Social Media is an unambiguous threat to authoritarian regimes everywhere
During the past 24 hours the Iranian government has attempted to shut down mainstream media, confiscating TV cameras from ABC and other news organizations, in an effort to supress coverage of the aftermath of a disputed Presidential election. Major media has been unable to cover the ongoing demonstrations, street protests and increasingly violent clashes. CNN weekend anchor Don Lemon has been reduced to pulling news from Twitter.
Yes, Twitter is being featured as a primary source in CNN coverage. CNN is also dependent upon their iReporter feature and other social media sources from around the web. Is this the triumph of two-way media over traditional broadcast media? See this post from the BBC for a long list of examples that illustrate how a variety of web sites are providing real-time coverage. For authoritarian governments, it’s like the whack-a-mole game: they cannot close all such sites.
This is a big change. The power to record, upload and broadcast news is now in the hands of the citizenry, and it’s never going back.
20 years ago, the Chinese government supressed broadcast media during the demonstrations on Tiannanmen Square. In China, TV was off the air and the radio stations played military music. All news from Beijing was blacked out. At the time, consumer Internet was non existent, so it was too early for social media. But overseas Chinese used fax machines to send the newspaper coverage to their relatives throughout mainland China. And, via this crude, slow-twitch medium, the Chinese people gradually learned the truth about violent supression in their capital.
More recently, text messages on cell phones have played an important role in organizing citizens during disputed elections in countries around the world, ranging from Venezuela, Lebanon, Thailand, Ukraine and more.
Today, social media moves in real time, from cell phone cameras and text messaging to Twitter and Facebook. An invisible net of data pervades the whole world, enabling instantaneous awareness of breaking news. It’s like a global nervous system transmitting impulses from every part of the globe. Social media is an unambiguous threat to authoritarian regimes around the world.
Check out the photos at www.tehranlive.org.
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June 15th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
I agree with you Robert. Anyone who tries to thwart or control the flow of information will soon become a relic (of the status quo). As a result they will lose their power just like media conglomerates who lost when they attempted to stifle Napster.
It’s truly a brave new world out there.
And so it goes.
Thanks for the post.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
This is a really interesting post. Never thought about it that way.
September 10th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
So spot on!
Mobile phones, Twitter, SMS and other digital tools and platforms like Facebook are able to spread news much faster than traditional media outlets like tv news & newspapers–the end result being that It’s nearly impossible for anyone to “control” information.anymore.
A UN study found that 46% of the worlds population is under the age of 25. Couple that with the explosion of mobile devices and we’re looking at a major cultural shift in the way that information is collected and distributed.
Thanks for sharing your observations. Good stuff.