When the news of Osama bin Laden's death broke Sunday night, people found out about is from an array of different mediums.  According to an Associated Press report, one soldier overseas in Afghanistan heard the news via Facebook and a TV producer learned of the news from comedian Kathy Griffin's Twitter.  Others found out from newspaper email notifications or even on a smart phone away from home.  To contrast, when news of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks began to spread, it wasn't nearly as fast; these sources were not even options at the time.  As an individual who was on Twitter myself at the time that it was announced President Obama would be speaking on an "unannounced" topic (and then a National Security topic and then eventually speculation and confirmation that he would be announcing bin Laden's death) it was phenomenal to suddenly see all the meaningless, trivial tweets taken over by the whole Twitter community responding to this new issue.

The story broke on Twitter and was carried through Twitter and ultimately analyzed on Twitter.  Through Twitter does not actually have stories on its site - it instead links you to the full text - the 140-character cap is sufficient to break news.  Keith Urbahn, chief of staff to Defense Sec. Robert Gates, is responsible for posting the tweet that led to the speculations and ultimately (though unintentionally, broke the story).  The reactions via Twitter kept pouring in over night and throughout Monday and beyond.  Subscribers could read comments from politicians, comedians, celebrities, "regular" people, journalists, news sources, and more - even the "President" himself (well, his office).  The response on Facebook was very similar.  Experiencing this breaking news via these social sites was quite exciting and unlike anything I've been a part of before.

Information for this post also came from a report by The Washington Post and Entertainment Weekly.  

Hot Damn Twitter

Last night the twitter-sphere was the perfect example of the constant news cycle, as this NYT media decoder blog post shows. Just after 11:30pm, Obama confirmed the death of al-Qaida’s chief, Osama bin Laden. Yet, at around 9:45 the White House communications director had announced on twitter that Obama was going to be making an special speech. Almost immediately, people began to speculate what the announcement would be about. Just before 10:30, the first “official” tweet with this information read “so I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn.” With this, government officials started giving network news outlets anonymous information almost an hour before the President was able to make his own speech on the death.
In class we talked about how news organization was able to guess Kennedy’s plans naval plans in reaction to the Cuban Missile Crisis but was able to quell reporters and make an official announcement himself. With social media cites, like Twitter, it becomes easier for the media to get in contact with government officials or be in touch with each other about possible clues. Of course, a lot of these tweets were coming from unofficial sources or were just speculation. It seems like this was one of the first times the media was actually steps ahead of the President. What does this mean for the future of special presidential announcements?

When trivial information meets hard news

Sohaib Athar’s followers were following Osama Bin Laden without even knowing it. This Pakistani computer specialist noticed helicopters flying over his city and thought the event was rare enough to be tweeted about. An hour later, he added that since Taliban do not have helicopters and that they were not Pakistani, something was definitely going on. And we all now know that a special operation was taking place in his town.

This story, reported by CNN among others, shows how citizens can really be effective in gathering information and broadcasting news in real time. But it already raises the question of the danger of this broadcasting. Some information should remain unknown until it is time to unveil them. It is the case I think for military or police operations. The traditional media are not always hushing up those stories because they are corrupted, it is also a matter of security.

Once again, it shows that the total freedom of the internet has it good and bad sides. And even if no one really has the power to control everything on the web, the issue of the internet governance should be discussed by all the world political, economical, and “moral” leaders.

Royal Wedding Watch: No Tweeting Allowed

Just to continue with the Royal Wedding's presence in the Twitterworld, I felt a brief update was necessary.  While correspondents from all the major news conglomerates will be outside the gates tweeting as fast as their fingers can move.  But as for those lucky enough to score an invitation, don't expect any activity on their Twitter accounts.  Although Scotland Yard has clarified that the rumored cell-signal blocking device will not be used, cell phones have still been banned from the ceremony.

Information came from a Washington Post report. 

Royal Wedding Watch: The Naysayers

#RoyalWedding, #rw11, #rw2011, #proudtobebritsh and more.  All are hash tags created as a result of the wedding between Kate and William that will take place on April 29.  And some of them have started trending long before the nuptials are set to take place.  But one does not fit with the rest: #royalpain.  Earlier today, the Washington Post put out a message into the Tweetosphere asking for the underrepresented portion of the community to respond.

While it seems as though The WP was looking for genuine opinions of disapproval for the Wedding (and they did get a handful of those) what they got more was a slap on the hands.  People criticized them, and other news sites, for devoting too much attention to the wedding when there are other, more pressing, issues at hand.      

Online options for the news allow for even the less than important news to be published.  And while it doesn't take up print space, it is consuming time of reporters.  And people are taking notice and voicing their opinions on this new approach to reporting and what gets reported.  

A giant scale Lego replica of the royal ceremony? Seriously? (AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

Drowning in Social Media: Filtering the Social Web to get the News You Need

In today's world of new media, where a person can get news from the blogosphere, Twitter, Facebook, etc. people can easily feel as though they're drowning in too much information. The New York Times published an article explaining that as a result of that feeling, there is now a need to filter all of this information to make it easier for people to get their daily dose of news.

The article cites the commercial jet landing in the Hudson River and the uprisings in Egypt as examples of regular people--not reporters--who are breaking news by uploading Twitter posts, photos, and videos to the Web. As a result, there is now a huge surplus of information coming in from all directions. How are people supposed to sift through the noise? One of the senior strategists at NPR explains, “There’s a big need for tools that allow people to collect bits of social media context and organize them in some fashion.”

A Web start-up called Storify aims to help journalists and others collect and filter all of this information. "Using the Storify Web site, people can find and piece together publicly available content from Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, and other sites. They can also add text and embed the resulting collages of content on their own sites." Storify is one of many Web start-ups working towards this goal so that journalists can sift through all of the information and publish the most relevant items.

One of the founders of Storify explains, "Even though journalists may not be the first on the scene, they select the most reliable sources, digest loads of information and provide context for events. We have so many real-time streams now, we’re all drowning. So the idea of Storify is to pick out the most important pieces, amplify them and give them context."

Furthermore, it is interesting to consider the fact that the news media no longer has exclusivity on sharing and publishing information. If the average Joe breaks a story on his Twitter and then immediately posts videos of the event on his YouTube, will the New York Times' coverage really be breaking news anymore? What is the difference between a traditional news source, like the New York Times, covering a story and a well-informed citizen covering the story through his own social media?

Does the influence of technology mean that the 21st-century role of the news media will be based less on investigating and reporting, and more on sifting and organizing? Will reporters now rely more on average people to provide information, and on their own professional judgment to choose which stories are newsworthy? Or can traditional news media still exist with new social media providing a complementary set of news? Will the increased power of the people exacerbate the 24-hour news cycle, or will the laypeople's influence force the news media to dig deeper into the issues that people truly care about?

Twitter (as used by Susan Orlean)

Like many others I have some concerns about Twitter and its impact on how people flesh out ideas, particularly when only 140 characters are allowed. In a recent post on PBS's MediaShift website Simon Owens discusses how New Yorker writer, Susan Orlean, uses Twitter. Orlean discusses how when she first got a Twitter account she didn't really understand the purpose of it, but after a few years she figured out how to use the platform to develop a type of back-and-forth with her readers. She describes it as an "ongoing Q&A session." It provided her with a mechanism for staying in contact with readers between New Yorker pieces and while working on books. Before Twitter she could go months without publishing anything, however Twitter allows her to stay in contact with the world and keep them up-to-date on her work. Perhaps Twitter can allow for dialogue in a way that is more purposeful than 140 characters may lead one to believe. However, my guess is that those who engage and follow Orlean, and Orlean herself, are likely to find ways to engage in meaningful dialogue with or without Twitter. This platform just happens to be the current forum for exchange. Nevertheless, any mechanism for allowing journalists and writers to connect with readers and introduce them to their work must serve some greater purpose.

2012 Elections and the Race to Newer "New Media"

With the 2012 Presidential Election gearing up and likely to soon be dominating media coverage, candidates are looking for a way to spread their political message through new media forums. President Barack Obama was known for his innovate use of social media, grassroots politics, and for mobilizing the youth vote. This article by Rob Salkowitz, author of Young World Rising: How Youth Technology and Entrepreneurship are Changing the World from the Bottom Up, share his predication for the role new media will play in the upcoming election.
One issues that I think this article does a nice job of focusing on is the speed at which social media is evolving. The 2004 election was arguably the first major election to be influence by the rise of social media and, since then, politicians have been searching for ways to creatively promote their message on the internet. One of the benefits of social networking for politicians is that this type of media is relatively low cost, especially when compared to television and newspaper advertisements. Salkowitz points out that the biggest factor in the next election will be figuring out to turn this low cost media into a profitable venture. For example, instead of using new media just to share a message, a politicians will have to use new media to get more donations to their campaign. While this article does not necessarily frame any new media technology as most useful than another, it does make some valid points of about the limitations of recent developments. It seems that applications, like FourSquare and “video-on-demand” improvements, will be unable to make substantial improvements to a candidate’s message. This article does a good job of balancing the potential benefits of newer media tools in the upcoming elections, with limitations that candidates will face in developing their online strategies.

@acarvin

As Twitter becomes a popular way for empowering individuals to share their own experiences and communicate with each other, some questions have been raised about its viability as a form of journalism. To some, allows “everyday citizens” to become journalist seems like it would destroy a level of professionalism and trust that is necessary for reporting current events. Twitter has given individuals involved in the Middle East uprisings a platform to share their opinion and stories. However, this style also raises some important questions: How do we know who to trust? If I am not interested in learning about an opinion, is it possible for me to selectively avoid it? What does this mean for larger media entities?
This USA Today article focuses on how Andy Carvin, an NPR senior strategist focusing on social media, deals with some of these issues and has earned him the reputation as the “maestro of the [Middle East region’s] Twitter feed” and one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people. Personally, I started following Carvin a few months ago and have found that his tweets on the revolutions in the Middle East to be the most accurate and informational. As a member of a professional media outlet, Carvin works to find reliable sources of information and uses his own Twitter feed as an aggregator. Carvin’s Twitter style seems to be one way that larger media outlets or professional journalists can use new media to their advantage and diversity their source information.

Freedom vs. Facebook

As I have discussed before, Facebook has ramped up its lobbying efforts, which has drawn increased coverage across the news media. The Wall Street Journal published a particularly interesting article about this topic where it discusses Facebook's efforts to access the Chinese market, which has been closed since 2009. In the process of trying to access China, Facebook is also dealing with difficult questions of censorship and freedom of speech. In the WSJ article, Adam Connor, a Facebook lobbyist, says,

"Maybe we will block content in some countries, but not others...We are occasionally held in uncomfortable positions because now we're allowing too much, maybe, free speech in countries that haven't experienced it before."

The question of how much freedom of speech to allow is difficult to answer, particularly when there are authoritarian regimes involved. However, Facebook is often praised for allowing individuals to share thoughts with one another unfiltered. It has also been championed as a means for organizing individuals precisely when their freedoms are threatened or not granted. If Facebook decides to block content in certain countries it will seriously be doing itself a disfavor as an information provider. While we do not necessarily demand the same democratic responsibility from social media sites as we do from traditional news media, the question comes up of whether or not we should. To what extent should we treat Facebook's possible censorship decisions as part of business? Or should we demand more from a site that portrays itself as doing more than traditional business does? What is the democratic responsibility of social media and to what standard should we hold it? If censorship is allowed, some of the valuable things that social media platforms are praised for doing, such as disseminating information quickly and mobilizing individuals around a cause, might not happen.

Video: The Importance of Facebook

Check out this video from The New York Times, describing the power of Facebook in politics!  Megan Liberman discuses the role the social site played in the 2008 Presidential elections and is already playing in the 2012 elections.

Facebook Friends D.C.

Over the past few years the relationship between Facebook and politicians and policy makers in Washington has grown increasingly cozier. President Obama's current trip out west, which included a town-hall-style meeting at Facebook's headquarters in Palo Alto, is an indication of this. Not only is Facebook drawing visits from the President, but it is also drawing top political and legal talent of administrations past. Facebook's current chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, is a former Clinton administration official, and a former clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia, Ted Ullyot, is Facebook's general counsel. Currently, there are rumors about Robert Gibbs joining Facebook's communications team. It's no secret that Facebook is trying to develop better relationships with Washington in the case that those relationships might be useful in future legal and policy battles over privacy issues.

While concerns over privacy and access to individuals' information are crucial, there are interesting advantages in the relationship between Facebook and politicians that go beyond money and campaign donations. Politicians now rely on social media, particularly Facebook, to engage voters and get potential supporters involved. So, not only do Zuckerberg and Facebook benefit from cultivating strong relationships with policy makers to avoid legal battles, but politicians and policy makers also have an interest in using the information about individuals that Facebook provides to further their own campaigns and support. When a Facebook user gives a campaign access to their account a campaign can then get information about a person's email address, hometown, and access to their personal network of friends.

The possible effects of Facebook's relationship with D.C. policy makers are difficult to parse out and not currently known. Facebook connects users to friends and personal interests, and with this comes a lot of information as well as a lot of power, which D.C. would most likely love to be privy to. As the relationship between the two centers of power--tech and government--grows stronger, it will be important to watch and monitor. It will be interesting to see what role, if any, both social media and traditional media play in checking this relationship.

Social News Services: an Innovative Way to Read Your News

The New York Times reported on the long-awaited social news service, entitled News.me, developed by a collaboration between Betaworks and the New York Times Company. This fascinating news service uses artificial intelligence to monitor what people are reading in order to learn what they like to read. Thus, the service can provide other articles and links that will most likely be of interest to the reader. This service also has an important social media aspect -- it will display popular articles that are being posted via sites like Twitter around the Web. Users can also save interesting articles to read them later or share the articles through Facebook, Twitter, and email. News.me is first being featured on iPads by Apple.

The article goes on to say, "News.me's most interesting feature may be that it allows people to follow the articles being read and discussed on Twitter among friends, noted technologists and early-adopters from the Web." The CEO of Betaworks explains, "Instead of only seeing what you're Tweeting, I get to see what you're reading. We're taking the social stream and flipping it on its head."

There is another important feature of News.me: the company receives a weekly fee from readers, out of which it pays publishers (such as The New York Times) according to how many times users read a particular article from that publisher on News.me's site. "On one level, it's very simple. If people read your content, we send you a check at the end of the month. But on a deeper level ... the service is trying to build a sustainable business model for an application built by pulling in content from dozens of other sources ... the application doesn't do away with any pay model put in place by a news organization." News.me is trying to create a social reading experience, and in return, make sure that publishers are getting their cut whenever people read their stuff.

This new market of transforming the way people read news from the Web is expanding: another tech company called Flipboard takes social feeds from Facebook and Twitter and changes the reading experience by formatting it so that it looks like a magazine. The Washington Post Company also developed something similar to News.me, called Trove, that analyzes likes and other personal information from its readers' Facebooks so that it can select articles of interest for its readers.

All of a sudden, social media is shaping the way that traditional media sources are presenting their news. By tracking what readers are liking on Facebook or tweeting on Twitter, the New York Times and the Washington Post have a more concrete idea than ever before of what readers want. Are publications therefore losing some of their control over their content? Are readers now unduly influencing -- via their personal preferences displayed on social media -- what types of stories are getting published?

In addition, there is added pressure for The New York Times because it only makes money from the News.me partnership if people are reading NYT articles. Technology and social media have created a new sense of accountability for publications and (more significantly) for journalists. Now, it's not just how many newspapers you sell, but how many times a person reads each specific article in your publication. Does this pose a threat for some journalists? If people are reading on News.me and then posting articles about Charlie Sheen on Twitter ten times more than articles about the turmoil in Egypt, and the New York Times can now know and track this behavior, will there be a shift in how many writers are hired for certain content areas and which articles get the front page spot?

Social Media and the Personal Story

In past blog posts, I have written about the influence that social networking sites had on the revolutions that are happening in the Middle East and Africa. Secretary Albright also mentioned the usefulness of these tools at her recent lecture. However, little attention has been played to social media in the aftermath of the earthquake that recently hit northern Japan. Personally, I had watched that popular YouTube video of the mayor of Minami Soma City asking the international community for help in distributing necessary goods and was drawn its ability to put a personal narrative into tragic national disaster. After watching the video, the implications of the earthquake and the affects of the damaged nuclear power plan felt more real.
This story by PBS’s MediaShift collected stories from several earthquake survivors or media addicts and explains how social media cites, like Facebook and Twitter, was able to help them find survivors or establish more intricate systems to do so. While I had read many articles on the situation in Japan and about the government’s response to the nuclear reactors, this piece took a different approach and focused on the efforts of individuals. I enjoyed reading this collection of narratives, because I think it does a good job of capturing the essence of social media. Individuals are asking to share their opinions of day-to-day interactions or experiences. These profiles show the importance of collecting small pieces of information of individual users and the implications this can have on larger movements, like rescue missions and revolutions.

Breaking News in the Age of New Media

The Pulitzer Prize winners were announced today and tucked away in the awards was the prize for "Breaking News"...and no one won. There were three nominees but apparently none of them met the committee's idea of breaking news as an "example of local reporting...with special emphasis on the speed and accuracy of the initial coverage." Slate's SCOCCA blog likes to joke that the committee should have just awarded the prize to Twitter. Slate's amusing (and extremely short post) raises an interesting question of what "breaking news" means in the age of new media. Twitter with its rapid posting rates and short bits of information reaches out and touches the boundaries of whatever former conception people previously had of breaking news. So, is breaking news "defunct" as Slate's blog asserts? Would be better off ridding this term from our vernacular and our understanding of reporting? Breaking news is no longer an exception--it's the norm. Perhaps it's time that the news media starts publicly recognizing this.

"Police Lesson"

We all know about a lot of the positive benefits of social networks like Twitter and Facebook.  But what people don't often think about until its too late, is the other ramifications such sites can have.  When individuals are suspected of criminal activity, social sites are added to the list of of things the police (or other officials) check.

Social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter can be valuable assets for law enforcement agencies, helping them alert the public, seek information about crimes and gather evidence about the backgrounds of criminal suspects. 

But, in some cases this double-edged sword can also get the police in trouble.  After one police officer was involved in a fatal shooting the local news stations went to his Facebook page for reference.  There he had listed his occupation as "human waste disposal."  In another instance, the Santa Monica police department went to great lengths to conceal an injured officers identity and location, only to have it revealed on Facebook.  It is also a tool used by lawyers and can be used against police officers.

Defense lawyers increasingly scour social networking sites for evidence that could impeach a police officer’s testimony. In one case in New York, a jury dismissed a weapons charge against a defendant after learning that the arresting officer had listed his mood on MySpace as “devious” and wrote on Facebook that he was watching the film “Training Day” to “brush up on proper police procedure.”

Social networking sites are not only used by officials to regulate and check on the masses, but also to watch over the the same officials.  

Information for this article came from a New York Times report

Royal Wedding Watch

Kate Middleton and Prince William are getting married.  But if you have read any newspaper, magazine, social media, or just been in public over the past month you probably couldn't avoid knowing that.  It has been a main topic of conversation on Twitter for weeks and most major news sites like The Washington Post, The New York Times and Huffington Post all have dedicated a section to coverage of The Royal Wedding.  

It is as big a deal in America as it is in Britain.  But is the coverage spurred by Americans' infatuation or the other way around?  Every facet of the wedding has been reported in every different medium.  Open a newspaper, log on to Twitter, Facebook, or turn on the TV and you can see every detail (available) about Kate's dress, the cake, speculation about honeymoon destinations, what Harry and Pippa will be wearing.  A majority of this extended coverage is through social media or online versions of major newspapers.  With limited space in the printed press, only highly important and timely news is printed.  But with no space constraints in the world wide web anything is possible.  Stay updated for more coverage of the Royal Wedding! 

Just a Mirage? Debating the Economic Impact of Social Media

Although the economy is currently troubled, TIME magazine points out that there is one area that is thriving: social media. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Groupon, Yelp, Flickr, are just some examples of companies that barely existed five years ago, but are now together worth billions. For the most part, these companies are private, but have drawn the attention of Wall Street and other investors. There is no doubt that these companies enrich their founders (e.g. Mark Zuckerberg is now the youngest billionaire in the world!) and their investors, but do they add anything to overall economic activity?

Jobs in social media are growing fast, but there were only 21,000 listings last spring, which is a tiny fraction of the 150 million-member U.S. workforce. The article poses the following questions: "Do social media tools enhance productivity or help us bridge the wealth divide? Or are they simply social--entertaining and diverting us but a wash when it comes to national economic health?" The answers to these questions are still unclear; for the most part, only time will tell.

Currently, billions of dollars in investment capital are being spent on these ventures. In order for the U.S. to have a fruitful economic future, that capital needs to "grow the economic pie and not just among the elite of Silicon Valley and Wall Street." Furthermore, as the article poignantly points out, "The U.S. retains a competitive advantage because of its ability to innovate, but if that innovation creates services that don't turn into jobs, growth and prosperity, then it does us only marginal good."

Since it's still fairly early in the game and all of these social media tools are relatively new, it is difficult to answer these questions definitively. Many of these same questions were being posed 20 years ago during the first Internet explosion: "Were Netscape and the Web enhancing our economy, or were people just spending more time at work checking out ESPN.com." The article also explains, "Official statistics weren't designed to capture benefits, and didn't--until statistics mavens at the Federal Reserve, urged on by Alan Greenspan, refined the way they measured productivity. As a result of these somewhat controversial innovations, the late 1990s became a period of substantial technology-driven gains."

Therefore, 20 years later, history may be repeating itself. There is a possibility that social media tools are indeed laying down a foundation for new industries and jobs but aren't yet registering on the statistical radar. Many companies do indeed believe that social media tools make them more competitive. "Ford and Zappos, for instance, use Twitter to market their products and address consumer complaints." Many companies have created internal ways for employees to communicate across divisions through social media, for example using Yammer. Even industry groups for engineers, doctors, and human resources professionals are using social media to share new ideas and best practices on a regular basis, instead of periodically at conferences. One senior executive at Manpower said, "we should think of social-media tools as today's version of the telephone. Yes, they are used for frivolity and all sorts of noneconomic activity (chatting with friends, passing the time), but they also help communication happen more efficiently."

One major question that lingers is "what proportion of the social media benefit will be captured economically by consumers vs. by corporations." Social media gives people the platform to share ideas, compare prices, assess which companies are good to work for, enhance education. But the major caveat is that the people using these tools are the ones who can afford to spend money on technology and have a higher education, not the tens of millions of people in the world who can barely find their next meal. A Pew Research Foundation study found that only 45% of adults making less than $30,000 have access to broadband, which is essential for using social media.

Therefore, it seems that social media is just another contributor to "economic bifurcation." There is no doubt that companies are benefiting from these tools, even if it's hard to specify any numerical gains. Individuals are benefiting too--getting good deals on Groupon, finding jobs on LinkedIn, and keeping in touch with old friends on Facebook. But as the article points out, "the irony is that social media widen the social divide, making it even harder for the have-nots to navigate." If all of the news were to transfer to Web news and be posted through social media only, what about all the people who can't afford to buy a computer or pay a monthly Internet fee, but who can afford to pay a couple dollars for a newspaper or watch free television? Are they to be left uninformed?

On the 29^th of March, the New York Times and the Washington Post reported that a Facebook page that was calling for an intifada against Jews in Israel, was removed from the social media site. But they did not follow the story: news sources in France, Germany, Israel and United Kingdom reported on April the 4^th that Facebook was sued by an former American Justice department prosecutor because of that page. However, the story was covered by the Huffington Post in a really short article.

Does that mean the Huffington Post is more free than the other news sources to reassess the impact of the social media giant or that the American audience does not care?

The New York Times announced on March 27^th that the former White House’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, may be hired by Facebook. The day after, the information was analyzed by many news sources worldwide.

The Washington Post, in its business section, sets the story back into a wider trend, analyzing in a really long article, the relationship between the White House and tech companies over the years. On the contrary, Fox News only report the story in a paragraph in its media section. The same discrepancy can be found in the foreign press (at least in the French one): the main leftist newspaper covers the story, analyzing how the link between the White House and Facebook could affect the tax policy, whereas the right wing newspaper only evokes the story in two paragraphs, underlining the fact that nothing is sure for now.

Facebook and its many uses

When Mark Zuckerburg created Facebook, he did so as a social networking site.  But, as we all know, its use has become so much more important and influential than the original inception.  In a very short amount of time, a Facebook page supporting Col. Moammar Gadhafi recieved over 66,000 "likes" as of Tuesday.  Facebook is a means for these people to unite.  Especially in a more divided region, such a tool can be especially powerful in sharing opinions and uniting.

Just as it is a powerful tool politicians and activism, Facebook is also a much greater tool for social publicity than envisioned.  Lionel Messi, soccer player, got close to seven million followers his first day on Facebook.  He hopes to use the site to stay more closely connected to fans.

Facebook has evolved with features such as the "like" button and "fan" pages to allow individuals to stay abreast of the latest news.  Weather it is an artist/band announcing their upcoming concert or an athlete telling fans about sports news or a newspaper directing fans to important stories or even a political activism group getting support for an issue and organizing members. This feature allows everyday people to be more involved with the news, the news that they, that we, are a part of.

Obama Tweets Too

About a year ago Obama posted his first tweet. Although he already had a Twitter account, he had never posted his own claiming his "thumbs [were] too clumsy to type things over the phone."  But that has all changed.  However, a majority of people believe that his Jan. 18 2010 tweet in support of the Red Cross was a rarity (shown in this Huffington Post poll).

However, weather it is Obama himself or, more likely, his press staff, @BarackObama has over 7,200,000 followers and, since inception, has posted 1,307 tweets.  These updates range from showing support for various causes, announcing events or speeches, updating the public or even, as he did today, announcing that he is gearing up for the 2012 Elections.  

Twitter will likely play a large role in the 2012 Elections for all candidates.  It already is a significant means for politicians to keep in touch with their constituents from DC and will surely increase as they try to garner support.  The Hill recently reported that Republicans are outtweeting Democrats.  

The "Twongress" report shows that 89 Republicans are actively tweeting, compared to 43 Democrats. The divide is especially apparent in the House, where 42 percent of the Republican Caucus is tweeting, while only 12 percent of the Democratic Caucus has found a Twitter audience.

 

One of the most important civic duties is to remain informed and aware.  Sometimes though, the public needs a little help.  And oftentimes, youth can fall to the wayside.  Posting short updates on Twitter (that often lead to more in-depth posts) reaches out to many youth and older citizens alike.  In my mind, anything to keep the public informed is all good.    

 

notes on a news cycle

“We never look as similar as we do when we compete with each other over explanations for violence, in the comments sections of the blogosphere’s blame game. I haven’t wanted to go out there again. Easier to stay inside Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr and get my news links from people who think like me. But if Girard is right that sameness, rather than difference, is where violence comes from, this may be part of the problem in the first place. The internet now fabricates for us too small and homogeneous a town” -Kristin Dombek’s Notes on A News Cycle for N+1 Magazine

When the shooting of Arizona Congresswomen Gabi Giffords was first reported in the news, it dominate all other issues. In a state of the shock, the news media immediately began to try to find a “root cause” for this random act of violence. Dombek’s piece for N+1 magazine represents one of the most sophisticated takes on the media’s subsequent “blame game”. As Patterson noted in his article The News Media: An Effective Political Actor?, journalists “must create a new version of reality every 24 hours, giving the journalist little time to reflect back or think ahead” (445). Yet, as this article shows, magazines typically provide a space for more reflection and in-depth research (Just, Common Knowledge). Dombek’s article tries to analyze the role of new and social media in the creation of an attitude of “sameness”. Because sites like Facebook and Twitter allow you to control who you “follow”, you are essentially becoming your own news producer. While these sites also gives us constant access to 24 hours of news and they might be creating a system where people have little time to reflect on alternative opinions and a need for causation. Dombek concludes the article by pointing out that some things cannot be explained and instead just “invades us from the outside”, and that we need to understand a whole story before jumping into a viral internet frenzy.

Tweets to go down in history

The 210-year-old, Library of Congress is the "guardian of knowledge and cultural history," andas such they have taken it upon themselves to keep record of all of the countries cultural history. This now includes tweets. The New York times wrote an articleabout the decision of the LOC. This means that the 55 million plus tweets, from all users - from politicians like President Barrack Obama to celebrities like Ashton Kutcher to average-joe's like me - will be saved in the Library of Congress...that's a lot of data! Academic's have looked at this as a good move for the LOC, saying for "of years, ... the historical record has tended to be somewhat elitist because of its selectivity. In books, magazines and newspapers, ... it is the prominent and the infamous who are written about most frequently," and the everyday people are passed by. I believe that the intent is good, it makes me question where it will stop. Are they going to start archiving all Facebook accounts? What about the next big thing? And also, with an ever-growing mass of information, where is it all going to be stored? Since it is electronic, I am not worried about environmental implications, but do they just plan on constantly increasing the server size, or do they have some other plan?

Social Media in the Arab Spring

(Egypt influence network...click to see enlarged)

Without social media, the events of the past few months in the Middle East would likely have been very different. “We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world,” one women in Cairo tweeted. University of Washington professor, Phillip N. Howard, wrote about the role of digital media in the recent uprisings in the Middle East. With so much going on (and that it was happening in a differnt time zone) made the issues especially time-sensitive and therefore a platform such as Twitter or Facebook, especially important. Another reason that such media was so useful was the limitations by the "governments" that would have prevented traditional media from being effective. The social media used during the revolts helped to organize what happened and to report it back tot those not involved.

@BronxZoosCobra

Last weekend a cobra at the Bronx Zoo in New York City went missing. While that alone proved to be news-wothy, equally as news-worthy was the Twitter account that was created by the snake soon after,@BronxZoosCobra. Since Monday, he (or she?) has racked up over 72,000 followers and its bio reads: "I'm an Egyptian cobra our on the town." The tweets are all of the lighthearted nature and it has been tweeting with celebrities such as Charlie Sheen and Steve Martin. What is most fascinating is not that the cobra is tweeting but that is it news-worthy. (I suppose if newspapers were not currently online - allowing for unlimited publication - such information would probably not take up space in a print issue.) The New York Times website even has a section,Twitter Patter, on which they profile New York tweeters. 

U.S. State Department Promotes Social Media For Pro-Democracy Activists

The Huffington Post reported that the U.S. State Department is developing a cell phone "panic button" for pro-democracy activists as part of its U.S. Technology Initiative, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's push to expand Internet freedoms. This "panic button" is targeted towards pro-democracy campaigners, so that when their cell phones get confiscated by police, they'll be able to hit the "panic button," which is a special app that will both wipe out the phone's address book and emit emergency alerts to other activists. This is just one example of many that the State Department is "promoting to equip pro-democracy activists in countries ranging from the Middle East to China with tools to fight back against repressive governments" (Quinn). The "panic button" tool was inspired by the experience of pro-democracy protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square in February, an event that emphasized the importance of cell phones in today's grassroots political movements. In this way, the "panic button" and secure text message services (another tool the State Department is developing) will protect data and databases.

This technology initiative was inspired by the crucial role that many online resources like Twitter and Facebook have played in fueling pro-democracy movements in Iran, Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere. The U.S. has budgeted about $50 million since 2008 to promote new technologies for social activists, "focusing both on 'circumvention' technology to help them work around government-imposed firewalls and on new strategies to protect their own communications and data from government intrusion" (Quinn). Furthermore, the U.S. has funded training for around 5,000 activists around the world, aiming to teach them how to use these new technologies. At one of these trainings in Beirut, one of the computers of a Tunisian activist was found to be infected with "key-logging" software that could communicate whatever he was typing to security agents.

The United States first began to publicly leverage new Internet technologies in 2009, when it asked Twitter to "delay a planned upgrade that would have cut service to Iranians who were organizing mass protests over disputed elections" (Quinn). Since then, the State Department has regarded new media technologies, especially social media, as a key part of its global strategy--it launched its own Twitter feeds in Arabic, Farsi, and Hindi, and also negotiated with China over the censorship of Google results.

Some U.S. lawmakers have criticized the Department for not doing enough to promote new media technology, but the State Department affirms that they are now going "full speed ahead to get the money out the door" (Posner, Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Human Rights and Labor). The U.S. has helped to fund the development of a dozen new circumvention technologies, and there are more in the works, since activists are constantly coming up against different forms of censorship.

Posner stated that it is important to note, however, that these new technologies also carry some risks: "secure on-line tools useful for underground pro-democracy activists might also be useful for drug cartels or terrorist cells, raising new law enforcement and national security issues that need to be resolved" (Quinn). The goal of this technology is to protect people who are, in a peaceful manner, working for human rights, but what happens when this same technology falls into the wrong hands? The rapid advances of modern technology demonstrate how useful such tools can be--but also serves as a reminder that a tool is only as effective as its wielder.