Global Internet Activism
Week#5 The Israel-Gaza Conflict:
Social Media Become the Informational Front Line
Trebor Scholz | LCST 4014 A | Spring 2009

Political Activism,
Advocacy, and Art Activism
week 2
week 1 Access, Censorship,
Social Media, and the
week 3
Alleged Democratization
Citizen Media: from
of Society
Seattle to South Korea
War and Social Media: Serbia
week 4 week 5
Social Media on the Informational Front
Line: The Israel-Gaza Conflict
week 6 Spring Break
week 7
War and Social Media: Counter-publics
Iran, Afghanistan in Iran
week 8 week 9
Cell phone-enabled
Citizen Media in China
week 12
activism: Philippines
Burma
week 11
week 10 Japan, Singapore
A Better World in Second Life?
week 14
One Laptop Per Child
week 13
Cyber Publics in India
week 15
Mobilization
Trebor Scholz | LCST 4014 A | Spring 2009

week 5
War and Social Media: Gaza
Required Readings:
Hans Magnus Enzensberger, \"Constituents of a Theory of the Media,\" John Thornton Caldwell, Electronic
Media and Technoculture (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000) 51-76.
Trebor Scholz | LCST 4014 A | Spring 2009

You may have seen this...

http://www.conceptwizard.com/conen/conflict_2.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv22Iz9qJCE

screen cast of:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2009/jan/03/israelandthepalestinians

http://www.france24.com/en/20090107-the-interview-tom-segev-israel-gaza-andrea-sanke
Tom Segev, Israeli historian and columnist for Haaretz
\"Opinion is widely divided on the war in Gaza: are Israel’s military operations against Hamas
justified actions of self defense or an abuse of military supremacy that violates human rights?\"

The Gaza Strip (Arabic: ‫ ﻗﻄﺎﻉ ﻏﺰﺓ‬transliteration:
Qiṭāʿ Ġazza/Qita' Ghazzah, Hebrew: ‫רצועת‬
‫ עזה‬It is about 41 kilometers (25 mi) long, and
between 6 and 12 kilometers wide.
Egypt governed the Gaza Strip from 1948-67.
Israel governed the Gaza Strip from 1967-2005.
It has about 1.4 million Palestinian residents.
Most are either refugees or descended from
refugees of the Palestinian exodus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gaza_Strip_map2.svg

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2009/jan/03/israelandthepalestinians
screen cast of:

Discussion Pages on Wikipedia

“Please be neutral when editing this highly sensitive article.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gaza%E2%80%93Israel_conflict#Battle_of_Gaza_.282007.29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view

Your Wiki Entry Counts
\"’American media has seen certain narratives form, and not just about Israel but about China, Iran
and France,\" he says. ‘We see the same stories being recycled over and over again in the
mainstream media because it fits the narrative they'd created.’\"
“Wikipedia, Shankbone says, is different because it ‘covers everything’ - the Palestinian side, the
Israeli side and everything in between.“
\"’American media has seen certain narratives form, and not just about Israel but about China, Iran
and France,’ he says. ‘We see the same stories being recycled over and over again in the
mainstream media because it fits the narrative they'd created.’\"
He is unfazed when he hears that the entry on Israel mentions the word \"occupation\" nine times, whereas
the entry on the Palestinian People mentions \"terror\" only once. \"It means only one thing: Israelis should
be more active on Wikipedia. Instead of blaming it, they should go on the site much more, and try and
change it.\"
David Shankbone
(leading editor for the online encyclopedia Wikipedia)
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/937991.html

With Media Locked out of the War Zone
YouTube and Facebook Become
the Information Front Line

http://palestinevideo.blogspot.com/2009/02/listening-post-gazas-internet-war-13.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEEUhgxmX8I

IDF VLOG UPDATE: Ground Forces Enter Gaza - Capt. Benjamin Rutland - 3 Jan. 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fZ2E_Tr8Hk

The latest news from Al Jazeera English on the violence in Gaza
http://twitter.com/AJGaza

YouTube channel of the Israel Defense Forces
http://www.youtube.com/user/idfnadesk

“The Jerusalem Post quotes Maj. Avital Leibovich, the
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/12/israels-info-wa.html
head of the Israeli Defense Forces' foreign press branch http://twitter.com/israelconsulate
on the digital media campaign. \"The blogosphere and
new media are another war zone,\" she says. \"We have
to be relevant there.\"

\"We hav 2 prtct R ctzens 2, only way fwd through neogtiations,
& left Gaza in 05. y Hamas launch missiles not peace?\"
\"We're not at war with the PAL people. we're at war
with a group declared by the EU& US a terrorist org\"
Israeli Consulate holds
press conferences
on Twitter
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/12/israels-info-wa.html
http://twitter.com/israelconsulate

http://twitter.com/GazaNews

http://electronicintifada.net/
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10277.shtml
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10264.shtml

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=gaza

http://twitter.com/QassamCount

http://fromgaza.blogspot.com/

2/25/09
http://www.bethlehemghetto.blogspot.com/Bethlehem Bloggers

http://english.aljazeera.net/

AlJazeera’s Struggle for Broader Appeal
http://www.iwantaje.net/hm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUh6xVlndhM
“This video shows an Israeli network anchor talking via cellphone to Palestinian doctor Izz el-Deen Aboul Aish,
who gave frequent interviews to the Israeli media, weeping with grief just after the death of three daughters
who died as collateral damage of Israel’s offensive.”
The comment section on YouTube became a platform for abusive exchanges.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/476393
Raid Gaza! Editorial Games and Timeliness
Tank you to Liz Losh for the reference! https://eee.uci.edu/faculty/losh/

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/476393
Raid Gaza! Editorial Games
Thank you to Liz Losh for the reference! https://eee.uci.edu/faculty/losh/

http://www.kongregate.com/games/amihanya/save-israel
Tank you to Liz Losh for the reference! http://jag.lcc.gatech.edu/blog/2009/01/raid-gaza-editorial-games-and-timeliness.html

http://www.kongregate.com/games/amihanya/save-israel

Facebook as Public Forum and
Pro-Democracy Tool
(NYT article “Revolution, Facebook-Style”)

The April 6 group participated in demonstrations about Gaza, some of which were coordinated on Facebook
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25bloggers-t.html
Egypt

April 6th General Strike
http://43arb.info/meit/?p=1138
“Online, members of the movement are casting votes on the Web site’s walls, publishing notes with their views
on the political situation and creating groups to draft a constitution for their movement. But what does it mean
to have a vibrant civil society on your computer screen and a police state in the street? When I spoke to Nora
Younis, she described the April 6 strike as a practice session for the new generation. “It’s a rehearsal for a
bigger thing,” she said. “Right now, we are just testing the power of each other.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25bloggers-t.html
Egypt

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?sid=a58d64cac059d7fc8e15a75e7e0e139c&gid=14138740311
Egypt

The Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism
“...dissidents thrive on sites, like Facebook, that are used primarily for more mundane purposes (like
exchanging pictures of cute cats). Authoritarian regimes can’t block political Facebook groups without
blocking all the “American Idol” fans and cat lovers as well.“ Ethan Zuckerman
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/08/the-cute-cat-theory-talk-at-etech/

“Facebook revealed a liberal undercurrent in Egyptian society,”
“In general, there’s this kind of apathy, a sense that there is nothing we can do to change Egyptian blogger
the situation. But with Facebook you realize there are others who think alike and share the Wael Nawara
same ideals. You can find Islamists there, but it is really dominated by liberal voices.” http://weekite.blogspot.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25bloggers-t.html

Facebook as a Pro-Democracy Tool?
“The social-networking site Facebook is being used for more than socializing. In Colombia, a Facebook page
dedicated to protesting the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, that country's largest rebel group, is helping
organize thousands of people in cities around the world.”
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18689653

Social Networking Platforms
as Sites of Conflict Mediation?

Stop the War's website has been disabled by hackers because of its
opposition to Israel's bombardment of Gaza, the campaign group has said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/technologynews/4226691/Stop-the-Wars-website-disabled-by-pro-Israeli-hackers.html

Arabs and Jews Refuse to be Enemies http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=52893913335&ref=nf

http://apps.facebook.com/qassamcount/
more than 70,000 Facebook users donated their status
QassamCount: Users donate their FB status update - each time Israel is hit by a rocket the status alerts to that.

“When you subscribe to this application, you will be donating to a counter media campaign on Facebook. This application will update
your status periodically with the numbers of Palestinians got killed and wounded in the Israeli ruthless genocide in Gaza. These numbers
have already exceeded hundreds and thousands versus only few tens of Israelis.”
http://apps.facebook.com/supportgaza.

over 700,000 members
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8454730966

http://www.facebook.com/inbox/#/group.php?sid=f4886ea5143b3eea05ee58d75bbc41c2&gid=2204594550

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=38158273505#/topic.php?uid=38158273505&topic=5803
organized by US State Department

Memory

“Al Jazeera is using an open-source software tool called
Ushahidi (Swahili for \"testimony\") for this online
reporting experiment. The program was created in early
2008, to document the post-election violence in Kenya.
Coders in Kenya, South Africa, Malawi, Ghana,
http://labs.aljazeera.net/warongaza/main
Netherlands and the United States have contributed to
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/01/getting-tweets.html
its development.”

http://www.gearthhacks.com/downloads/map.php?file=2542
http://www.gearthhacks.com/downloads/map.php?file=31231

http://www.palestineremembered.com/Gaza/SatelliteView.html

“For art to be 'unpolitical' means only to ally
itself with the 'ruling' group.”
Kleines Organon für das Theater, as translated in Brecht on Theatre (1964)
“Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!”
Bertolt Brecht * A response to the Nazi book burnings,
in \"To Posterity\" (1939) as translated by H. R. Hays (1947)

Horit Herman Peled is an Israeli media artist
http://web.macam.ac.il/~horit_a/august.htm#ho
http://www.horit.com/

Jacir spent her childhood in Saudi Arabia and then attended high school in Italy. She went on to earn her undergraduate degree from the
University of Dallas and her MFA from the Memphis College of Art. Currently, she divides her time between New York and Ramallah.
http://www.alexanderandbonin.com/artists/jacir/jacir.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Jacir

Read more:
See instructor’s bookmarks
http://delicious.com/trebor/gaza

Trebor Scholz
Blog: http://www.collectivate.net/journalisms
Delicious: http://del.icio.us/trebor