Social Media: Maybe not as Great as we Think

As I sit here late at night on a Monday, I am reminded once again why I so love being an American.  I have just returned home from a night at the baseball field; by far one of my favorite places.  The first thing I did when I got home was to check my Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media applications.  Of course, I had been checking them regularly on my smartphone all night, but what could another check on the ole' computer hurt.  As I begin to write a tweet about something of probably minuscule importance, a thought comes to mind.  I am reminded about an article recently read for class that deals with Twitter and the Iranian revolution in 2009.  After reading this particular article, which deals with the role of Twitter in the 2009 uprising, I am forced to reevaluate my views about social media as a tool for protestors in autocratic regimes (a subject of one of my earlier blog posts).

Ohh and to clarify what thought reminded me of why I was glad to be an American, for tonight it was the fact that I can post a tweet about my baseball game without worrying whether or not the government is going to use it to spy on me.  More importantly, I would be able to post a tweet critical of President Obama without the government being able to use it against me.  This is something we in the United States so often take for granted, yet it is something that not all people in the world enjoy.  But, I digress.

What struck me about this recent article that I read was the fact that repressive regimes, such as the one in Iran, can use Twitter as a weapon against their own people.  This article explained how the government was using Twitter to track the people posting anti-gvoernmemt messages and then tracking them down.  This is something I had not even though about in the past.  In fact, in my last blog post I railed about how important of a tool social media was in these uprisings.  I'm not completely changing my stance on this, I'm simply tailoring my position.

Do I think Twitter and Facebook are indispensable sites for protestors seeking change in severely repressive regimes? Of course I do.  However, I also think that we must be careful when we push these protestors to post their videos, pictures, or even live updates on these sites.  What we in the United States often fail to realize is that posting a status for some of these people could very easily put their lives in danger.  I think it is shameful for a government, such as Iran, to try to limit the free discussion of their people through violent deterrent tactics.  Further, I think it is completely inappropriate for these regimes to use social media sites as means for hunting down those prostetsors simply seeking to have a free government and to have their voices heard.

So, whats the point of this random rambling?  The point is that we often want to look at all the good the internet has done in the world and ignore the bad that it has created.  Heck, I'm as guilty of this as anyone.  I regularly tout the internet as a great resource and tool, especially for protestors.  However, as we see with Iran in 2009, a repressive government can also us the internet to hunt down and harm their own people.  Before we just expect protestors in other countries to tweet about their every action, we need to consider the consequences they face for doing so.  The right we have to freely tweet in the United States is a lot greater than we realize.  I think we all take rights like these for granted.  Maybe its time we start being thankful that we, in the United States, can use the internet freely as we please, without fear of the government hunting us down.

I will now step down from my soap box.  Sorry for the long post.

We Need Blood

Chapter 27 of Doris A. Graber’s book “Media Power In Politics”  discusses Sean Aday’s article “The Real War Will Never Get On Television: An Analysis Of Casualty Imagery”. Aday’s article concerns a simple dilemma, the media will never portray war as it truly is: an “awful” endeavor. The concern is with the medias’ refusal to depict the gruesome carnage that is the result of war. What I want to focus on during the remainder of this article is addressing a claim found in Aday’s article by Walt Whiteman, “The real war will never get in the books.” A question that arouse to me after reviewing this article is: Should the media reveal the graphic nature of war, for the purposes of reporting the full implications of war as observed by the reporters? What I have determined to be my response to this question is: Yes, the media should in fact expose the graphic nature of war so as to adequately inform the public of what the “real war” is like. I believe that that the exposure to this graphic content a necessary to fulfilling the media’s role in a democracy of informing the public of what the “real war” is; so that we may understand the full implications of war in the future consideration in military involvement. If we exposed to war as it really is we may better understand what war is and may aid us in refraining from military action unless determined to be absolutely necessary. It is therefore that I have determined that this graphic content as absolutely essential information in the evaluation of whether or not military action is appropriate. Seeing that this information is essential to the objectivity of war coverage the media does have an obligation to expose us to the graphic nature of war, under its role of informing the public as a media serving a democracy. What implication’s this graphic content would have can range from: Increasing support for a war by displaying the state of the afflicted, to; lessening the support for war as a protection for all of humanity.

Al-Jazeera Listening Post: The US media's 'Iranian threat'

While we have been encouraged to look at media sources in the United States in this class, I couldn't help but post this to the blog after watching a short report on the Al-Jazeera English website.  I oftentimes turn to Al-Jazeera for news overseas, not only to read about news stories that might not make headline news in the United States, but also to hear them from another perspective.  In this 25 minute news video, the first 10 minutes or so are dedicated to recent American news coverage of Iran.  I would recommend at the very least watching from 6:25-8:30.  Here, a criticism of sensationalist broadcast media is given, in contrast with a more responsible print media.  According to the Al-Jazeera report, it seems as though sensationalized visual-based news is winning the battle.

I do concede that for those who reject the hypodermic model of the media, just because the media might emphasize one "story" over another, does not mean that it will in fact do anything.  The report, which aired on March 3rd, noted that the US military did not think it to be prudent to engage in military action with Iran.  Nonetheless, something surely has to be said about the role the media takes in informing citizens.  While I may not agree with everything in the short video, I do agree that most Americans have not seen the graph shown at minute 8:30.  This is a good example of one news organization almost being a watchdog of another country's media behavior, which I found to be interesting and well worth 10 minutes of my time.

Link to the Video on Al Jazeera's Website

Actual Video Below: