This week we’ve been looking at the different tools and tech being used by the local affiliate of the Occupy Together or Occupy Wall Street movement, also known as “We are the 99%.” Steve and Josh wrote about their experience at the protest, Josh investigating the opportunity posed by livestreaming, while Steve took some time to talk to some of the local media makers themselves.
I didn’t make it to the event, so instead of talking about experience at the protest last week, I’d like to discuss what can be gleaned from reviewing the media made by members of the occupy movement, and how Occupy Together might improve their impact by improving their media.
The bulk of Occupy Together media has focused on livestreaming. There are a few obvious reasons for this, its immediacy and ease due to readily available connectivity across a multitude of smartphones being perhaps the most obvious. I learned another reason today during a conversation with a friend and longtime media activist who has been heavily involved with the streaming and mobile broadcast efforts.
Because events are being broadcast in realtime by the participants, individuals with an interest in the continuance of their message, as well as the safety of the camp, livestreaming provides a potential deterrent to camp eviction. Police departments across the country are having to think twice about removing Occupy camps by force, a deterrent not historically available to disenfranchised groups occupying public space illegally, such as Portland’s homeless community.
Its clear how such a technique could be far more effective than previous attempts to monitor police violence at protests with offline cameras, that have media which must be copied and published at a later time. Now that individuals previously involved with the transitory summit-hopping actions of the global justice movement are partnering with newcomers to activism, its important to rethink the use of media as well as the effectiveness of other tactics.
While occupying physical space, and building a local power base provides a feeling of continuity and a space to begin organizing for change, its important to recognize he impact such a new organization has on existing issues. Occupy media has primarily focused so far on the actual Occupy events themselves, even things such as the We are the 99 Percent tumblr are activities focused in self-selection, individuals are choosing to participate.
Because of this dynamic, and the general focus of the mainstream media, Occupy is in danger of becoming more of a spectacle and a headline grabber, in the way the Tea Party has become. In order to create real, durable change, Occupiers need to tell the country and the international community what the media aren’t. They need to document the images of the real life 99%.
What if, in combination with documenting the events of the Occupy Portland encampment, some individuals took it upon themselves to start documenting the real and present issues of the 99% around Portland? This is whats necessary to provide context for the Occupy movement. Stories of today at the encampment provide a look at who the Occupiers are, and how the State is relating to them. However, it will take pointing the cameras outward, stepping out of protest comfort zones, and making an effort to explore the stories that are not yet being told if we want to know who the 99% really are.
//Photo via Streetcar Press’ Photostream
Last week some of us from Small World News visited the Occupy Portland protest, a local spin-off of the Occupy Wall Street protests that have captured the national attention. We wanted to observe how citizen media was being utilized to cover the protests, and also to experiment with the tools of the trade.
I’ve always been particularly fascinated with live media, whether it be live streaming video or realtime micro-blogging, and that was what I was interested in at Occupy Portland. While there are many instances of streaming video at the Occupy protests, I had a specific angle in mind.
At Small World News, one of our key areas of work is in how citizen media is deployed in repressive and dangerous environments, which is why we published our Guide to Safely & Securely Producing Media. It was with this in mind that I selected my tools. I used only my Android smartphone with its data connection, opting out of higher-end cameras, laptops, and mobile broadband. I personally prefer free and thoroughly mainstreamed applications for spreading citizen media (Youtube, for example, or Twitter) and thus settled on Ustream for streaming video.
The key here is that, in a repressive environment, the smartphone can be obfuscated in a crowd much easier than larger setups, and can also be quickly wiped out (all data erased) should the threat of security services present itself. Above all it can be deployed quickly and spontaneously, ideal for breaking news events. None of these concerns were present at Occupy Portland of course – there was no need to hide, security services were not a threat, and the protest occurred with several week’s notice – but this was only a test.
Almost immediately, I noticed a few problems with my choice of software. First, the Ustream app would lose its connection whenever I received an SMS and was unable to reconnect without shutting down and restarting the application. Text messaging is an extremely important communication tool, especially in developing countries (Egypt and Tunisia for instance). Luckily, Ustream’s website will refresh automatically, so anyone watching the stream when it goes down merely has to wait a moment for it to return. Even still, a user should not have to choose between SMS and live video, they should operate in tandem.
The next issue was that, while it allowed me to connect the app to my Twitter account, the app did not let me customize the text of the tweets it used to notify others of my broadcasts. What this means it that the user cannot use hashtags, such as #jan25 in Egypt, in order to have their broadcast spread farther. Remember, one of the benefits of this live stream set up is that it can be deployed quickly. This speed advantage does little or no good if the broadcast can’t be seen and picked up easily by others.
Furthermore, the tweet that is broadcast by the app is very ambiguous and filled with junk information. “I’m broadcasting from Android phone, live on Ustream – http://ustre.am/DJCf – 15:30 PM Oct 6.” Why does a viewer need to know what device I’m using, and why would they need a timestamp when the tweet itself is timestamped (as is the video)? They can be forgiven for branding the tweet with Ustream, it is free after all, but the rest is wasted characters better used for relevant hashtags and contextual information.
Even with these technical problems, the effect of the stream was still apparent. The most common feedback I received was along the lines of “I felt like I was there.” This is certainly exciting, but it only provides an experience, not necessarily informative data. When live shots are used on television, they generally have someone onscreen talking, providing context to the viewer on what exactly they’re seeing (and experiencing). But this isn’t always possible in a repressive environment, as a user may not necessarily want their identity broadcast along with their stream.
There are ways to mitigate most of these issues. A partner can watch for the streams to come online, and aggregate them in a central location (say, a Twitter account) and then push them out to a wider audience with the relevant hashtags and much-needed contextual information. Even better would be an application specifically for this aggregation that would allow the partner to switch between multiple streams, cueing up one after another as they go online (and off).
How else can these streaming tools be improved for the purposes of citizen media? If you could design an application for streaming video, what features would you include? We’re interested in your feedback, so sound off on Twitter or Facebook.
//Photo via Flickr
Since launching in March, our journalists operating in Ajdabiya, Benghazi, and Misrata have produced 175 videos covering the revolution, the civil war, and the daily life of Libyan citizens. With the fall of the Gaddafi regime in Tripoli, Alive in Libya has now expanded to the capital, along with a new bureau in Zintan.
Training in Tripoli
Last weekend Alive in Libya, led by our Benghazi bureau chief Seraj Elalem, completed its first training session in Tripoli. 10 aspiring journalists, 5 women and 5 men, graduated from our course, and 4 of them signed on as contributors to Alive in Libya. More trainings will follow in the coming weeks as we continue to expand into previously inaccessible areas. You can see a selection of the new content from our Tripoli bureau by visiting the website.
New Site
The first thing you’ll notice when visiting the site is the new design. We’ve revamped the look and feel of the website to better complement the tremendous video content coming out of Libya. We’re interested in your feedback on the site, so please let us know what you think.
The next thing you’ll notice is the stark improvement in the skills of our reporters. As the trainings continue and our reporters gain experience and grow more comfortable, they push the boundaries of Libya’s new free press. We are encouraging our bureaus to innovate, and they have responded with useful techniques like English narration (which their Western audience surely appreciates) as well as more probing and critical reports in the wake of the revolution.
Support the Team
Alive in Libya still needs your help.
Our team is currently expanding into other cities in Libya, and your support will allow them to both train more journalists and ensure these journalists are properly equipped with cameras, microphones, and other tools. Your support will be instrumental in the establishment and future success of new Alive in Libya bureaus.
If you can help, please click here to support our team.
Yesterday my colleague Steve Wyshywaniuk addressed how Citizen Media might assist Egyptians and the international community to bear witness to the upcoming election in Egypt. If the current ban preventing international observers continues, Egyptian citizens will be the only ones with the potential to ensure the validity of the election. After thirty years under Hosni Mubarak, and a sum total of 57 years of totalitarian rule, Egyptians can hardly be expected to ensure a transparent, accurate election.
Despite these limitations, its certainly possible Egyptians can follow the example of other organizations attempting to ensure democratic elections through citizen observation, from Lebanon to Afghanistan, and as Josh Mull mentioned earlier this week, they already have some experience.
I founded Small World News with Steve Wyshywaniuk based on the assumption that, while technology is increasing the accessibility of the tools of democracy, that access is so far primarily limited to developed nations and the wealthiest citizens of lesser developed nations. There are simple tools such as OpenDataKit to create mobile-based election monitoring forms, or even more simply, using simple SMS forms to rapidly send in election updates from monitors in the field.
However, these tools and techniques are only accessible where they are known to local citizens and monitoring organizations. Other tools, such as digital cameras that are now so affordable as to be practically disposable still cost a large percentage of a citizens income in Egypt or many other countries. Even where affordable cameras exist, too often citizen journalists lack the knowledge of basic production techniques to improve the impact of their firsthand access to urgent events.
-Brian Conley, Co-Founder
//photo by Al-Ahram
Yesterday in this space we discussed the upcoming elections in Egypt, and the need for international observers to work alongside local organizations to ensure the fairness and accuracy of the polls. International and local observers working together would allow reports of fraud, intimidation, and other improprieties to be more easily verified, increasing the legitimacy of the observation mission.
But what if Egypt’s military continues with its ban on foreign observers, and the burden of monitoring these critical and momentous elections is placed entirely on Egyptian citizens? What are some of the ways the observation mission can be empowered and bolstered without the presence of international monitors?
There are several examples of where election monitoring can be conducted in less than ideal circumstances, be it in police states with no access to foreign observers or in conflict zones with very little infrastructure and media access. Here are a few:
Monitoring elections is an incredibly complex and difficult task, particularly in this case with the crucial and unprecedented post-revolutionary elections in Egypt.
What are some of the other ways both the international community and Egyptian citizens can work to ensure a free and fair election? We will continue to monitor this story closely, and your suggestions, comments, and solutions are welcomed.
//Photo by Bikyamasr.com
Egypt will start parliamentary elections on November 21, Al Arabiya Television and the Al-Ahram newspaper reported on Saturday, the country’s first vote since a popular uprising toppled President Hosni Mubarak in February after 30 years of autocratic rule.
Al-Ahram quoted Egypt’s election commission head, Abdel Moez Ibrahim, as saying voting for the lower house, the People’s Assembly, will be held in three stages starting on November 21 and ending on January 3. Voting for the upper house, the Shura Council, will begin on January 22, 2012 and finish on March 4.
These dates aren’t confirmed, they’re only leaks to regional media outlets. A spokesmen for the military says only that the official dates will be announced on September 26.
The legitimacy of these polls, with history as a guide, are to be rightfully questioned. Reuters reports that some efforts are being made to ensure a free and fair election:
The [Supreme Council of the Armed Forces] has said the judiciary will oversee the vote to ensure a free and fair poll. A member of the council said in July the election will be held in three stages to make it easier for monitors to oversee voting.
One question is the role that international media and election monitoring organizations will play in the transition to credible democracy. Although Egypt’s revolution was successful in overthrowing the Mubarak regime, Egyptians still live under a military government accustomed to total domination of society, including within the judiciary offered as one of the primary election monitors.
In July, the military announced that there would be no foreign observers allowed to monitor the upcoming elections, citing the need to protect Egypt’s sovereignty. During Egypt’s last elections (under the Mubarak regime), fraud and election improprieties were widespread and well-documented by organizations such as DISC. For example:
Another report submitted on December 5, 2010 was even more specific: “Buying out votes in Al Manshiaya Province as following: 7:30[am] price of voter was 100 pound […]. At 12[pm] the price of voter was 250 pound, at 3 pm the price was 200 pound, at 5 pm the price was 300 pound for half an hour, and at 6 pm the price was 30 pound.” Another report revealed “bribe-fixing” by noting that votes ranged from 100-150 Pounds as a result of a “coalition between delegates to reduce the price in Ghirbal, Alexandria.” [...]
Additional incidents mapped on the Ushahidi platform included reports of deliberate power cuts to prevent people from voting. As a result, one voter complained in “Al Saaida Zaniab election center: we could not find my name in voters lists, despite I voted in the same committee. Nobody helped to find my name on list because the electricity cut out.” [...]
Reports also documented harassment and violence by thugs, often against Muslim Brotherhood candidates, the use of Quran verses in election speeches and the use of mini buses at polling centers to bus in people from the National Party. [...]
As thoroughly and specifically as these incidents are documented, their validity may still be questioned due to the fact that they come singularly from Egyptian activists. Activists are burdened with incentives and interests that might tarnish the quality of their reporting. International monitoring organizations (such as the Carter Center or Democracy International) have their own disadvantages, such as questionable funding sources, motivations, and lack of local context. But when local and international monitors are used in tandem, incident reports can more easily be verified, and the credibility of the entire observation mission increases.
Somali refugees in Kenya lack basic access to communication and information about the aid and services available to them. From Internews:
The assessment surveyed over 600 refugees and shows that large numbers of displaced Somalis don’t have the information they need to access basic aid: More than 70 percent of newly-arrived refugees say they lack information on how to register for aid and similar numbers say they need information on how to locate missing family members. High figures are also recorded for lack of information on how to access health care how to access shelter, how to communicate with family outside the camps and more.
The report suggests a number of excellent solutions:
The report makes several recommendations, including: conducting workshops on communications for humanitarian organizations; establishing a humanitarian communications officer in Dadaab for communicating with affected populations; increasing support to Star FM, the main Kenyan broadcaster in Somali language, for broadcasting local humanitarian information; and establishing a communications research hub and a media training center for both host and refugee communities. It is important to note that the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has already set up an Information Dissemination Group to specifically look into the communications needs of local communities “in the light of the current emergency and identified gaps by Internews’ assessment†(page 11).
What are some of the other ways that communication and access to information can be increased within the Dadaab camps?
Generally when media makers theorize on hyperlocal content, they consider it only in the context of developed communities with ready access to communication infrastructure (internet, television, etc). Further it is usually considered only as a complement to wider-scope media (such as the pairing of local news with nightly national news in the United States).
But the camp in Dadaab provides an especially difficult case, with its lack of access to most IT infrastructure (meaning no Facebook, no crowdmapping), and its need for exclusively local content (no need for international media organizations). The solutions that might immediately come to mind are almost certainly unworkable here.
Instead what is required is a concentrated effort on building the capacity of locals inside the camp to communicate and access information themselves. With this in mind, we can judge the recommendations of Internews’ report to be very much on the right track.
Expanding existing media systems, such as their example of StarFM, and developing the capacity of community leaders, as shown in the video, to provide their constituency with the necessary information will help move toward a realistic solution within the constraints of life in the refugee camp.
What else can be done? And what lessons – on hyperlocal media, on community information and communication, and on development, can be learned from the case of Dadaab?
While most Americans spent this last weekend celebrating the Labor Day holiday, the world of media didn’t take a vacation. Here’s a couple of cool stories from around the internet that you won’t want to miss:
Building Media City-by-City
The US Embassy in Kabul reported on its Facebook page that the first of many USAID-funded Community Media Centers has opened in Herat, Afghanistan. These media centers provide tools and training in everything from basic computer use to advanced multimedia editing, and are open to the public, including local small business owners and civil society organizations.
From the post: Roqeya Ahmadi, a resident of Hirat, has already become a regular visitor to the center, coming for training in digital photography and videography. Multimedia is the cornerstone of society, especially in Afghanistan, she said. After three decades of war, its an effective way to increase our people’s knowledge and to expand their vision of what they can do with their lives.
The plan is currently to open at least three more centers in the coming weeks, in Mazar-i-Sharif, Jalalabad, and Kandahar, with the longterm goal of creating a nationwide network of community media centers.
These community centers are an excellent idea, and should greatly increase exposure of local citizens to the tools and training needed to make high quality, high impact media. Small World News has conducted trainings in conjunction with two of these media centers in Herat and Jalalabad, which you can read about here.
Do you have a media center in your neighborhood? While creating one in Afghanistan is a challenge to be sure, you might already have the tools and contacts to start your own right where you live. Talk to your friends who like to shoot photos, post videos, and write blogs, and see what you can organize right in your own community. Don’t forget to grab a copy of the Small World News Guide to Safely and Securely Producing Media to be sure you’re publishing the best media you possibly can.
Missing in Libya
Mafqood is a new venture by Tripoli’s infamous Free Generation Movement and others in Libya to crowdsource the job of locating persons who’ve gone missing over the course of the country’s civil war. The website allows users to provide a detailed description of the missing person, upload photos, and explain the circumstances surrounding their disappearance. The descriptions are combined into a database, currently numbering over 100 reports, although it is unclear at the moment who has access – authorized or otherwise – to this database, and how exactly each entry will be investigated.
Still, the project shows some exciting potential. Take this story from Alive in Libya about volunteers with the Red Crescent in Benghazi. They are doing roughly the same job as Mafqood, although their time is split both compiling reports of missing persons as well as carrying out the difficult task of actually investigating and tracking them down. It’s easy to see how crowdsourcing only one piece of the job – gathering reports – could offer a big gain in efficiency if properly integrated with existing humanitarian efforts, such as the Red Crescent’s mission of tracking the missing and disappeared.
Of further interest to us here at SWN would be combining the efforts of Mafqood with additional technology, particularly mapping tools such as Ushahidi, to allow better visualization and processing of the data, as well as mobile tools like Frontline SMS, which would allow citizens with only a mobile phone to submit reports of missing persons and use call-in tip lines for locating the disappeared.
Hey Man, Nice Shot
John Pollock has a fascinating article up at MIT’s Technology Review examining the resilience of new media technology, as told through the story of Libya’s most famous journalist Mohammed Nabous, who was killed by Gaddafi forces while reporting on March 19.
From the post: “When the revolution started, Gaddafi cut all means of communication outside Libya,” says Gihan Badi, a Libyan architect based in the UK. She calls [Mohammed Nabbous], who is one of her best friends, “this genius guy,” in part because he saw what needed to be done and reacted fast. He left the street protests to spend two days rigging up a satellite connection for live feeds. “He just took all these lies away; he was sending a clear message to the whole world.”
A lot of people were involved. Nabbous reached out into his own and other networks. A group of figures like Badi acted as critical nodes, linking expatriate Libyans and other supporters. A friend of Mo’s working for a German supplier of cellphones to Libya got together some equipment, which was brought from Germany and smuggled into Benghazi via Egypt.
Even as the Gaddafi regime scrambled to block all communication, the technology, and much more importantly, dedicated citizens on the ground, kept the lines of communication open, between Libya and the outside world, and between Libyans themselves. As we’ve seen repeatedly, in Libya as well as elsewhere like Egypt and Iran, social media is extremely difficult for authoritarian regimes to cut off, as the very features that make new media new also make it nearly impossible to stop. Put simply, you can block the internet, but you can’t stop the media; You can kill Mohammed Nabous, but you can’t stop citizen journalists from telling their stories.
But the obvious power of martyrdom narratives and resilient networks doesn’t mean that they’re without fault. Nabous himself was a vocal proponent of the Transitional National Council, calling into question his independence as a critical journalist.
A free press, the goal in Nabbous’ and many other Libyans’ mind, does not consist of merely the ability to produce media, but also the fundamental elements of critical, independent journalism. Social media creates a system that is more resilient than traditional media outlets, but it is also more open, and thus subject to abuse.
With the system as open as it is, how do you preserve the integrity of journalism? How do you prevent, say, the rebels from filibustering the open system with propaganda, or pro-regime elements from poisoning it with misinformation? These are not easy questions to answer, although it certainly begins with ensuring that the system is so open, so broadly inclusive of all segments of society (official, as with the TNC, or unofficial, as with opposition groups or unheard communities) that no voice is able to dominate or interfere with the others.
Media development organization Internews has released a new report on the state of Libyan Media. Authored by Jamal Dajani and Jacobo Quintanilla, the report explores the recent history of media in Libya, speculates on the future, and provides a comprehensive “Media Map” of all the news outlets, independent or otherwise, operating in Libya today.
From Internews:
This is a monumental  indeed revolutionary shift in Libyan politics and society, and is one of the key channels for the extraordinary level of energy released by the uprising, the report states. New initiatives include print and satellite TV; terrestrial TV and radio; multiple online collaborations; as well as cartoons, music, graffiti, theatre, and other forms. Free speech and free media are central rebel demands, which makes these new media efforts core to the uprising’s very image and identity, key to its mobilisation, and an early embodiment of some of the its main goals.
The report even contains a section on Small World News’ project Alive in Libya:
From the Ushahidi blog:
The Ushahidi community consists of a diverse group of people who have helped extend, translate and deploy the platform around the world. The Beta version in 2009 was translated into Spanish, even before Swahili. That early adoption and use lay the groundwork for even more adoption in Latin America, and with other deployment partners, we saw uses from India, Kenya, Afghanistan and many others. It is with gratitude that we recognize the organizations that help Ushahidi deploy projects by awarding the�Deployment Partner 2011�designation. What this means is that these organizations have shown that they are well versed in customizing the platform, engaging the community and deploying with a strategy that shows potential and informs others. We will be awarding these designations periodically as organizations continue to work with us.
We appreciate being named as one of their official partners, especially alongside some of the most impactful – and frankly coolest – crowdmapping projects out there (Citivox, Emoksha, Digital Democracy, just to name a few).
The impact of mapping reports is easy to recognize, and Ushahidi was one of those innovations in new media technology that really made us sit up and take notice. Our first exposure to it was Sharek961, in Lebanon, and we knew immediately that this was a powerful tool with the potential for huge impact.
For one deployment, we partnered with the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA) to map their observation reports for the 2010 Wolesi Jurga elections. Observers around the country sent in their reports via SMS, which were then matched with the gps coordinates of their specific polling station. This alone gave us a startling new look at the same data they’ve been gathering in previous elections, but the real eye-opening moment came when they presented their findings at a press conference the day after the election.
For this press conference, FEFA displayed its Ushahidi map on a projector screen behind them as they announced their preliminary findings. Rather than enduring an all-too-familiar press event filled with statistics and obtuse data, the entire press contingent was transfixed with the maps. As the representatives spoke, the map onscreen changed to correspond with their reports – violence, tampering, intimidation. The journalists were constantly swiveling their heads to snap pictures and follow along with the map.
We appreciate all the support we’ve received along the way from the Ushahidi developers and their amazing community, and we’re glad to see such a great group of people continuing to succeed. We think their work is an important and indispensable tool to help journalists, as well as citizens themselves, to document and report news.
The latest project from Small World News, Alive in Afghanistan, is receiving a lot of attention in the media and around the blogosphere. Here’s a selection of the coverage we’ve found.
The LA Times has this:
Alive in Afghanistan is a multimedia reporting project that solicits reports by way of SMS, e-mail and Twitter from ordinary Afghanis and posts them alongside reports by professional journalists from the Pajhwok Afghan News agency.
Verified reports were then posted on an interactive map, allowing users to access the latest reports of polling center closings, explosions, rocket attacks and intimidation.
Although, as the founders of the site readily admit, only a minority of Afghanis know how to use the site and have access to it, it’s still a great resource for real-time election news from Afghanistan.
From the BBC
Citizens can report disturbances, defamation and vote tampering, or incidents where everything “went well”.
Their reports feature alongside those of full-time Afghan journalists to ensure the election and reporting of it is as “free and fair” as possible.
“We hope to enable people to report on what is going on in the country,” explained Brian Conley, who helped set up the project.
“In the rural areas there are not going to be monitors, and it is questionable how much international media coverage there will be in these areas.”
Additional text and video reports will be added by a network of 80 reporters from the Afghan Pajhwok news agency, he said.
From the Associated Press
A Web site called “Alive in Afghanistan” gave Afghans the chance to report violence or polling irregularities via Twitter, e-mail, SMS or the Web that were recorded on an interactive map. More than 100 reports came in during the day to the site, run by a nonprofit group that has done similar projects in Iraq and Gaza.
“Armed Taliban keep voters away from 14 polling stations in Ghormach district of Faryab province” was one of the messages at 8 a.m., followed by “No girls voting at one of the big female stations in Kandahar city,” five minutes later.
The project mirrors the type of eyewitness online reports that got attention during the Iranian election, and which could thwart official Afghan attempts to control negative reports.
And the infamous server-choking segment from Rachel Maddow, from which we thankfully recovered.
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