Twitter Revolution… Again?
UPDATED Incepe sa fie plictisitor. Nici nu s-a terminat bine prima “revolutie Twitter”, cea din Republica Moldova, ca o luam de la capat. E clar, a devenit trendy sa faci revolutie pe Twitter. Lumea vorbeste la fel de mult despre Twitter ca si despre evenimentele din Iran. Pe vremuri, intr-o revolutie, rolul central ii revenea unui lider, acum, in lipsa liderilor ne multumim cu tehnologia. La fel ca in cazul evenimentelor din Moldova, forma a inlocuit fondul. Nu este o revolutie, decat poate pentru Twitter.
Un fapt este ca rolul acestui serviciu creste: Twitterul chiar si-a reprogramat o revizie tehnica, pentru a nu intrerupe fluxul de vesti din Iran. Toata media occidentala a acordat spatii largi rolului Twitterului si al celorlalte platforme web 2.0, in manifestatiile din Iran. Incepand cu The Times, BBC, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, CNN etc.
The Huffington Post a “facut” liveblogging , Andrew Sullivan livetweeting.
Fata de evenimentele din Moldova, o evolutie pozitiva a fost existenta unei liste cu persoane care (se banuieste ca) transmit pe Twitter din Iran. E mai bine decat nimic.
Marile retele media au inceput de asemenea, sa interactioneze mai frecvent cu cei care transmit. Doua exemple, BBC si Al Jazeera:
Parerile (impartite) despre rolul Twitterului, ale unor specialisti recunoscuti, le aveti mai jos.
O concluzie ar fi ca Twitterul este o sursa complementara de informatie, care trebuie tratata cu mare atentie.
Daca aveti linkuri de la articole pe acest subiect scrise de autori romani, puteti sa le adaugati la comentarii.
“As Iranians took to the streets over the weekend to protest the country’s recent election, thousands of users of Twitter were staging a protest of their own: against CNN for not devoting as much attention to the Iranian situation as Twitter users wanted.
The hashtag #CNNFail became one of the top trending topics on Twitter Saturday night, as Twitterers expressed their outrage over CNN airing repeats of feature interviews instead of live coverage of the protests.”
1) People still want news
2) People want international news
3) People will get upset when they don’t find news where they expect it
4) People will go wherever they need to get news
5) People want to participate in the news
6) If you can’t afford to cover the world 24/7, empower your viewers and readers to help cover it for you
7) Create and test a system for reader submissions and page editing before a crisis happens
8 ) Plan for rerouting news to the public should a medium fail or be blocked
9) Plan for rerouting info from the public, as well
10) Close the loop by reporting on your efforts
“On Twitter, hundreds of updates tagged “iranelection” appeared each hour. A steady stream of photos and witness reports came from one Twitter user, persiankiwi. He sat at his computer in Tehran, as friends fed him information on the protests.”
“Twitter and Facebook and blogs are primarily for the protestors to reach outside Iran, not in the country itself. Furthermore, internet speed has apparently slowed to a crawl and mobile phone networks (and SMS capability) has been severely circumscribed. So, I’d be cautious about accepting at face value the accounts celebrating this as a “blogged” or “twittered” revolution!”
“C’est en grande partie par twitter que l’information a circulé, avec un formidable relais des blogueurs et webcitizens américains, de ces organismes en réseau, animés par la même génération qu’en Iran (où 60% de la population a moins de 30 ans). Une critique des media, et de la faible couverture des événements par CNN notamment, s’est développée de manière ultra massive.”
John Sides, Department of Political Science, George Washington University
“If the question is simply, “Amidst an international crisis, can you learn things on Twitter (or blogs) that you can’t learn in the MSM?”, the answer will always be “Yes.” But if the question is: “How much of what is on Twitter in such circumstances is truly reliable and useful?”, then the answer is less clear. The same is true if the question is: “How can we knit together the fragmented reports available on Twitter to summarize what is going on?” Suddenly, the MSM becomes more useful.
If the topic is “disseminating information,” then Twitter can basically produce one of three outcomes:
1) “Good” information. The key element of “good” is truthful, it seems to me.
2) “Bad” information. This will be inaccurate or misleading.
3) Irrelevant information.
Most of Twitter is #3, in the sense that it’s not concerned with political news. That’s fine. If 2 million people want to “follow” Ashton Kutcher, I can’t stop them.
The bigger question is whether and how we can verify that politically relevant information is accurate. My take on Twitter-philia is that it selects on #1 and ignores #2.”
Nathan Hodge, Wired
“Andrew Exum wonders whether our enthusiasm for social media can color our coverage of events. “Are we simply finding common cause with a technologically-assisted minority and confusing it for a popular movement?” he asks. “One observer of the Moldova protests noticed the way in which we Westerners get fascinated by “Twitter revolutions” because, hey! We use Twitter too!”
Henry Farrell, Department of Political Science, George Washington University
“First – while Twitter (like SMS) can be used to organize protests on the fly, I haven’t yet seen any evidence that it made a substantial difference to organizing efforts in Iran. This is not to say that it didn’t – but we need good evidence (which will require Persian language expertise, obviously) of correlation between specific bursts of Twitter communication and forms of social protest etc before we can really be sure that there was an effect.
Second – it is all very nice if left and rightwing bloggers agree on the normative valence of the apparent election fraud – but does it actually matter? Almost certainly not – unless it reshapes US policy, which, in this instance, it doesn’t seem to be doing.
There is a reason why coup-plotters have traditionally tried for the radio and television stations. But there is also a tendency among US journalists and commentators to fetishize sophisticated technologies when very often, it is decidedly unsophisticated methods of communicating solidarity (such as pot-banging) and organization (leaflets, posters) that work best.”
“But instead, it looks like the Internet is the medium for a lot of unfounded rumors by a lot of (understandably) passionate people in Iran. This is a chaotic situation, and rumors flourish in that environment. I’ve been there: I remember spending a morning in Iraq, during the war, trying to track down confirmation that Tariq Aziz was killed in a hail of bullets trying to run a roadblock while attempting to flee into Kurdistan. Everyone was convinced it had happened. Later in the day he gave a press conference to demonstrate that he was still alive. In Serbia in 2001, as word began to spread that Slobodan Milosevic was going to be arrested soon, a crowd gathered in his backyard, and rumors spread several times that Milosevic had killed himself, or that it was the CIA who was going to make the arrest.
But in the pre-Twitter age, those sorts of rumors petered out quickly if they weren’t true. If they were true, then journalists found out about them and reported them as fact. Now, the latter is still happening, which is why the journalists in Tehran now are writing pieces with considerably more nuance than what you see on blogs. But the former isn’t true any more – rumors can have a longer lifespan on a network of sympathetic blogs, Facebook postings and Twitter feeds.”
“So why are we also monitoring social media like the microblogging service Twitter and linking to its search results for the Iran elections?
Simply put, it’s because among the various impediments to reporting, there’s a huge ongoing, informed and informative discussion in Iran between people who care deeply about what is happening there and who are themselves monitoring everything they can, then circulating the most useful information and links.
I’ve written here before about our use of Twitter in another context, and spoke then about the need for us (BBC News) to exercise care and to check information before publishing it as fact – and that remains true. We’ll check anything we want to include in our account of what is actually happening. But we also want to link what we do with the flow of discussion, links, rumours and reports which is providing another channel for people following the story.”
“As the regime shut down other forms of communication, Twitter survived. With some remarkable results. Those rooftop chants that were becoming deafening in Tehran? A few hours ago, this concept of resistance was spread by a twitter message.”
“The Twitter technology added two elements to this. Number one — as Iranian authorities shut down internet servers, it allowed younger protesters, particularly those affiliated with universities in Tehran, to organize and to follow updates by Mir Hossein Mousavi; by spreading the word about the location of government crackdowns and the threat of machine-gun-wielding soldiers, it probably saved the lives of any number of would-be revolutionaries. We don’t know how many Iranians belong to Twitter; there seems to have been about two dozen active voices from Tehran, but if we assume a multiplier effect — these 24 people can coordinate with their 20 friends — the use of the technology as a central organizing hub that circumvented official channels of communication cannot be understated.
The second element is less important but more relevant to politics here at home. Given the popularity of Twitter with American political activists on the right and the left, and given the near-universal language of the Iranian twitterers’ cry from freedom, it was almost inevitable that prominent political activists here would retweet and take up their cause. By the end of the weekend, a whole meta-narrative about media coverage had been created, complete with a #cnnfail hashtag; (CNN’s response: debate the role of twitter.)”
Ruth Barnett, Twitter correspondent Sky News
“Although it is technically impossible to verify who these users are, we believe we have isolated some who, research suggests, are messaging from the country itself or are in close contact with people there.
We have monitored to see how often their information is contradicted.
Many have had profiles for some time, and other bloggers had already included them on lists of Iranian users, well before Twitter became the lead item on news agendas.
Over the last few days, these users have reported what they say they have seen, the rumours they have heard, and their feelings as events unfold.”
“On CNN’s AC360 blog, Elise Labott wrote that the State Department is “paying very close attention to Twitter and other sites to get information on the situation in Iran…officials say the Internet, and specifically social-networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, are providing the United States with critical information in the face of a crackdown on journalists by Iranian authorities.”
“Twitter is, far and away, the best social media tool for second-by-second information on what’s happening in Iran. People on-the-ground and across the globe are chatting about every breaking update, every news item, and every story they find. However, all this chatter can be overwhelming
Please note that while Twitter is the fastest source of breaking news, it’s also sometimes a source of misinformation, and has a poor signal-to-noise ratio.
Social media comes fast, and because of that, the information can be overwhelming. Use filters and tools to help you understand what’s happening in real-time. If you’re looking for background on the situation, get yourself up-to-speed using Wikipedia (Iranian presidential elections 2009 and 2009 Iranian election protests are being constantly updated).”
Daniel W. Drezner, professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University
“Twitter is serving two different purposes in Iran right now. Its first role is as a coordination device for Iranian supporters of Mousavi — much like events in Moldova from a couple of months ago.
Twitter’s second role is as a source of information for outside observers — indeed
It’s merely to suggest that life is a bit more complex than simple memes of “this new information technology is supplanting all prior forms of information technology!”
Kevin Drum , MotherJones
“I followed the events of the weekend via three basic sources. The first was cable news, and as everyone in the world has pointed out, it sucked. Most TV news outlets have no foreign bureaus anymore; they didn’t know what was going on; and they were too busy producing their usual weekend inanity to care. Grade: F.
The second was Twitter, mostly as aggregated by various blogs. This had the opposite problem: there was just too much of it; it was nearly impossible to know who to trust; and the overwhelming surge of intensely local and intensely personal views made it far too easy to get caught up in events and see things happening that just weren’t there. It was better than cable news, but not exactly the future of news gathering. Grade: B-.
The third was the small number of traditional news outlets that do still have foreign bureaus and real expertise. The New York Times. The BBC. Al Jazeera. A few others. The twitterers were a part of the story that they reported, but they also added real background, real reporting, and real context to everything. Grade: B+. Given the extremely difficult reporting circumstances, maybe more like an A-.”
Clay Shirky, NYU professor:
“I’m always a little reticent to draw lessons from things still unfolding, but it seems pretty clear that … this is it. The big one. This is the first revolution that has been catapulted onto a global stage and transformed by social media
I’ve been saying this for a while — as a medium gets faster, it gets more emotional. We feel faster than we think. But Twitter is also just a much more personal medium. Reading personal messages from individuals on the ground prompts a whole other sense of involvement.”
“If you really want to know what is happening in Iran, go online. Tonight, the brilliant Lindsey Hilsum from Channel 4 News had an exclusive interview with an opposition politician and great pictures of her in the heart of the swelling demonstrations. But she was unable to file a commentary or join Jon Snow live for the programme because of technical obstacles and Iranian restrictions. Meanwhile, Sky News were live in London with their Twitter correspondent who was, at least, able to direct viewers to the plethora of Iranian correspondents linked through the microblogging service.
You can judge for yourself how reliable they were. Some had websites, some gave some background information. As Turi Munthe points out in the comment to this article, the Twitter-users tend to be richer and more pro-Western and so they are not representative.
Wilder gossip flew around but generally it was what you would expect from individual voices trying to get a handle on a fast-moving, complicated story: selective, personal, compelling, immediate.
Inevitably, an information service like Twitter gives a particular character to the reporting of an event like this. It can feel frantic, sporadic, uncontextualised, random, personalised, unchecked.”
Richard Sambrook, Director of BBC Global News
Tot el spune “the process of fact-checking and verifying UGC in the case of Iran and other news stories is a return to basic journalistic skills and editorial judgement.
In cases where a valuable submission is made that cannot be verified, the corporation is working to find ways of presenting the process in transparent way. This will help users understand provenance of content and the impact that might have on the material, he said.
Newsgathering and distributing content via social media channels is a growing part of the BBC’s operations, he said, but there are ongoing discussions in regards to how much investment should be made in this area given its relatively small audience.”
Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator la Financial Times, prezent pe Twitter din4 noiembrie 2008
“Still, while I think Twitter gives a good sense of the atmosphere in Iran I cannot say that I felt espescially enlightened after reading all these tweets. The first and most obvious problem is that I don’t know who any of these people are – so it’s very difficult to gauge the accuracy of what they are reporting. Second, there is a limit to how much information you can convey in the requisite 140 characters – and, as for context or analysis, forget about it. I have found good reporting and opinion pieces and even the comments on my blog, rather more illuminating.”
Nicholas Thompson , Wired
“This afternoon, I emailed UCSD professor Babak Rahimi, the author of “Internet & Politics in Post-revolutionary Iran” and someone who is in Tehran right now covering the events. I asked what he thought of my hunch that we in the Western press are over-hyping the impact of Twitter. Here’s what he said:
“I very much agree with you. The Twitter factor is present, but not as significant as, say, cell phone or social networking sites… [granted, it's hard to separate these out -- nms] I just wonder (or worry) how the U.S. media is projecting its own image of Iran into what is going here on the ground.”
“La vitesse de diffusion des tweets peut être puissante. Par exemple, Sacha et moi, avons à nous deux un réseau de plusieurs milliers de personnes, car nous diffusons sur toutes les plateformes sociales et augmentons ainsi nos audiences. A cela s’ajoute plusieurs de nos proches comme Tatiana, amis ou contacts. Rapidement, certains messages touchent des milliers de personnes. Et quand certains atteignent les médias, bien sûr, cela touche des millions ou des centaines de millions de personnes.
Accéder à ce flux de commentaires ou d’informations est rapide. Pour en extraire du sens ou de la valeur ajoutée, il faut du temps, le vôtre, pour apprendre à identifier des sources, et le temps de vos contacts qui participent au filtrage et à la validation. Cet investissement de temps partagé porte ses fruits puisqu’il permet de se repérer dans cette forêt vierge.
Ce qui change aussi la donne, si on fait une comparaison avec les événements de Tiananmen en 1989, c’est que la frustration est beaucoup moins grande quand on peut discuter avec des personnes sur place et leur porter une aide à distance, comme à cet étudiant qui a demandé à Tatiana de contacter CNN. En quelques dizaines de minutes, elle a écrit un mail et plusieurs autres personnes ont repris le texte pour écrire à la rédaction. Les réseaux sociaux impliquent l’utilisateur. Chacun est un canal.”
“Tweets from “Change for Iran” were among several that offered real time updates: “…my friend saying more than 100 students arrested, I can’t confirm this but the numbers are high. bastards just attacked us for no reason, I lost count of how much tear gas they launched at us! …we have now some students with urgent need of medical attention I’m calling out to all ppl who can come here don’t leave us.”
Some Iranians are already veterans on social networking sites with loyal followings. They offer the world a unique voice: free, unfiltered and very different from what the Islamic Republic of Iran’s media propaganda offers viewers and readers.”
“We may be prone to embrace the thesis that the “Twitter revolution’’ is shaking down the authoritarian fixtures of Iran simply because we know so much about the online activities of Moussavi’s supporters – and almost nothing about those of conservative hard-liners. That their voices are missing from Twitter does not mean they are not relying on the same new media tools to mobilize their own supporters; they simply do it in Farsi and on local sites – we simply do not know where to look.”
“I am not going to call this the Twitter Revolution. That’s far too cute a handle for the dramatic and dangerous uprising. It was not tweets that brought Iranians into the street to protest a rigged election. “Tools don’t drive revolutions,” says even a Netizen like John Palfrey, co-author of “Born Digital.” “Revolutions happen and people use any tools they have.”
As for power, there’s a cartoon showing a protester holding his cell phone up to a mullah beating a protester and warning, “Stop or I’ll Tweet.” If this is a Twitter Revolution, the score so far is Despots 1, Twitter 0. As Palfrey says, “Bullets are more powerful than bytes.”
And yet, this has been an extraordinary moment for the new media, a coming-out party of sorts. If the searing image of Vietnam was the AP photo of a girl stripped naked by napalm, if the image of Tiananmen Square was a young man facing down tanks, well, the iconic image of Iran is a cell phone video of Neda Agha Soltan dying on the streets of Tehran. And this time the message was in the momentum. The mournful video was passed from a cell phone in Tehran to an e-mail address in Europe, then to Facebook and YouTube and finally CNN. All in a matter of hours.
Journalism is famously described as “the first rough draft of history.” But the history of this Iranian moment is a first, rough hailstorm of bits and bytes, tweets and texts. In the tweet of Mousavil388: “One Person=One Broadcaster.”
The Not-Quite-Twitter Revolution shows all the virtues and vices of the Internet. The ease and flow of information. The difficulty of knowing its accuracy and meaning. It’s like searching for medical advice in an online world of quacks and cures. If there’s anything we have learned, it’s that the need for guides—and dare I say trusted guides—is greater than ever.”
“Errors are amplified in this media environment because most Twitter followers and bloggers aren’t so much validating and confirming their facts as they are reinforcing an opinion or statement they already agree with. But while the social media sphere is a business of corroboration for regular people, it should not remain so for journalists.
The advantage of Twitter is that it is the simplest source for breaking news stories. The disadvantage of Twitter is that it is the simplest source for breaking news stories. Getting back to the Iran coverage, while mainstream news organizations were waiting for their international correspondents to get back with deep, in-depth analysis, Twitter was already overflowing with content, some of it not necessarily erroneous, but certainly wanting in context and depth, and very decidedly green.”
“Check the source” may be the first rule of journalism. But in the coverage of the protests in Iran this month, some news organizations have adopted a different stance: publish first, ask questions later. If you still don’t know the answer, ask your readers.
CNN encourages viewers to upload pictures and observations to iReport.com, its Web site for citizen journalism. Every upload is posted automatically on iReport.com, but each is studied before being shown on television.
In the vetting process, CNN contacts the person who posted the material, asks questions about the content and tries to confirm its veracity. Lila King, the executive in charge of iReport, said the staff members try to “triangulate the details” of an event by corroborating stories with multiple iReport contributors in a given area. Farsi speakers at CNN sometimes listened intently to the sound from the protest videos, discerning the accents of Iranian cities and transcribing the chants and screams.”
Comments
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