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May 05 2012
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon decries growing killings of journalists
DOHA :: "We have to protect journalists in democratic countries first of all. There are tens of countries which are democratic and do not respect the law as they should do," Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said at a UN event on press freedom organized by France and Greece. Reporters Without Borders said that more than 280 journalists and bloggers have been imprisoned this year, including 32 in Eritrea, 30 in China and 27 in Iran and 14 in Syria. But five have been detained in Azerbaijan, which is the UN Security Council president for May. Ban and press freedom groups have sought to stress the role of the media, and particularly the new social media, in covering the uprisings in Libya, Egypt and Syria over the past 18 months.
Continue to read www.dc4mf.org
April 21 2012
April 15 2012
Latest citizen journalist app: Signal created by Mark Malkoun, Lebanese entrepreneur
The Next Web :: It is only fitting that the latest citizen journalist app, Signal, is coming right out of the Middle East, courtesy of Lebanese entrepreneur, Mark Malkoun. No area in the world has highlighted the effect of citizen journalism more effectively, this past year, than this region. In Syria, Bambuser videos were a source of footage for mainstream media including the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera, leading to the app being blocked in the country, and in Egypt, Twitter was used to disseminate information from the heart of Tahrir Square at the height of the uprising. Events in the region were part of Mark’s drive to create the app.
Continue to read Nancy Messieh, thenextweb.com
March 29 2012
Traditional and citizen journalism are not adversaries
GigaOM :: As we have described a number of times at GigaOM, journalism has become something virtually anyone can practice now, thanks to social tools and digital media. This democratization of distribution has had a profound effect on the coverage of uprisings in Egypt and Libya and more recently in Syria. Thanks to YouTube, Twitter and other networks, more information is available about what is happening in those countries. But is it reliable?
Continue to read Mathew Ingram, gigaom.com
February 11 2012
Australian journalist, Egyptian translator arrested by Egyptian military
Bikya Masr :: An Australian journalist and his Egyptian translator have been arrested in the Nile Delta city of Mahallah on Saturday. As of Saturday evening, the two had been charged with “incitement” and had been transferred to the prosecutor’s office. Austin Mackell and Aliya Alwi had been covering the protests taking place in the northern Egyptian town – the flashpoint of protests in 2008 – as part of the general strike that began on Saturday in Egypt when the military police arrested them.
Continue to read bikyamasr.com
February 05 2012
Egypt to prosecute Americans in NGO probe
Washington Post :: The Egyptian government intends to prosecute at least 40 people, including some American citizens, as part of an investigation into non-government organizations that receive foreign funding, state media reported Sunday. The announcement came a day after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned the Egyptian foreign ministry that failure to quickly resolve the probe could jeopardize the more than $1.3 billion Egypt expects to get this year in U.S. aid.
Continue to read www.washingtonpost.com
January 19 2012
Journalism in Egypt: January 25th 2012, the anniversary of the Egyptian uprising
Huffington Post :: January 25th 2012, the first anniversary of the Egyptian uprisings that brought down Mubarak, is approaching quickly. When it comes, the news will arrive fast and fragmented from Tahrir, as it has every time big numbers return to the square. The ruling military council has called for an anniversary celebration just as activists are calling for renewed protests to demand that they leave power. One of the most interesting questions will be how the events, whatever they turn out to be, are covered by the local press.
Continue to read Maurice Chammah, www.huffingtonpost.com
January 05 2012
From Tunis to Tahrir Square: Internet access is not a human right, it is an enabler
New York Times :: From the streets of Tunis to Tahrir Square and beyond, protests around the world last year were built on the Internet and the many devices that interact with it. It is no surprise, then, that the protests have raised questions about whether Internet access is or should be a civil or human right. In June, citing the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, a report by the United Nations’ special rapporteur went so far as to declare that the Internet had “become an indispensable tool for realizing a range of human rights.” But that argument, however well meaning, misses a larger point:
[Vinton G. Cerf, Chief Internet evangelist for Google:] ... technology is an enabler of rights, not a right itself.
Continue to read Vinton G. Cerf, www.nytimes.com
December 28 2011
Twitter's business model: (advertising) status quo and outlook 2012
Mashable :: People predicted rioting when Twitter decided to post ads within its feeds. However, those protests never materialized. Instead, Twitter was used to mobilize protests in the streets in Egypt, Yemen and Tunesia. - The two instances are related. As Twitter became a globally recognized entity, it also began efforts to monetize itself earnestly in 2011. As previously mentioned, Twitter’s successful introduction of advertising was one of the big social media marketing trends of the year. Despite warnings from some Twitter purists, users didn’t seem to mind more ads on Twitter, perhaps concluding that Twitter was, after all, a for-profit business.
Twitter 2012: Bigger and More Ads - continue to read Todd Wasserman, mashable.com
Anthony De Rosa - Arab Spring 2011: timeline of protest, revolution and uprising
Storify | Anthony De Rosa :: Tunisia: December 17th, Mohamed Bouazizi sets himself on fire in Tunisia after repeated harassment from police who confiscated his fruit and vegetable cart, claiming he didn’t have a permit. Bouazizi’s self-immolation is widely considered the event that help propel the Arab Spring into motion.
[Mohamed Bouazizi:] I’m leaving, mom, I beg your pardon, any blame is useless, I am lost in a path out of my control, pardon me if I disobeyed you, blame our times, don’t blame me, I’m leaving forever, I’ll not be back, I am fed up crying without tears, blames are useless during these cruel times in this place, I’m tired and I forgot all about the past, I’m leaving while asking myself if my departure will help me forget.
2011: Arab Spring timeline - Continue to read Anthony De Rosa, storify.com
December 19 2011
Egypt’s state-run and independent news outlets differ on cause of latest violence
New York Times :: On the third day of clashes between security forces and protesters in the center of the capital, a new battle broke out Sunday between Egypt’s state-run and independent media over whom to blame for the violence. What is at stake in the propaganda war is public support ahead of the looming contest between an elected Parliament and the ruling military council over who will control the transitional government and oversee the drafting of a new constitution.
Source: @mosireen, uploaded - "Army and CSF clearing Tahrir, Dec 19". Mosireen is an independent media collective supporting the Egyptian revolution and its citizen journalists and independent film makers. Details: http://mosireen.org
Continue to read David D. Kirkpatrick, www.nytimes.com
November 27 2011
Egypt - The #freemona perfect storm: dissent and the networked public sphere
Egyptian-American writer Mona El Tahawy, who had cut her trip in North Africa short to join the exploding Tahrir protests in her native country, posted an alarming tweet to her followers "Beaten arrested in interior ministry." Short, uncapitalized, clearly written in a hurry. And with that, she went silent. - The Twitter community responded with a "perfect storm": #freemona.
Technosociology.org :: A few decades ago, contemplating launching a global campaign like this would require that I own, say, a television station or two. I hadn’t even unpacked my television set when I moved to Chapel Hill to take up a position as an assistant professor in University of North Carolina. Heck, I dodn’t even have a landline phone. But, “I” wasn’t just an “I.” Due to my academic and personal interests, I was connected to a global network of people ranging from grassroots activists in Egypt to journalists and politicians, from ordinary people around the world to programmers and techies in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. My options weren’t just cursing at a television set –if her arrest had even made the news in the next few days. I could at least try to see what *we* could do, and do quickly.
Concise, fast, global, public and connected was what we needed, and, for that, there is nothing better than Twitter.
[Jeff Jarvis:] Zeynep Tufekci writes a valuable post recounting the social pressure brought to #FreeMona. As she notes, there's no way to prove the impact. But it appears that in this case and others, being public about an arrest is helpful.
Continue to read Zeynep Tufekci, technosociology.org
October 09 2011
Editorial policy: Wadah Khanfar, Al Jazeera and "people journalism"
Guardian :: The revolutionary fervour of the Arab Spring came alive last night at City University London in a lecture by Wadah Khanfar, the former director general of Al-Jazeera. In describing his reaction to the various uprisings, particularly in Egypt and Libya, he illustrated just what is meant by a journalism of attachment or commitment.
[Wadah Khanfar:] I learned from my experience as a reporter, and then as director of a media institution, an important basic fact: that we should always posit people at the centre of our editorial policy.
Continue to read Roy Greenslade, www.guardian.co.uk
October 08 2011
No longer private - this year's Arab Bloggers meeting
Guardian :: If you've been following the so-called Arab spring you've also probably read an article asking whether Facebook was behind it all. Many news outlets debated the role of social media in bringing about these momentous events. What you probably haven't read about though is the history of the painstaking online activism that paved the way for the revolutions that toppled dictators. To hear that story, you needed to be in Tunis this week, where a group of leading bloggers from more than 20 countries across the Middle East and beyond were gathering for the first time since the revolutions began.
Continue to read Yazan Badran, www.guardian.co.uk
September 03 2011
Former Google exec Wael Ghonim's revolution: no leaders, just tweeters
CNN :: The former Google executive who used social media to jump-start social change in Egypt knows the key to leading a grass-roots revolution: Make it leaderless. "If you want to use the internet to change a problem you are facing or create an opportunity for a lot of people, you have to make sure that everyone is engaged," said Wael Ghonim, speaking at the international One Young World summit -- a Zurich, Switzerland, summit for youth leaders.
Continue to read edition.cnn.com
August 01 2011
Al Jazeera English launches in New York City
Huffington Post :: Six months after New York City news junkies flocked to Al Jazeera English’s (AJE) website for up-to-the-second coverage of the Egyptian uprising, they’ll now have a chance to watch the 24-hour news network on its original platform: television. At midnight, Al Jazeera English launched in New York City on Time Warner Cable, a major step in the network’s goal of expanding further into the U.S. cable market and a chance to reach two million households in a world capital of culture and commerce. AJE's website receives more online traffic from New York City than from any other city around the globe.
Continue to read Michael Calderone, www.huffingtonpost.com
June 12 2011
Upheaval in Egypt - Amr Salama, filmmaker, received 300 GB footage via Twitter
Beet TV :: Amr Salama, an Egyptian filmmaker and a central figure in creating the alternative media universe during the revolution in Egypt, is finishing a documentary about the historic events. his Twitter account, he received 300 GB of camcorder and camera phone footage, he says in this interview with Beet.TV.
Continue to watch Andy Plesser, www.beet.tv
June 11 2011
Middle East - Tracing the Syrian blackout
renesys :: Initial data from Google's transparency report suggest that total traffic was down on Friday this week, even compared to a normally quiet Friday. But looking at the broader picture, a couple things are clear. First, there was no repeat of last week's event, in which two-thirds of all Syrian networks became flatly unreachable from around the world, an Egyptian-style disconnection at a very fundamental level. This week, while traffic levels were reduced (perhaps throttled or rate-limited, as in Iran), the routes themselves remained intact.
If you wanted to reach a Syrian website today, or if a Syrian browser wanted to reach a European website, the paths were known and the lines were open.
renesys had published details of the Internet shutdown in Syria a week ago. At that time approximately two-thirds of all Syrian networks became unreachable from the global Internet. Over the course of roughly half an hour, the routes to 40 of 59 networks were withdrawn from the global routing table. (See screen below, includes link to the original post.)
Clipped from: www.renesys.com (share this clip)Continue to read James Cowie, www.renesys.com
June 02 2011
The Arab Spring: volatile situations in Yemen and Syria, but media coverage decreased 87pc
Journalism.org :: Last week alone, a government crackdown in Yemen reportedly killed more than 100 demonstrators; the European Union imposed new sanctions on Syria as reports surfaced that as many as 1,000 people have been killed in government crackdowns; Egypt decided to charge ex-president Hosni Mubarak in the deaths of protestors; and NATO announced a 90-day military extension in Libya as violence continued to escalate. But despite of the current situation Mideast unrest coverage decreased 87% from February to May 2011.
Continue to read www.journalism.org
May 30 2011
Egypt - Court fined Hosni Mubarak $91m for cutting mobile and Internet services
Reuters :: An Egyptian administrative court fined ousted President Hosni Mubarak and two former officials 540 million Egyptian pounds ($91 million) on Saturday for cutting mobile and Internet services during protests in January.
Continue to read Shaimaa Fayed, www.reuters.com
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