Ignoring social media was the downfall of the Ben Ali regime in
Tunisia
John Naughton
Sunday January 23 2011
The Observer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jan/23/social-networking-rules-ok
The New Yorker recently ran a terrific article [http://
www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/01/10/110110fa_fact_maass" title="]
by Peter Maass about one of the most-reported moments in the Iraq war:
the toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein [http://
www.guardian.co.uk/gall/0,,933922,00.html" title="toppling of the
statue of Saddam Hussein] in Firdos Square, opposite the Palestine
Hotel in Baghdad. You will doubtless recall the TV footage ? a mob of
excited Iraqis, helmeted US marines, an M88 Hercules tow truck
equipped with a crane, the noose around Saddam's neck, a gentle tug
from the M88 and ? bingo! ? the evil dictator's likeness crashes to
the ground. The Iraqis gather round, shouting exultantly and slapping
the brazen head with their shoes.
The message was clear: the Iraqis welcomed their liberation ? and
their liberators. The neocon mantra about US forces being greeted with
flowers by a grateful populace was right after all. Job done; next
step democracy.
Er, not quite. Maass's article tells the whole story of what was,
effectively, a pseudo-event that took place in front of the hotel
housing the majority of the media then in Baghdad. "Very few Iraqis
were there," he writes. "If you were at the square, or if you watch
the footage, you can see, on the rare occasions long shots were used,
that the square was mostly empty. You can also see, from photographs
as well as video, that much of the crowd was made up of journalists
and marines."
So much for journalism being "the first draft of history". It's more
often the first draft of misapprehension, especially if the internet
is involved. The story is always the same: something unexpected
happens in the real world; journalists notice that some of the people
involved are users of the web/mobiles/Facebook/Twitter (delete as
appropriate); the unexpected is then labelled "the Facebook/Twitter/
smartphone (delete as etc) revolution/protest/demonstration/election".
The latest example is the current political upheaval in Tunisia, which
has already been excitably pigeon-holed as a "Twitter revolution" or a
"WikiLeaks revolution" [http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/posts/
2011/01/15/tunisia_and_the_new_arab_media_space" title="">"WikiLeaks
revolution]. This rush to categorise has sparked a thoughtful
discussion in parts of the blogosphere.
For example, journalism professor George Brock asserted [http://
georgebrock.net/the-power-of-social-networked-media-in-tunisia/"
title="] that "this has been a social media revolt, both in the
mobilisation of middle-class intellectuals via Facebook and Twitter
and in the gathering and distribution of detailed information about
what was happening on the ground". He pointed out that the Zine al-
Abidine Ben Ali [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/zine-al-abidine-ben-
ali" title="Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali ] regime apparently also seemed to
understand the importance of the internet.
"At first, traditional reflexes operated. Newspapers were disrupted
and journalists detained. Then the authorities realised that the
printed press was a nuisance but not the real problem: they went after
the bloggers and the web."
On this analysis, the regime's mistake was to ignore Facebook. Ben Ali
& Co succeeded in preventing journalists from travelling to cover
protests in Sidi Bouzid, and the reports from government-controlled
media portrayed demonstrations as either vandalism or terrorism.
But, as Ethan Zuckerman of Harvard pointed out [http://
www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/14/the_first_twitter_revolution"
title="], "Tunisians got an alternative picture from Facebook, which
remained uncensored through the protests, and they communicated events
to the rest of the world by posting videos to YouTube and Dailymotion.
As unrest spread from Sidi Bouzid to Sfax, from Hammamet and
ultimately to Tunis, Tunisians documented events on Facebook. As
others followed their updates, it's likely that news of demonstrations
in other parts of the country disseminated online helped others
conclude that it was time to take to the streets."
In a way, there is an intriguing parallel between the failure of the
Tunisian regime to spot the significance of social networking, and
mainstream media's conviction about its overriding importance. Both
camps persist in regarding this stuff as exotic, which for them it is,
which in turn highlights how out of touch they have become with
reality. For the reality is that the net and social networking have
become mainstream, even in societies that seem relatively
underdeveloped to western eyes. Nearly a third of the world now has an
internet connection. Facebook is the third biggest "country" on Earth,
in terms of population, and if things keep going as they are, it will
soon have more users than India has people.
What is happening is that connectedness is becoming a relatively
mundane part of people's lives. So when significant things happen -
riots, strikes, elections, conflicts and social upheavals of all kinds
- it's only to be expected that they will use the communication tools
with which they are familiar. The message for dictators, elected
politicians and newspaper editors alike is simple. This is the way
things are: get used to it.
guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2011
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