Page 54 - AIB | The Chanel | Issue 2 2011

54 | ISSUE 2 2011 | THE CHANNEL
THE CHANNEL | ANALYSIS
happening. His investigations even
enabled him to track down and
expose the author of the “Gay Girl
in Damascus” blog as an American
living in Scotland, after discovering
that the author was not known in
Damascus.
France24 and Al Jazeera provide
examples of broadcasters who
actively use citizens as reporters.
France24’s “Les Observateurs”
programme signs up those who are
interested in becoming a friend of
the station. Some are chosen by
editors to act as reporters on certain
topics or in certain areas of the
world. “Observateurs” have
provided important sources of
news on the uprisings. Al Jazeera
has similarly been using citizen
reporters but in a much more
focused way in key areas. They try
to anticipate areas of interest and
become involved with communities
on the ground. Since Al Jazeera has
had its satellites jammed, its offices
closed and some journalists
arrested, they have had to be
innovative in news gathering and
have even given Flipcams to some
people on the ground so that they
can provide video footage.
But in encouraging user input,
Al Jazeera have come up against
another challenge posed by using
social media – how to select good
content from a huge range of input.
During the Egyptian revolution
they received up to 400 videos per
day, requiring a significant increase
in their online team to deal with the
traffic and to extract information
from the background noise ‑ Esra
Dogramaci of Al Jazeera speaking
at the recent BBC Social Media
France24
and Al
Jazeera
actively
use
citizens as
reporters
“
”
significant urbanisation is allied to
high mobile phone penetration (e.g.
90% in Egypt and 95% in Tunisia –
please note: since many people
have more than one phone, a
penetration of 100% does not imply
that everyone has a phone). This
means that there are millions who
are ready and able to demonstrate
against their conditions and the
corruption of their rulers and they
have the tools in their hands to
organise protests.
Much has been written about the
extent to which social media has
been used, but a few examples
remind us of its impact:
• Asmaa Mahfouz posted videos
on YouTube challenging Egyptians
to go to Tahrir Square on January
25th. These acted as a catalyst for
the protests and her Facebook page
attracted 80,000 followers.
• There are 120,000 followers of
the “We are all Khaled Said” page
on Facebook which used the death
of a 28 year‑old Egyptian at the
hands of the police as a rallying cry
for the revolution.
• There have been 15,362 Tweets
that use the hashtag #ArabSpring &
34,789,924 Retweets, as shown in
the imaginative France24 YouTube
video “The Birds”.
• Freedom4566, which groups
together YouTube videos from
protestors in Syria, has received
220,000 views.
However, it is interesting to note
that the figures are generally in the
tens or hundreds of thousands, and
not the millions which often
measure the audience sizes of
traditional broadcasters, one of
whose roles is to amplify key
stories so that they reach a much
wider audience.
BREAKINGNEWS
Social media has immediacy and
spreads at the speed of the internet
but it still does not have the reach
of traditional broadcast media for
major international news. There
may be two billion people with
internet access, but they are still a
minority in the countries involved
in uprisings, many of whom listen
to or watch international broadcasts
for objective reporting of events in
their own countries.
Outside the Middle East, few
people would find details of the
uprisings on the internet unless
broadcasters were presenting them
as lead stories.
There is also the question of
language: although English is
currently the dominant language
for social media, even on topics
relating to the Arab Spring (see
Figure 1), broadcasters provide
news in the hundreds of languages
that their audience speak. In
addition, the average internet user
does not have the connections, time
or resources to know whom they
can trust when stories break,
whereas the broadcasters have
long, honourable traditions of
building up contacts, verifying
sources and authenticating news.
However, the use of social media
by broadcasters has brought new
challenges in verifying stories.
Andy Carvin of NPR in the US has
become known as a “curator” of
tweets dealing with the Arab
Spring. He knew the Middle East
well enough to have made contacts
with half a dozen key bloggers in
whom he built up trust. Their
output made him aware of the start
of the Tunisian uprising and he
began to monitor the increasing
online messages about uprisings in
the Middle East. Starting from his
core group, he reached out to their
contacts and gained a wider
picture, all the time questioning
them, asking for more details or for
verification, and building up an
overall picture of the reliable
sources and what was really