAPHIC] Inside the State Department’s Arab Twitter diplomacy. How Egypt Turned Off the Internet.