DigiActive.org

What Neda Means: Citizen Media Frames the Protests

From left: a paining of Neda made by annebot, videos of Neda’s murder on YouTube,
an altered profile image on Twitter shifts the “where’s my vote?” meme

Background:  In his post on Saturday, DigiActive correspondent Hamid Tehrani referred in passing to “a scene of a girl murdered by security forces.”  A few days later and we all know who she was – Neda Agha Soltan, a 26-year-old killed en route to a protest in Tehran.  Only in this age, where every citizen with a cell phone can became a journalist and broadcaster is the story of Neda possible.

Tools: The story of Neda’s rise to prominence and powerful symbolism is a story of citizen media: from the cell phone cameras that recorded her death (video here – it is graphic), to the blogger who posted her story on the citizen journalism site NewsVine, to the Twitter conversation around the hashtag #Neda, and the Wikipedia entry that recorded the details of her murder in detail.   Finally her story reached the mainstream media: CNN, The New York Times, and Iranian television.

Analysis:  This is the story of Neda’s transformation from a person into a symbol.  But what does this story mean?  In particular, what does it mean for digital activism? Usually when we think of the use of digital technology for activism we think of communication tools which facilitate mass collective action: SMS, Facebook groups, listservs.  Yet the idea of Neda, though it may have inspired rage, sadness, and a commitment to continue protes, was not what we traditionally think of as digital activism.

Neda didn’t organize a protest but she helped to firmly re-frame the post-election protests in Iran.  The frame, or narrative, which the Iranian government was pushing was that the protests were caused by Western meddling and that the protesters were terrorists.   By making Neda the symbol of the opposition – a beautiful and unarmed young woman, previously apolitical – the new frame has moved firmly to those in the streets: the protesters are innocent idealists.  The government is murdering its people without cause.  Neda is not a terrorist.  She is a martyr (or so the Times story framed it).  And the practical effect of this re-framing on protests in Iran?  A renewed commitment to go out in the street every day, an ideal that Neda will not have died in vain.

Lessons:  What are the lessons for activists who wish to use citizen media to frame a public issue?  First, the media should be clear and emotional.  Neda’s video – the most spreadable form of media about her sotry – was raw and visceral.  Without understanding the words of the men trying to help her or knowing much of the story it was possible to empathize with her and feel the pain of her injustice.  It was international.

Second, push the media out on multiple platforms.  It is unclear where the video was first uploaded, though there are now several versions on YouTube.   The story was also pushed out through Newsvine, a news site accessible to ordinary citizens, and through Twitter.   Third, your goal should be to get into the mainstream media.  This is still where the majority of eyes are.  Email your content to media sources, but only if this will not put you in danger.  Finally, make is personal.  We understand news through human stories.  In America, we came to saw the corruption of our economic crisis through the crooked financier of Bernie Madoff.   Heroes too personify a struggle.

Presidential Candidates Go Virtual in Iran

Description:The Iranian presidential election will be held in about a month and more than 400 people have registered as candidates. However, they still need the Council of Guardians to approve their nominations. In the last presidential election in 2005, less than 10 people among over 1,000 registered candidates got the chance to run, and all the lucky candidates were faithful and loyal to the Islamic Republic. This time the supporters of leading candidates are using digital means to promote their favorite politicians. Facebook and YouTube, which were banned until recently, have been used by candidates to beef up their chances in the coming election.

Tools and People: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s supporters started to use all the digital means at their disposal. Their virtual campaign is named Dar Emtade Meh (means “following kindness”). In this site supporters are invited to use Facebook, SMS,Twitter,YouTube and blogs to communicate the message. YouTube is used in very pivotal way by campaigners and several Ahmadinejad’s meetings and trips are there. Ahmadinejad is considered a conservative politician.

Mir Hussein Mousavi, former Prime Minister, has launched an internet based TV. His campaign claims that more than 1,000 blogs announced their support of Mousavi. He is supported by former reformist president Mohammad Khatami and he calls himself an independent candidate.

The supporters of Mehdi Karrubi’s, former parliamentary speaker, have launched a Facebook page where several election films are published. Karrubi is considered a reformist candidate.

Impact: It is very interesting that Iranian authorities allowed Iranians access to Facebook and YouTube just a few months ago and already we see they are really present in candidates’ campaigns. The presence of bloggers as adviser to candidates and/or their campaigners reveal that citizen media has creeped its way into mainstream politics. Mohammad Abtahi, former vice president and blogger, is adviser to Karrubi and several bloggers are active in Mousavi’s campaign. Just as we now have “governmental NGOs” in Iran, in the future we will probably have “state-run citizen media.”

Tool: Animoto converts photos into video

Tool: http://animoto.com

Tool Description: An online service that picks out your photos and music to combine them into a short (30 seconds for free) video. Animoto’s website says its engine analyzes users’ photos and music — and takes into account the music’s genre, rhythm and tempo — to generate a video. And, it says, no two videos are ever the same.

Activist Application: Could be great for activists who want to make a YouTube-style video about their cause but don’t have the skills or software for traditional video editing.  You can use images and music created by people in your cause or use free Creative Commons music and photos (with attribution!).  A great source for Creative Commons photos is Flickr’s Creative Commons collection and for music try Jamendo.

Downsides:  To create longer videos, you’ll have to pay. Animoto however says it supports not-for-profits and other humanitarian causes with free pro accounts.  I also had some difficulty in uploading the video to my YouTube account, and in downloading it, though it went easily to my Facebook page.

Ease of Use: Very user-friendly. Downloads pictures from some online sites too.

Animoto promises all “automatic” operations, completely customized, done in the speed of “just minutes”, no two
videos are ever the same, unlimited shorts for free (but you pay for longer-than-30-seconds), and a tool “created by TV and film producers”.

Hat-tip: Esra’a El Shafei of Mideast Youth

Image: Frederick Noronha

Michael Silberman: Creating an Online Strategy

Michael Silberman (original image: NetSquared)

Today I “attended” a webinar on online strategy hosted by the New Organizing Institute.  The presenter was Michael Silberman, a partner and co-founder of EchoDitto, a communications firm founded by the techies of the Howard Dean campaign.  Below are Michael’s steps to building an online strategy.  I’ve presented his ideas, which are aimed at American non-profits, and then given commentary on how the steps relate to grassroots activists in other countries.  I’ve also added examples from international digital activism.

1)  Choose your moment:  It’s best to link the launch of a campaign to the news cycle so it is relevant.  This can be particularly challenging for activists that work on longterm issues, like the environment, public health, and or women’s rights.  It is common for these kinds of campaigns to link their actions to planned holidays like Earth Day or International Women’s Day, but smart organizations will also be attuned to the news for unforeseen opportunities and be ready to push their environmental campaign when there is news of a toxic clean-up or their women’s rights campaign when a female celebrity is the victim of domestic violence.

An excellent example of connecting an advocacy goal to the news cycle is Syria LinkedIn fail.  Social network LinkedIn had blocked its users in Syria because of a broad interpretatation of US sanctions against that country.  In order to make the block relevant, activist Jillian York created a Twitter tag #linkedinfail, which simulated the incredibly embarrassing #amazonfail story only a few days ago.  Eager not to follow in Amazon’s path, a PR representative responded to Jillian quickly (and on Twitter) and Syrians regained most of their access to the site.

2) Create an “ask”:  An “ask” is a jargon term that campaigners use to refer to the request you will make to your supporters.  While it is tempting to post a list of several actions, in Michael’s experience the most successful asks make only one request. For example, the project Postcards for Iran makes one simple ask:  send a postcard (snail mail or digital) to an Iranian political prisoner. Read more »

Social Media Hype Tracking

The Moldova “Twitter Revolution” Hype Curve

How quickly excitement about a new social media tool evolves into charges of “hype.”    On Monday April 6th, a small flash mob collected in central Chisinau, Moldova, to protest the recent elections.  The following day a much larger and rowdier crowd gathered and the Twitter hashtag #pman appeared, referring the location of the protest, a square called Piata Marii Adunari Nationale.

The world took notice of two things: 1) People are rioting in the capital of Moldova. 2) They seem to be using Twitter to organize the protests.  The second observation, being the more unusual, became the headline.  On the 7th and 8th both the traditional media and the bloggers were harolding the “Twitter Revolution“.

In a few hours the backlash came.  Evgeny Morozov, responsible for one of the first Twitter Revoltion posts,  wrote a new post with caveats.  Turns out there are too few twitters in Moldova for it to be an effective organizing tool.  Blogger Daniel Bennett pointed to evidence that there was no cell phone coverage in the square, making live twittering impossible, and called the revolution meme a myth.

But that cynical view, just like the enthusiastic one first put forth, was not the end of the story.  The final version of events, promoted by such writers as Evgeny Morozov, Ethan Zuckerman, and Kate Brodock of DigiActive, was that Twitter played a role, though one of increasing international awareness rather than for organizing, that Twitter was only one of several social media tools used, and that journalists’ (and bloggers’) fascination with Twitter was also a large contributing factor to the popularity of that narrative.

The hype curve had moderated itself.  Moving from enthusiasm to backlash to cautious optimism.  Final verdict: Twitter is useful for activists but not game-changing and the enthusiasts and cynics were both over-reaching.

Hype Tracking for other Social Media

Twitter as a tool for digital activism came out of this a bit bruised, and unfairly so.   Too much was attributed to it during the “revolution” phase.   It was unfairly criticized during the backlash and was made out to be less useful than it is.   This got me thinking, has this hype curve occurred with regard to other digital activism tools and, if so, can we expect similar patterns in their rise and fall from glory?

“Hype” is a difficult thing to measure and by necessity requires a proxy variable.  I chose Google Trends, which ranks a term relative to all Google searches over a given time period.  (Please let me know if you can think of a better proxy.)  I tracked searches for four prominent (and much-hyped) social media tools used for activism: blogs, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. All data is from today, April 16, 2009.

The blog data is the most useful because it goes back the furthest.  Searches for “blog” (our hype proxy) grew steadily from early 2004 to mid-2007 and then plateaued.    I interpret this plateau to mean that the hype around blogging has “died,” although blogging has not.  There has been a backlash to the blogging hype and the “post-blog” meme, referring to the popularity of new social media tools like Facebook and Twitter, has had some traction.  Yet blogging continues to be extremely popular to a general audience and useful to many digital activism campaigns.   It seems to have passed successfully through the hype where it is not longer the answer to every advocacy question, yet has been shown to have lasting value of an accessible means of creating alternative narratives.

YouTube is a little different.  It seems to be following the blog hype trend, with increased interest since early 2006, yet, beginning in 2008, it seems to plateau.  However, its Search Volume Index is still pretty high, which means that the hype around YouTube may not yet have peaked, so it’s unclear whether it will follow the hype-backlash-normalization trend.

Read more »

Campaign: Ali Ardekani videoblogs about the everyday life of a Muslim

A few weeks ago, Talia wrote about the Ramadan blog that had been started by three Muslims giving their perspectives on the Holy Month.  This week, I wanted to highlight another activism campaign along the same vein.

Description: Ali Ardekani, Co-Founder of Ummah Films, has launched a series of videoblogs that highlight issues concerning both the identity and image of Muslims around the world.  Under the alias “Baba Ali” and using Bill Cosby as a role model, Ali attempts to paint Muslims, especially American Muslims, as ordinary.  Using his comedic talents, he directly addresses some of the views that people may have of  extremism in “all Muslims.” He does not deny the fundamentalist views that there are held by some Muslims, but clearly does not condone them.

As a response to finding little to no positive or “regular” depictions of Muslims after conducting a video search online, it is his attempt to encourage discussion without accusations, mass-labels or defensiveness by talking about “everyday situations” that Muslims find themselves in as part of American society and that everyone “can relate to.”  He upholds some Muslims customs or beliefs but often ridicules others in a light-hearted way.  He is part of a larger movement of younger-generation American Muslims who feel they lack a voice in mainstream media, and want to change the current image they see as given to them by the wider public.

Tools Used: YouTube, various other video-sharing sites, videoblogging

How it’s Worked: As of now, Ali’s films and other films have a very large following of American Muslims on YouTube.  This confirms the desire for this group to support movements that have the potential of positively changing their image in the eyes of the public in general.  Of the responses by people outside of this community, there are both positive responses and negative responses.  Some individuals or groups have responded with their own videoblogs.  Several of his and other’s videos have found their way to mainstream media, notably on the Islam Channel in the UK, New York Times and USA Today, and he is frequently asked to speak at various conferences.

A few of Ali’s videos are below.

Muslim While Flying

$25,000 Muslim Weddings

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Campaign: Reproductive justice on YouTube

Description: Reproductive health and specifically abortion are highly controversial topics in most countries around the world. Last June the Bush administration used a loophole in the 2008 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill to withhold all $40 million that Congress allocated to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the world’s largest provider for women’s health. According to UNFPA advocates, the financial withholdings undermines much need reproductive health needs, especially for women in the developing world. Since 2002 the United States has withheld US$235 million from UNFPA, which advocates say could have prevented 294,000 maternal deaths and could have allowed 82 million women to delay their first or next pregnancy. Now advocates are bringing there message to cyberspace.

Digital tools being used: YouTube

What Are They Doing: The “34 Million Friends” campaign is a grass-roots movement created in July 2002 by Americans Lois Abraham and Jane Roberts, with the goal is to find 34 million friends to help UNFPA. The women are using YouTube and an email campaign to get the word out about their cause. So far, over 100,000 donors have contributed over $3 million. Roberts and Abraham were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize as part of the 1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005 project under the patronage of the Swiss Commission for UNESCO.

“Unfortunately we are no where close to $34 million but a significant amount of money with more coming in every week, is sending a positive message to the world from the American people,” Roberts said in a recent article. “We need an Administration which respects and supports women. Frankly, we haven’t had one for 8 years. We need an Administration which will join 180 other countries in supporting the humanitarian work of the United Nations Population Fund. We need change.”

Digital warfare between Georgia and Russia

Description: The conflict between Georgia and Russia extended to the digital landscape as Russia attempted to block the unprecedented blogging drive drawing in novices to the blogosphere, through which the Georgians reacted to the Russian invasion. The campaign from both sides extended to video advocacy (YouTube).

As the international debate continues, digital tools are providing much needed support and publicity to the humanitarian efforts.

Tools: blogs, videos, on-line petitions

How these tools are being used: Global Voices’ South Ossetia Crisis 2008 campaign has been providing detailed coverage of the situation through a series blogs. The Hub also supported the efforts by drawing on YouTube video coverage so as to raise awareness of ways in which the pubic can support ongoing humanitarian efforts.

Avaaz means “voice” in many Asian, Middle EAStern and Eastern European languages. Avaaz.org is a global web movement with a simple democratic mission: to close the gap between the “have” and “have nots”. Avaaz uses digital tools to connect people across borders to bring people powered politics to international decision-making. In less than 2 years Avaaz boasts of 3.2 million members from every nation in the world and 7,719,361 actions.

Avaaz is running an on-line petition for the withdrawal of troops. Within a month over 90,000 people had signed the petition.

Other campaigns from Avaaz include the Campaign on the Climate, Burma, Tibet, Zimbabwe, Israel & Palestine, the food crisis and Iraq.

Tags: avaaz, Georgia, Global Voices, Hub, youtube
Posted in Blogs, Campaigns, E-Petitions, Video | No Comments »

Using a Camera Phone and Youtube to Document Police Brutality in Morocco

Description: The small southern port city of Sidi Ifni in Morocco has recently 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 (See Article in French here) 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.

Senegal: Microfinance Online

Description: A surprising number of people in the developing world still hide their money under a mattress at home. Accessible and developed banking systems are still in short supply and borrowing money at double digit monthly interests is prohibitive and discourages business. Microfinance is the bridge that empowers the underprivileged.

Birima provides microfinance loans to the people of Senegal. It supports emerging artists and musicians but it is open to all and in particular women and youths. Birima has been part of an innovative publicity campaign to raise finance and awareness.

Tools: media, video, YouTube, LastFM

How these tools are being used: Founder and Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour, with the participation of singers Patti Smith, Simphiwe Dana, Irene Grandi and Francesco Renga re-arranged N’Dours Birima song (originally recorded in 2000). The single forms part of a global communications campaign run by Benetton’s communications research center, Fabrica.

As part of the Africa Works campaign the video clip of the song was posted on YouTube and LastFm. The campaign also includes a cartoon about micro-credit that was produced specifically for the Senegalese community and African TV Channels. A series of images was produced by photographer James Mollison displaying the progress of Birima’s loan recipients. The subjects include a fisherman, a decorator, a musician, a farmer, and a boxer and the images will displayed on billboards and ads. The campaign will be supported by press advertising, outdoor events and projects.