At SWN HQ we’ve been discussing creative ways Egypt might be able to ensure their upcoming elections are free and fair. At this point the love affair between the Egyptian people and the Web last spring is painstakingly documented. But the recent announcement that the military council will maintain the emergency law into next year, shows that they need to commit to a long term relationship. The rumored dates for the upcoming election are November 21st, which would mean this critical election would take place under the same atmosphere as they did under Mubarak.

Citizen media was crucial to kicking off Egypt’s revolution, and it will be essential for monitoring each step it takes. Election monitoring technology is available that can allow citizens to collect reports about problems via SMS, media will need to be more sophisticated, and information will need to be more clearly sourced.

Just as I hope the media campaigns step up in quality, it is likely that the reaction to citizens uploading video, posting tweets, and communicating over facebook will be more sophisticated too. Just as Libya has learned from Egypt, Egypt will learn from everything in the last year.

Written by: Steve Wyshywaniuk ~ Co-Founder

//photo credit: Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty Images

Mark Rendeiro is in Georgia this week training locals to use new media tools for public campaigns, specifically related to advocacy. He’s blogging about his trip on his website Citizen Reporter.

While some nations in the EU curse their governments for not representing them in what is financially a very troubled union, here we find those outside wishing to get in. With what seems like very different goals, at least when it comes to the symbolic desire to be EU¦ maybe Georgians would find more happiness in being a member state, even if the economy looks pretty bad.

In the coming days here in Tbilisi, I’ll of course hear more about this bid to be part of the EU and the primary reasons for it. I’ll report back with what I learn.

Check out his website, follow him on Twitter, and stay tuned for more updates. When he returns, we’ll have a full report on what he experienced and what we were able to accomplish.

On April 8th, 2011 I had the opportunity to give a TEDx Talk as part of TEDxUofM at the historic Michigan Theater in front of a 1700 member audience. I was very lucky to be able to speak as a part of such an inspiring group of people, and that I had the chance to share my story.

Donia Jarrar is one of the many volunteer translators who worked with us during the early days of the Arab Spring. In this video she shares her personal story of how she came to Egypt, how she became involved in translating Speak2Tweet messages, and eventually, how she partnered with Small World News’ Alive in Egypt project.

Donia’s story is very important to us at Small World News, not only as a display of the motivation and dedication of our translation team, but because her experience exposes one of the many ways citizen journalists “self-select.” That is, how the daily lives and experiences of people all over the world lead them to telling stories, their own as well as their fellow citizens.

Why you choose to report is often just as important as what you choose to report. Donia’s personal history, from her family’s upheaval at the age of 4 to her life as an Arab student in the United States, culminated perfectly in a special drive to make the voices of Egypt’s revolution heard – across media and across borders.

Donia’s experience stands as a powerful example of the unique experiences – both extraordinary and ordinary – that lead one to creating and sharing citizen media with the world.

For more stories from the Egyptian revolution, visit Alive in Egypt

A Libyan watches a television broadcast of a speech by President Barack Obama in U.S., at a shop in Benghazi May 19, 2011. Credit: REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

From President Obama’s speech on the Middle East and North Africa, delivered this morning at the State Department:

We will continue to make good on the commitments that I made in Cairo ” to build networks of entrepreneurs, and expand exchanges in education; to foster cooperation in science and technology, and combat disease. Across the region, we intend to provide assistance to civil society, including those that may not be officially sanctioned, and who speak uncomfortable truths. And we will use the technology to connect with ” and listen to ” the voices of the people.

In fact, real reform will not come at the ballot box alone. Through our efforts we must support those basic rights to speak your mind and access information. We will support open access to the Internet, and the right of journalists to be heard ” whether it’s a big news organization or a blogger. In the 21st century, information is power; the truth cannot be hidden; and the legitimacy of governments will ultimately depend on active and informed citizens.

Small World News welcomes the US government’s commitment to the values of free speech and a free press. As we have witnessed through our work over the last five years, these values are more than abstract ideals; they are concrete goals sought universally by citizens around the world.

But these goals cannot be reached through words alone. As Small World News’ Brian Conley and Louis Abelman have written, supporting the aspiration of free expression is a lengthy and complex process:

Over 2010 we engaged in a broad expanse of projects: helping start a daily news program produced by Indian community activists; training Ethiopian journalists in exile to protect themselves online; supporting Rwandans with new media training; training Iraqi civil society organizations and technologists to develop a strategy and implement social media and mapping tools, teaching Afghan journalists to leverage the latest in mobile journalism tools; supporting an international monitoring organization and local humanitarian one to leverage mobile technology and mapping to monitor the Afghan parliamentary election; working with Bahraini human rights activists to develop tools to monitor their parliamentary election; and training Tibetan and Indian activists to leverage video as a tool to promote their work.

Today we hope to utilize the breadth of our work over the last five years to continue creating a space for voices go regularly unheard by the international community. This means centralizing the fragmented locations where dialogue is happening, and making sure those voices are curated and contextualized, as well as translated to English and other languages when necessary. It also means meeting with local contacts, providing training and equipment and infrastructure support as necessary. In a place like Afghanistan it may even involve coordinating with telecommunications companies as we’ve done previously, or developing methods that better prioritize the most accessible tools, such as voice and mobile platforms particularly in rural and low bandwidth communities.

While the value of free expression is universal, the solution is highly contextual. Each country presents unique challenges and opportunities for reaching our goals.

For instance, in Libya, citizens in eastern cities like Benghazi and Ajdabiya have considerable access to local media, through television and radio. But this media generally takes the form of revolutionary propaganda and opinion slanted in support of the rebellion. The opportunity existed for Alive in Libya to create a free and independent news source for Libyans as well as the international community.

This allowed Libyans access to news about their most pressing concerns not found in revolutionary media. For example, our teams of correspondents on the ground offer information on access to electricity in Ajdabiya…

…as well as information on organizations monitoring and seeking out persons who’ve gone missing in the conflict:

Small World News is excited to be a part of the global push for free expression, and we applaud the government’s stated goals of empowering journalists, bloggers, and civil society groups in support of that mission. We continue to build and train our networks of individuals and organizations, not only in Libya, but regionally and worldwide, so that these voices can be heard.

For more information on the Alive.In projects, visit Alive in Libya, or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Last weekend, the Small World News team attended Digital Journalism Camp 2011 in downtown Portland.

Digital Journalism Camp is about spending the day with the people who are actively changing journalism. You’re going to learn from ” and share with ” the people who have found solutions to the challenges you face, whether you’re a beat reporter, a blogger or a publisher.

We were lucky enough to be invited onto a panel called “Unheard Voices: Can digital tools give marginalized communities a voice?” From what we heard from the panelists, the short answer to that question is a resounding “yes!”

While Small World News focuses exclusively on overseas journalism, panelists Lisa Loving, Israel Bayer, and Craig Fondren showed us that the challenges of bringing unheard voices to the fore, be they training, funding, or building relationships, are the same no matter where you are.

Andrew Spittle blogged about the conference, and he had this to say about the panel:

Israel Bayer, direc­tor of Street­roots, talked about their efforts to bring the home­less into all aspects of jour­nal­ism. He also noted that, while some think a web pres­ence would under­cut street sales, their sis­ter paper in Seat­tle launched a web­site and saw their sales increase 40%. He pointed out that it’s the tech­ni­cal parts of a project that are the easy. It’s the rela­tion­ships and build­ing of a com­mu­nity that are difficult.

Craig Fon­dren of Sabin Com­mu­nity Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion talked a lot about how they edu­cate their com­mu­nity in the tools of jour­nal­ism. They focus heav­ily on bring­ing many gen­er­a­tions into their work­shops. As he put it, If you can get online we have a class for you. If I have your kid in one of our classes then I’m going to get you in a class and I’m going to get grandma too. They put a lot of work into senior instruction.

Lisa Loving also hit on a very important point, which is the impact this reporting can have on policy makers. Referring to Bayer’s project Streetroots, she noted that even a seemingly small project (say, distributing media-enabled cellphones to the homeless) will “percolate to the top.” As Small World News has noted in the past, the stories of local citizens on the ground add much needed context for journalists, analysts, and decision makers, as well as the general news consuming audience.

Special thanks to moderator Cornelius Swart for inviting us onto the panel, and to Jeff Bunch and Eitan Tsur who recorded the panels.

For more videos from Digital Journalism Camp 2011, head over to Doc Normal’s blog.

Photo by White House 2011

David Kenner wrote this week about President Obama’s news sources for Foreign Policy‘s Passportblog:

With one sentence, the New York Times raised dozens of Middle East pundits’ hopes that their words were reaching the most powerful man in the world. “At night in the family residence…Mr. Obama often surfs the blogs of experts on Arab affairs or regional news sites to get a local flavor for events,” read Mark Landler’s account of how the Obama administration will attempt to use the killing of Osama bin Laden to recast the U.S. relationship with the Arab world.

Well, Mr. President, we have some late-night reading suggestions for you.

Mr. Kenner generously suggested that the president read Small World News’ Alive in Libya as one of his late night sources, putting us in esteemed company alongside blogs like Joshua Landis’ Syria Comment and Reidar Visser’s Iraq & Gulf Analysis.

But counting decision makers in Washington among your readers is worth much more than flattery and bragging rights. Mr. Kenner has highlighted one of the most important functions of citizen media, that of providing the premiere source of context for the issues that affect us most.

Citizen media empowers and enables local citizens to tell their own story, report their own news, and communicate their own perspective to the outside world. Locals Alive In a country understand the context, the history, and the details of important news stories more thoroughly than reporters alive from the country. Local citizens are able to understand the news for what it is, and how it directly affects them. It is these voices that are under-represented, or not represented at all, in traditional, mainstream media.

Small World News in particular is concerned with allowing the viewer access to the daily lives, feelings, and opinions of citizens on the ground, the so-called “human element” of journalism. It is these seemingly ordinary experiences that truly allow the viewer to experience the extraordinary, the events that move and shape the world we all live in.

Combining both the understanding of and empathy with local citizens provides the viewer with the ultimate context for any news story. The importance of this context, for viewers, policy makers, and officials, cannot be overstated.

For more citizen media from Small World News, see some of the other projects in our Alive.In series:

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about content recently. In my latest project I’m working with Video Volunteers to establish a network of community producers (or community journalists) all over India. These Community Producers will be generating at least 1-2 videos per month, as well as a variety of other social content, ranging from SMS updates via Twitter or a local gateway running something like FrontlineSMS, to blogging and recording audio via phone.

My current goal is to start the network with 40 Community Producers, this is a number based on everything I’ve discussed with colleague here, regarding available candidates, capable candidates, and our own limitations, for example to qualify a candidate must speak Hindi and/or English. If we are successful at launching the project with such a broad and diverse network, we very quickly start dealing with some really large numbers. In the first month we will produce between 40 and 80 *different* videos per month.

The first question anyone might ask at this point is, will anyone watch that many videos online from one network or news agency? Although the answer may be no, I’m hoping its a clarified no, I’m hoping there is a body of viewers who will be interested to watch at least half or two-thirds of the content being produced each month. Unfortunately, the number of viewers who will be ultimately interested in the content if they can see it is something somewhat outside of our control.

My attempt to determine what elements I can control has led me to conceive of the term “watchability.”

The greater the “watchability” of the content, the more likely the video will be watched. Of course this risks being a self-fulfilling paradigm, where we might say that if a video is watched, of course it has watchability and if it isn’t then it doesn’t.

I’m endeavoring toward a theory of watchability that is not so irrelevant to the rest of us as such a frivolous take might be.

So let’s start from the most basic element, in order to be watchable a video must have a certain quality level to the content. That means the image should not be too shaky, and the audio must hit at least a modicum of tolerability regarding the ratio of signal to noise.

In order to be watchable a video must be compelling, which is to say it should show us something new and interesting, it should provide us a new take on an old story. This new and intriguing perspective should be shown, not told. It doesn’t have to be funny, but being funny, or entertaining, or exciting are all elements that can greatly increase a videos watchability. It can be easier to succeed at thrilling or entertaining an audience than to be compelling in another more dramatic fashion.

Keep in mind we are looking toward a definition of extreme or complete watchability, what elements should a video contain for the greatest watchability.

To make a video that is compelling is easiest if it also reflects a dominant paradigm in the audience’s worldview. This is why we are so willing to accept images or stories as fact that later prove to be false. Videos have perhaps the greatest viral watchability, and can even become exponentially more compelling when they contain content that directly reflects the expectations of the audience they reach in a new and shocking way. It can also be compelling by virtue of being extremely personal or communicating something intimate about the individuals pictured or the individual producing the content.

For example the video of Neda during the Iran election protests was extremely watchable. So too was LonelyGirl15 and even before YouTube was likely a spark in Chad Hurley’s imagination, a young Kuwaiti named Nayirah convinced the world that Iraqi soldiers had taken Kuwaiti children from incubators and “left the babies on the cold floor to die.” Her story was “watchable” because Americans wanted to believe it, and the press did little to question the elements, exactly because they reflected the dominant paradigm.

So watchability isn’t always necessarily a good thing. However reflecting one’s worldview can also be a matter of tenor, ie negative or anti-government videos for some, positive uplifting images of heroic justice for others. This may also be why humor is such a connecting element across boundaries of culture and differing perspective.

Keeping that in mind, is there anything else that provides a video watchability? I would suggest that perhaps the single most important element of watchability, even after reflecting the audience’s dominant perception of an event, is audience accessibility.

Videos must reach the audience where the audience is willing to consume the videos. Thus YouTube videos might have a higher base-level watchability than other video-sharing sites, purely as an element of market share. Another interesting element is that videos from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have greater watchability if they are published at Liveleak.com purely by virtue of the fact that consumers of such videos tend to spend much of their time looking at Liveleak to find the latest and “greatest” gore from the War on Terror.

The onus is now on the producer/publisher to push videos out as far and wide as possible. The very watchability of a video depends on it. Accessibility and paradigm reflection can improve the watchability of a video that might otherwise be consigned to the dustbin of internet video waste. The most beautiful and telling story of corruption or suffering or pain of an oppressed people might also lack watchability if it is not made accessible to a willing audience.

In order to have watchability videos now must be accessible via RSS, iTunes, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and a host of others, the level of importance of any one networking tool being directly related to the audience a producer/publisher is targeting.

I hope you’ll comment with your own ideas and theories of “watchability.” Even with 10 years experience producing and consuming online video, one individual cannot hope to come to a solid and complete definition of such an elusive topic.

But at the risk of extreme hubris, I’ll postulate this; to succeed at creating a video with the greatest watchability, a video must:

* contain content with a marginal level of quality, a steady image and not too much noise in the audio
* be compelling, showing us something new, or something personal
* despite showing us something new, it should reflect the existing worldview of the audience
* it must be accessible. all television content possesses watchability purely by being on television, our audience is more dispersed, so our content must be as well.

What else makes a video watchable?

How many of these elements will we have to achieve to succeed at building a vast audience and keeping them? As I said at the beginning, to some degree that is really unknowable, but pursuing a theory of watchability may be the best chance at creating a benchmark for measuring success and how to alter our planning and execution to potentially increase our watchability.

Some thoughts so far from Twitter:

JoeyNiebrugge

@BaghdadBrian compelling, human angle, educate viewer (culture, people, lifestyle), entertain, quality* visuals (*often lacking)

NickySides

@BaghdadBrian “watchability” grabbing hook for initial attention. personalize it so that ppl not normally interested in the topic relate

Dimitrijevic_66

@BaghdadBrian Re what makes a video watchable? : Brevity. Under 90 secs is best and state running time up front

Post your own response here or on Twitter!