Slides used in undergraduate media studies module at University of Sunderland For the YouTube videos on the following slides skip to the following sections: #34 - 9:00 -11:30 #38 - 9:50-11:30

1. Networked journalism and the Arab
Spring
#mac309
@rob_jewitt
1

2. 2
John Gilmore
 “The Net interprets censorship as damage and
routes around it”
 TIME magazine (6 Dec 1993)

3. 3
Outline
1. Networked journalism
2. The Twitter revolution?
Lessons from Iran
3. The Arab Spring and
activism

4. 4
Transformation of journalism
“In the 20th Century making the news was almost
entirely the province of journalists… The economics
of publishing and broadcasting created
large, arrogant institutions – call it Big Media…
Big media … treated the news as a lecture. We
told you what the news was…. Tomorrow’s news
reporting and production will be more of a
conversation, or a seminar…” (2004: xiii)

5. 5
US Airways #1549 2009
Mumbai 2008
Asian Tsunami 2004
London 7/7 2005

6. 6
Networked journalism
 A term that has been floating around for some
time…
 Jeff Jarvis (2006)
 Journalism professor at CUNY Graduate School of
Journalism; blogger; writer
 Charlie Beckett (2008)
 Director of Polis, at the London School of Economics;
writer; former broadcast editor at BBC, ITN & C4

7. 7
Networked journalism
 Jeff Jarvis (2006)
 “Networked journalism” takes into account the
collaborative nature of journalism now: professionals
and amateurs working together to get the real
story, linking to each other across brands and old
boundaries to share
facts, questions, answers, ideas, perspectives. It
recognizes the complex relationships that will make
news. And it focuses on the process more than the
product.

8. 8
Networked journalism
 Charlie Beckett (2008)
 The idea that traditional journalism opens itself up to
the public. It shares the production process from start
to finish. It uses new technologies to include the
citizen in every aspect of news-
gathering, production and publication. It means
using a lot of jargon like crowd-sourcing, social
networking, wikis and Twittering. Many of these
techniques build on existing journalism methods and
are already out there. But it will also require a
participatory revolution in the way we make the
news.

9. 9
Networked journalism
 Charlie Beckett (2010)
 By „Networked Journalism‟ I mean a synthesis of
traditional news journalism and the emerging forms
of participatory media enabled by Web 2.0
technologies such as mobile
phones, email, websites, blogs, micro-blogging, and
social networks

10. 10
Social media revolutions?
Twitter
revolution
Facebook
revolution

11. 11
#iranelection
 A disparate series of
events, reports, protests, accounts, links, stories, et
c across multiple media platforms by social
agents seeking to redress a perceived and
actual danger

12. 12
Top Twitter Trends of 2009
 “The terms #iranelection, Iran and Tehran were
all in the top-21 of Trending Topics, and
#iranelection finished in a close second behind
the regular weekly favorite #musicmonday.”
 Abdur, Dec 15 2009

13. 13

14. 14
10th Iranian election, aka:
 Green Revolution
 Sea of Green
 Twitter Revolution
 Persian Awakening

15. 15
June 12: The Election
 Official (disputed!) results:
 Ahmadinejad = 24.5 million votes (62.6%)
 Mousavi = 13.2 million votes (33.7%)
 Over 80% voter turnout
 Both claimed they had secured majority of (58-60%)
vote

16. 16

17. 17
Other social media
 Wikipedia
 YouTube
 Flickr

18. 18
June 13-14: Protests
 Mainstream media fingered for poor coverage =
#CNNFail
 Al Jazeera English charges Iranian government of
direct censorship
 Al Arabiya‟s Tehran office shut down
 NBC News in Tehran raided
 BBC World Service claim signal jammed

19. 19
Twitter Search #IranElection

20. 20
Other social media
 Wikipedia
 YouTube
 Flickr

21. 21
June 15-18: Escalation
 Rumours of Mousavi‟s arrest flood the web
 Supreme Ayatolla Khomeini initiates partial recount of
votes
 Iranian football team wear green armbands in game vs
South Korea
 US Govt asks Twitter to postpone its scheduled downtime
 Ministry of Culture issues a directive banning foreign
media from leaving their offices

22. 22
Other social media
 Wikipedia
 YouTube
 Flickr
 Facebook

23. 23
June 19-21: Violence
 Bloodiest days of violence across the weekend
 Social media becomes the main way for citizens to
communicate and organise in face of media
censorship
 Shooting of Neda Soltani by Basij forces becomes a
rallying cry against the government
 State run television reports 10 killed in Tehran over
the weekend

24. 24
June13-20th: Censorship

25. 25
Twitter Search #IranElection

26. 26
Other social media
 Wikipedia
 YouTube
 Flickr
 Facebook

27. 27
Some dangers for users
 Twitter being used for misinformation
 Twitter being monitored by state authorities
(retweet function)

28. 28
Remediation = retweet?

29. 29
The Arab Spring
Revolutionary
wave of protests
throughout the
MENA
region, beginning
on 18th Dec 2010
following self-
immolation of
Mohamed Bouazizi

30. 30
Tunisia
 Corrupt officials under rule of President Zine El
Abidine Ben Ali
 High unemployment, inflation, police
brutality, and lack of free speech
 Mainstream media censorship

31. 31
Sidi Bouzid
Mohammed Bouazizi

32. 32
Sidi Bouzid
Mohammed Bouazizi

33. 33
Tunisia
 17th Dec 2010 – Mohamed Bouazizi‟s self-
immolation in Sidi Bouzid

34. 34
The role of Facebook

35. 35
John Gilmore
 “The Net interprets censorship as damage and
routes around it”
 TIME magazine (6 Dec 1993)

36. 36
Tunisia
 17th Dec 2010 – Mohamed Bouazizi‟s self-
immolation in Sidi Bouzid
 18th-24th street protests result in public being shot
in Bouziane
 Protests spread nationally, engulfing Tunis by 27th
 14th Jan 2011 – President Ben Ali flees into exile

37. 37
Egypt
 Jan 25th 2011 - Popular uprising began

38. 38
Egypt

39. 39
Net neutrality?
 Small team of engineers from Twitter
and SayNow created a voice-to-tweet
service
 @speak2tweet

40. 40
Egypt
 Jan 25th 2011 - Popular uprising began
 26th Jan – Internet and mobile services shut down
 28th Jan – Hundreds of thousands protest across
Egypt after Friday prayers
 29th Jan – Military presence in Cairo increased
 2nd Feb – “Battle of the Camel” in Tahrir Square
 11th Feb – Mubarak resigns, Armed Forces take over

41. 41
Revolutions were tweeted
 On Sunspace
 Focus on Tunisa and Egpyt protests
 Analyses different „information flows‟
 Measuring different actors impact and
influence
 “news on Twitter is being co-constructed by
bloggers and activists alongside journalists”

42. 42
Conclusion
 Civic activism can be supported by coordinated
internet activism
 Internet “revolutions” may be somewhat
problematic
 Depending on circumstances, social media and
networked journalism contributes to a hybrid and
dynamic flow of information.

43. 43
In seminars
1. Identify an example whereby networks have
been used to break a news story before the
mainstream news media (it doesn't have to be
about the Arab Spring!)
2. Identify any advantages or disadvantages of
information bypassing mainstream media
channels

44. 44
In seminars
 “One possible reading of the current situation on the
ground in Tehran is that, despite all the political
mobilisation facilitated by social media, the Iranian
government has not only survived, but has, in
fact, become even more authoritarian”
 Evgeny Morozov, 2010, Prospect Magazine
1. Listen to the interview (link) with Evgeny Morozov (from 7
mins)
 To what extent is he right (or wrong) to be skeptical about the
power of social media?