# Presentation: 212710

## iRevolution?

**iRevolution?**

**Patrick Meier**
**Harvard Humanitarian Initiative**

## What should we know about foreign reporting today? 

**What should we know about foreign reporting today?**

## What should we know about foreign reporting today? 

**What should we know about foreign reporting today?**

**Egypt - “Exposing Torture”**

**Notes:**
EGYPT

Egyptian Activists and Bloggers have largely succeeded in exposing abuses by egyptian police and their use of torture...

In, 2007 they posted a video of a police officer binding and sodomizing an Egyptian bus driver who tried to break up a dispute between police and another driver. The video helped contribute to the conviction of two policemen.

In 2007 leaked a video taken inside a police station showing interregators brutalizing a murder suspect. The woman is handcuffed and suspended from a stick while she’s begging and crying.

4. Egyptian blogger and digital activist Wael Abbas also reported on a mob of dozens of men molesting women down town Cairo during holidays in october 2006, an incident ignored by the Egyptian state media. Rose el-Youssef magazine, a pro-government publication, said that the report was Abbas's "sick fantasies“ and  The Ministry of Interior said that the harassment could not have happened, as it was not reported to the police

## What should we know about foreign reporting today? 

**What should we know about foreign reporting today?**

**Egypt - “Exposing Torture”**

**Tibet - “Media Blackout?”**

**Notes:**
TIBET

In March 2008 hundreds of Tibetan monks took to the streets in and near the Tibetan capital of Lhasa to protest Chinese rule. Although the heavily censored Chinese media refused to cover the story, both Tibetans and foreign tourists used the combination of mobile phone cameras and the Internet to get the news out.

Amateur cellphone photos and video clips showing what were described as confrontations between police and Tibetans protesting Chinese rule poured onto websites big and small, including those for major news media, Tibetan rights groups and tourist blogs.

## What should we know about foreign reporting today? 

**What should we know about foreign reporting today?**

**Egypt - “Exposing Torture”**

**Tibet - “Media Blackout?”**

**China - “Live-Twittered Arrest”**

**Notes:**
CHINA

In August 2008, Chinese Citizen Reporter Zuola Zhou used his Blackberry phone and twitter to send live updates of his situation as he was detained and carted off by government security. He kept sending to sending out a short messages as he was being escorted from his home into a vehicle and driven off: 

His twitter contacts spread the messages, and sites such as GlobalVoices were publishing live updates of his situation...

## Egypt - “Exposing Torture”

**Egypt - “Exposing Torture”**

**Tibet - “Media Blackout?”**

**China - “Live-Twittered Arrest”**

**Morocco ‘08 - “Exposing Abuse”**

**Notes:**
MOROCCO

Documenting Abuse and putting in question official stories

In 2008, The small southern port city of Sidi Ifni in Morocco has  seen recurrent clashes between the country’s security forces and protesters denouncing rampant unemployment and corruption. While Le Matin, the country’s leading pro-government newspaper was headlining that calm and normalcy had returned to the city a video taken using a cell phone camera was posted on Youtube showing the shocking brutality of police forces and the disproportionate use of force and violence during arrests. 

## Egypt - “Exposing Torture”

**Egypt - “Exposing Torture”**

**China - “Live-Twittered Arrest”**

**Morocco ‘08 - “Exposing Abuse”**

**Kenya ‘08 - “Election Violence”**

**Notes:**
KENYA

Kenyan bloggers come out in full force to monitor the elections and document the violent aftermath. Ushahidi is developed by bloggers to crowdsource crisis information and map this information dynamically. An empirical study by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) shows that citizen bloggers in Kenya reported on increasing tensions well before the mainstream media, which tended to report when body counts were available. Bloggers received the majority of their information via SMS from trusted social/family networks. Comments sections on blogs were used for quasi-real time updates and local radio stations began reading blog entries.

## Egypt - “Exposing Torture”

**Egypt - “Exposing Torture”**

**Morocco ‘08 - “Exposing Abuse”**

**Kenya ‘08 - “Election Violence”**

**Mumbai ‘08 - “Terror Twittered”**

**Notes:**
MUMBAI

Mumbai is so well wired that this is much more analagous to the London terror attacks than to refugees in the DRC, for instance - this is what disasters look like in highly mediated, participatory environments. (This is an upside and a downside - lots more voices, but also more incorrect information and rumor.) 

During natural lulls in events more “filling of air time” on Twitter just like TV. 

Did authorities really ask twitterers to stop? Several tweeted that this was a fake story. But Murad Ahmed reported otherwise in Times of London — although he didn’t quote authorities only tweeters.

## DigiActive.org

**Morocco ‘08 - “Exposing Abuse”**

**Kenya ‘08 - “Election Violence”**

**Mumbai ‘08 - “Terror Twittered”**

**DigiActive.org**

**Notes:**
Source: DigiActive.org

## A few thoughts

## Slide 11

## 1. Foreign reporting to disappear 

**1. Foreign reporting to disappear **

**Notes:**
1. Foreign reporting is going to be done to a great extent by locals, as well as by news services subsidized by governments and foundations, and smaller, creative, project-based ventures. That's not entirely bad. Whether what comes next is good depends on a lot of creative thinking and innovative projects,.

Globalization, including cheap travel, outsourcing, and communications technology advances, mean it will be easier and faster than ever to live and work and travel around the world. This changes the frame of what foreign news is, and how it's used. 

## 2. Mainstream accepting new media

**2. Mainstream accepting new media**

**1. Foreign reporting to disappear **

**Notes:**
2. The mainstream media seems much more willing to accept information and witness reports from social media websites and citizen journalists.

## 2. Mainstream accepting new media

**2. Mainstream accepting new media**

**1. Foreign reporting to disappear **

## 3. Ethics &standards of new media

**3. Ethics &standards of new media**

**2. Mainstream accepting new media**

**1. Foreign reporting to disappear **

**Notes:**
3. There is a lot of excitement about cit. media right now, but I'm wondering how long it will take before these moral issues (cf Japan) start coming up.

When mainstream media *really* pull out of foreign news, I expect that people will start (and already have to some degree) subjecting cit. media reporters to the same standards they do mainstream media,e.g. what they should and should not cover, how they should cover it, etc. 

## 1. Foreign reporting to disappear 

**1. Foreign reporting to disappear **

**3. Ethics &standards of new media**

**2. Mainstream accepting new media**

## 4. Translation be more important

**4. Translation be more important**

**1. Foreign reporting to disappear **

**3. Ethics &standards of new media**

**2. Mainstream accepting new media**

**Notes:**
4. Important to point out that language and translation will play a major role once you take the mass media institutions away, since they used to make language barriers "disappear" from international news.

## Slide 18

## 5. Old and new integrated

**5. Old and new integrated**

**Notes:**
5. Not a question of either/or but using all tools available.

## patrick.meier@gmail.com

**Blog:**
- _[www.iRevolution.wordpress.com](http://www.iRevolution.wordpress.com/)_

- _[patrick.meier@gmail.com](mailto:patrick.meier@gmail.com)_
**Twitter @patrickmeier**