This will be our second audio update from an Iranian based in Tehran. We know the audio is rough, but so is the situation in Tehran now. Although the streets seem to be calming, there are still many difficulties with our communication. We will continue to work on this and hope you will continue to stay tuned for more updates from people Alive in Tehran.
[Editor's Note: This is a full transcript, minus names, of the first audio dispatch for what will hopefully become "Alive in Tehran." Special thanks to @peech____!]
HI [name], I’m [name] and I’m calling from Tehran, Iran. I’m just trying to give my personal experience in daily life in Tehran and Iran – to clarify some misunderstood stuff about the , uh, events happening in Iran because I think the media coverage has been very low and there have been many situations about this stuff happening here.
Generally most of the events are happening in [garbled] Tehran and other big cities in Iran and life experience lies by area. For instance in our area things are very calm but in central areas, uh, i think there are many events happening, specifically in evenings, afternoons, uh, and during the early hours of the night.Uh, most of the people are worried about their safety and security including myself and my family, uh, we just need the safety of people and I think that this whole situation is moving toward a worse case and involves the regime and [garbled] actions and making wrong decisions.
During the last 24 hours our government has made some [garbled] decisions and stayed against what people are demanding in the country and has made many people angry at them, and, uh, I think that it has worsened the situation in Iran.
For now, things are very calm – specifically during the mornings despite the rumours on both sides. They are trying to decieve people in the other sides and other campaigns. However they have new rallies during this afternoon and evening and I guess that things will be worse than the past few days and I just hope that they calm down and settle things down.
However, other than the bad life experience in Iran, we worry about the economic situation because prices are going very quickly and they are having many attacks to banks and many economic organizations are down or closed and, uh, many of the private companies and corporations are out of order – they have closed their services to people and uhm, people are very worried about the future of the country.
Many of them just demanded Democracy and uhm free election but now they are worried about the future of the country because things are driving toward a revolution and this is not a good situation for everybody in the country.
I just hope that things change here [garbled] and communications inside the country and with the outside world is very bad. They have reduced the bandwidth of internet connections, many of the websites are closed or hacked and this has been another [garbled] to let the rumours find their ways inside the society and people don’t have official sources to get their news.
I hope that things settle down very quickly. Thank you for listening and I hope that you keep your support and help Iranians to find the best future and the real Democracy here in Iran. Thank you.
[Editor's Note: We have cut the speaker's name from the beginning of the audio for his safety. We hope to have more dispatches to come later today and in the coming days.]
Here is a short 3 minute audio clip from a brave soul in Iran who has volunteered to join us in attempting to report what is happening there and publicize the voices of Iranians inside the country.
If you are in Iran and want to participate, please comment below, email us, or contact me via twitter.com/BaghdadBrian. Our only goal is to support the people of Iran to get their voices heard around the world.
We will have more to come, including a website soon.
The 2009 election in South Africa can rightly be called South Africa’s first “ICT Election.” According to a report by the Danish Technological Institute, each of South Africa’s four main parties made use of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) durig campaigning. This is a really interesting report, and raises a lot of great issues.
For example, DA (Democratic Alliance) made the most innovative use of ICT and had the broadest influence. This is logical as DA, the official opposition party, has the most to gain by chipping away whomever it can from the ANC’s voter base.
At the same time, the ANC has arguable the least to gain from ICT, as the majority party, with large support from South Africa’s poorest and least connected citizens. According to DTI’s report:
The reason for this is that the voting majority does not have access to the internet, never mind to Twitter or Facebook, due to high connectivity costs, dial up or no access ICT, digital literacy and resources. This is the result of limited formal skills, resources and geographical location (e.g. remote rural areas). But also that of close to 50 million South African, according to Rick Joubert, head of Mobile Advertising at Vodacom, only 9.5 million are mobile internet users and an estimated 5 million are desktop users. This is also reflected in the ICT use of the four parties.
According to a report in the New York Times in 2005, there were 724 mobile subscribers per 1000 people in South Africa, suggesting more than 72 percent of South Africans are mobile subscribers? I find this difficult to believe, but if so, it must surely be higher today, though with some brief googling, I have been unable to find more recent reports citing numbers/percentage of users.
Another report here further hints at the availability and usage of mobile phones around Africa, particularly high in South Africa and a few other countries, such as Tanzania. Unfortunately, links to the full report appear to no longer be functioning. This wide access hints at a much greater potential for South Africans to be involved in reporting their own lives and interacting with ICT than previously considered.
The wide acceptance and implementation of ICT by the major parties is even more shocking when compared with the lack of depth and glaring lack of ICT in international coverage of the election. With such wide access to mobiles, South Africa’s election was ripe for the application of ushahidi.com and swiftapp.org to be modelled as a journalism application.
Unfortunately it appears in most cases news outlets have chosen to write something resembling editorials, quoting only officials and “analysts.” The most content provided to judge the opinions of the citizenry about their experience and opinion of the election and results are in unmoderated comment forums such as this one. Even Al-Jazeera, who made such innovative use of Ushahidi during the conflict in Gaza left much to be desired in their brief citizen journalist-style coverage.
Where are the voices of South Africans who are not members of the political class? Although some outlets such as the BBC did provide minute-by-minute coverage and even utilized Twitter and other ICT to enable citizens to contribute their experience, I am left wondering how would this election be different were the 2500+ reporters on-hand for South Africa’s momentous 1994 elections equipped with the vast array of media gathering and distributing tools available today.
Instead I’m left feeling something of deja vu for the United States recent election based more on popular misconceptions, propaganda, and puff journalism. Where are the voices of South Africa’s citizens in the international community? Where are the on-going investigative reports into Jacob Zuma and other South African politicians?
I believe the knowledge the international community needs of South Africa, and that South Africans themselves need about their political system, can only exist when South African citizens are utilizing ICT to investigate and disseminate information as skillfully as their major political parties have recently done.
The White African, Kiwanja’s FrontlineSMS, and Ushahidi are good starts. I’ll continue to think about how we can utilize their experience, in combination with African entrepreneurs such as Julius Mwelu to change the direction of international journalism in Africa and abroad.
Alisa Miller, the head of Public Radio International, gave this talk at the November 2008 TED Conference, she succinctly describes the current state of foreign news, which is particularly driven by United States and British media companies. In four brief but enlightening minutes she paints a horrifying picture of the state of foreign news today.
Now I’d like to give you a brief look at some of the stories you’re missing, for example, what are we losing from our knowledge about the not-so-distant future of Iraq with the massive media withdrawal there?
Or in Mexico, right on our border, perhaps if we knew more about the goings-on across Mexico, rather than just on the border, we’d see a potential solution to the police and security crisis there?
During the Israel-Gaza conflict of 2008-2009, I’ll bet you didn’t hear about the destruction of one of the larger local businesses and food suppliers to Gaza residents. How would it change your outlook to have learned about that at the time?
Small World News is looking to build a network of international producers, with unique content from around the world, and change the way we look at our world. We believe we all have a stake in better understanding each other, and that can only be done by providing the international community access to news from around the world.
Comments