When the Berlin Wall came down, images were beamed on TV’s across the world marking the historic change. Recent riots in the Middle East demonstrate just how much the role of the media has changed. Now the revolution will be televised, and tweeted, and Facebook-ed, and YouTubed…
Aleeza Khan reports.
THEN: Fall of Berlin Wall – 9th November 1989
In 1989 journalism was radically different to today. It was impossible to know the bulk of the details of an event unless you were there. Rolling 24 hour news didn’t exist.
Television crews had to be sent to the scene, reporters and writers needed to be prepped and information wasn’t supplied by hundreds and thousands of Tweeters giving up to date accounts of the situation.
- Pic credit: Guardian
- Pic credit: Daniel Antal http://www.flickr.com/photos/antaldaniel/2912118873
Click on the following link for a great Twitter infographic celebratic 20th anniversary of fall Berlin Wall: http://www.berlintwitterwall.com/
The fall of Hosni Mubarak would not have been possible without social media. Egyptian Google executive Wael Ghonim set up a Facebook group that attracted at least 130,000 members and sparked the consequent revolution.
Pic credit: Anoop Verma
But the fall of the Berlin Wall would not have been possible without Mikael Gorbachev, international reporting and renowned journalists like the Sunday Times’ Peter Millar, named foreign correspondent of the year, 1989.
The mediums used 22 years ago were constrained compared to present day; there simply weren’t multi-platform opportunities.
If something needed to be reported, someone had to go to the scene with a photographer and report back; reporting today however is instantaneous
NOW: Egyptian Protests – started 25th January 2011
Pic credit: Guardian
The Egyptian revolution has been hailed as the modern day equivalent of the fall of the Berlin Wall. This may be as significant as the Wall, but the journalism surrounding it has completely changed.
Citizen journalism played a massive role in this revolution. As well as Facebook, Twitter was also used nationally and internationally to keep up with the protests, using the hashtag #jan25.
The fact that social networks can aide in the overhaul a country’s entire governmental structure shows the power of the citizen journalist and social media.
As a result of this power, Mubarak cut off the internet, emphasizing the level of its power and the fear it induces in dictatorial leaders. But the modern day street journalist in the midst of a revolution always finds a way to fight back.
This was evidenced when the Guardian reported that Google and Twitter launched a service enabling Egyptians to send news despite the internet blackout by tweeting by phone via voice-to-tweet software. See the whole Guardian article here.
This involved a small team of engineers from Twitter and SayNow (a Google company) who built a system that provided three international phone numbers anyone could use. They tweeted by leaving a voicemail which would appear as a tweet under twitter.com/speak2tweet.
This shows the importance that social media and citizen journalism held in the modern days of landmark change in Egypt. It allowed citizens to send news from Egypt despite Internet blackout.
Pic credit: Getty Images/ Peter Macdiarmid
- Pic credit: Getty/ Peter Macdiarmid
Here’s another technology related protest sign: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/2/1/1296562579398/A-girl-holds-a-poster-dur-018.jpg
Reporting on world events is no longer restricted to print and traditional news broadcasting; these journalists are feeding off the first hand information that is either being reported to them directly or publicised on social media sites. With such strict bans on journalists during these Middle Eastern uprisings, the journalist has come to rely on everyday people for their sources.