You say you want a Twitter revolution? Really?
It is a fact that social media is proliferating. On July 13th 2011, The Guardian reported 750 million users of Facebook and more than 200 million of Twitter. In the last 18 months, there have been several high profile uprisings: student protests and anti-cuts marches here in the UK and anti-government protests (some successful, some not) in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Algeria. Could the expansion of social media and the recent wave of protests be connected?
Since the mid 90s users have been able to communicate in groups online through chat rooms and websites such as sixdegrees.com (1997), friendsreunited.com (2000), friendster.com (2002), MySpace (2003), Facebook (2004) Bebo.com (2005) and Twitter (2006) – and yet the suggestion that social networking sites were capable of causing revolution did not come until 2009 after uprisings in Moldova (an Agence France Presse article on April 8, 2009, was headlined “The 'Twitter Revolution' of Moldova's high-tech teens”). This was the first “Twitter revolution,” quickly followed by the Iran election protest in June 2009. If you apply the theory of technological determinism here, you would find it difficult to explain how it has taken around a decade for people to harness the available technology and start forming groups capable of driving significant social change (either they didn’t want to protest or they didn’t know how), despite it being “ridiculously easy.” You might argue that until 2009, when Facebook emerged as the dominant social networking site, citizens were distributed across a range of sites, and until everyone got on the same (web)page large scale organisation was unlikely to happen. This argument in itself is acknowledging a more complex and mutually influential relationship between humans and technology as the process by which a particular technology dominates is through selection by consumers: the sites that offer the best services attract the most users and the sites with the most users is more likely to attract new users. Therefore humans both as producers and consumers, manipulate technologies or at the very least manipulate trends in technological use, not (as McLuhan might have it) the other way round.
In June 2009, crowds of young, liberal Iranians took to the streets to protest against what they believed was an unfair election in what is now known as the the Green Movement. Neda Agha-Soltan, a 26-year-old protestor was shot and killed on June 20th by a Basiji (the Basij is a volunteer security militia working for Ayatollah Khomeini). The event was filmed by onlookers with video phones and within 24 hours, internet users from around the world could watch footage of her death via YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. By the 22nd, the story was being reported in the international press accompanied by the disturbing video and photographic evidence. It would be difficult to deny that social networking sites played a significant role in raising the profile of this newsworthy event. Even Morozov, who is otherwise cynical about the impact of Facebook and Twitter, acknowledges “research by Pew Research Center found that 98 percent of all the most popular links shared on the site [Twitter] during that period were Iran-related” (Morozov, 2011, p.15). The millions of Tweets that followed spread more awareness but when the conflict died down the media took another, to them even more exciting angle: the influence of Western technologies on Middle Eastern politics.
Andrew Sullivan, a prominent America blogger, published a series of posts throughout the riots entitled “The Revolution Will Be Twittered”; inspired by the sound of rooftop chants and the Tweet at #Iran Election: “ALL internet & mobile networks are cut. We ask everyone in Tehran to go onto their rooftops and shout ALAHO AKBAR in protest #IranElection” (MirHossein Mousavi, 2009)
“This generation will determine if the world can avoid the apocalypse that will come if the fear-ridden establishments continue to dominate global politics . . . they will use technology to displace old modes and orders” (Sullivan, 2009)
Thus began the euphoric and technological deterministic (technology displacing old modes and orders) rhetoric in Western media and politics around this “Twitter Revolution.” And, argues Evgeny Morozov in The Net Delusion, because there was such a high volume of opinion, speculation and comment all over cyberspace,
“Thousands of readers who didn’t have the stamina to browse hundreds of news sites saw events unfolding in Iran primarily through Sullivan’s eyes.” He adds, “It didn’t take long for Sullivan’s version of events to gain hold elsewhere in the blogosphere – and soon enough in the traditional media as well.” (Morozov, 2011, p. 2)
A fellow blogger, Michelle Malkin speculated on the power of this “revolutionary samizdat” by “undermining the mullah-cracy’s information blockade one Tweet at a time” (Malkin, 2009) Another Atlantic.com journalist (and White House correspondent for National Journal), Marc Ambinder, coined the phrase “protaganol technology” to emphasise its leading role in events (Ambinder, 2009). What seems to have solidified this idea that the United States had somehow come to the rescue is that on Monday June 19th, Twitter announced the deferral of planned maintenance work on the website following an email sent by the Obama administration, asking them to reconsider in light of the vital role Twitter was playing in aiding the organisation of protest in Iran . The pinnacle of cyber-utopianism in the states came when Mark Pfeifle, a former aide for George W Bush, launched a campaign in July 2009 to nominate Twitter for the Nobel Peace Prize, for promoting “fraternity between nations”
Since the event, evidence has emerged that suggests the picture is not quite as it seemed. Morozov points out the majority of Tweets about the Iranian protests were from sympathisers and expats outside of Iran: “Analysis by Sysomos, a social media analysis, company found only 19,235 Twitter accounts registered in Iran (0.027 percent of the population) on the eve of the 2009 elections” (Morozov, 2011, p. 15). Also, some sympathisers changed their status location to confuse the authorities in Iran, which made it impossible to tell exactly where the Tweets were coming from. In 2010 “Moeed Ahmad, director of new media for Al-Jazeera, stated that fact checking by his channel during the protests could confirm only sixty active Twitter accounts in Tehran, a number that fell to six once the Iranian authorities cracked down on online communications.” (Morozov, 2011, p. 15)
Although the technologies exist and theoretically could have been used in Iran in the way that the cyber-utopians are suggesting, they actually were not. This is in line with previous studies carried out in the field of communications studies. Raymond Williams argues that a “technical invention as such has comparatively little social significance” (Williams, 1983 p.129) until it has been adapted by humans to serve a particular social function – which refers back to the previous suggestion that humans shape trends and advances in technology. Williams also claims that the Gutenberg press, considered by technological determinists such as Elizabeth Eisenstein, author of The Printing Press As An Agent Of Change (1980), to have impacted significantly on human literacy, did not have a dramatic effect. He claims that the rise in literacy continued to be steady but that literacy among the working classes was not achieved until three hundred years later with the 1870 Education Act. The invention of technology itself does not mean people will be empowered or educated which is why Hilary Clinton’s suggestion that providing internet access will automatically democratise the world is simply incorrect.
Owning the means of communication can be extremely powerful (there are many examples of the blogosphere dominating the news) and it does provide people with opportunities to express their views, but the mainstream media still dominates. In 2002 in the USA Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi spoke at a gathering to celebrate the 100th birthday of the Senate’s longest serving member, and former segregationist, Strom Thurmond. He made a clearly racist statement: “When Strom Thurmond ran for President, we voted for him. We are proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years either” (Harvard University, 2004, p.2). This statement was broadcast on C-Span (a cable channel dedicated to coverage of federal affairs) and heard by other journalists present at the event. But because of the celebratory nature of this event all but one reporter for ABC News reported on Lott’s speech. Shirky also references this example in his book (2008) and suggests reasons why there may have been so little coverage. He quotes William O’Keefe of The Washington Post:
‘“[T]here had to be a reaction” that the network could air alongside Lott’s remarks, and “we had no camera reaction” available the evening of the party when the news was still fresh. By the following night he adds, “you’re dealing with the news cycle: twenty-four hours later, that’s old news.”’ (Shirky, 2008, p. 62)
But because political bloggers, outraged not just at the words themselves but the failure of the press to properly report a racist statement made at a federal event and broadcast on national TV, continued to blog and comment and put pressure on the Republican party. Eventually, Lott was forced to apologise for his “poorly chosen and insensitive” words (Hulse, 2002). The apology itself was a fresh angle on the story, which allowed the mainstream media to report it as breaking news. Shirky uses this case as evidence of the power that social media has over the government and large media institutions, but what it also highlights is the power of the mainstream press to control the news we consume.
The most worrying and relevant aspect of both these stories is the fact that mainstream media have the power to decide what makes “news”. In the Lott example, the comment itself was not deemed newsworthy but the admission of error was. Similarly, the aftermath of a turbulent political period in Iran was not deemed as interesting as the Western technology that drove the social action. This focus on the West’s role in these events has been criticised by Morozov who suggests the “Twitter Revolution hyperbole revealed more about Western new media fantasies than about the reality of Iran.” He quotes Hamid Tehrani, the Persian editor of the blogging network Global Voices: “The West was focused not on the Iranian people but on the role of Western technology…Twitter was important in publicising what was happening but its role was overemphasized” (2011, p. 17). It would be a generalisation based on cinematic representations of America such as Saving Private Ryan (Spielberg ,1998), Avatar (Cameron, 2009) and Team America (Parker, 2004) to say that The United States sees itself as the ultimate action hero swooping to the rescue but this glamourisation of their contribution (through technologies) to this and other conflicts seems nothing short of arrogant.
The euphoria over Iran’s so-called Twitter Revolution is not limited to the more effusive side of the Atlantic. Here in the UK, Gordon Brown, in an interview with The Guardian, said:
"This week's events in Iran are a reminder of the way that people are using new technology to come together in new ways to make their views known. . . You cannot have Rwanda again because information would come out far more quickly about what is actually going on and the public opinion would grow to the point where action would need to be taken . . .” He added, “Foreign policy can no longer be the province of just a few elites.” (2009)
The implication is that people all over the world now have the power to influence the political field. The fact that such a statement can be made about a social networking site by the leader of the same government that ignored between 6 and 10 million people marching across 60 countries in protest against war with Iraq which promptly happened, is deeply ironic. As Tehrani suggested, the West was so pleased with the idea of its own technologies forging a path for democracy in the Middle East that it lost control of its rhetoric. Natalie Fenton sums this up nicely in her contribution the Manifesto For Media Education site: “Journalists, desperate for news fodder with more space than ever before to fill and less time to do it, routinely access and privilege elite definitions of reality and are claimed to serve ruling hegemonic interests, legitimize social inequality and thwart participatory democracy.” (Fenton, 2011)
In reality, compared to the government and the dominant media institutions, activists – regardless of how many Facebook friends they have – have very little power. On March 26th 2011, thousands of peaceful protestors took to the streets to oppose public sector cuts. The organization UK Uncut organized a “bail-in” (sit-in) protest in Fortnum and Mason, an up-market retail outlet they had identified as not paying their fair share of taxes. The protest consisted of chants, putting up posters and banners with sticky tape, some flag and umbrella waving and the occasional tambourine. Shoppers were distracted and bemused but were able to take photos, and in some cases carry on drinking tea. The uploads of the event on YouTube show no evidence of violence, indeed Laurie Penny, columnist for the New Statesman was there and claimed that the
“protestors share pre-packed crisps and squash and decide that it'd be rude to smoke indoors. When someone accidentally-on-purpose knocks over a display of chocolate bunny rabbits, priced at fifteen pounds each, two girls sternly advise them to clear up the mess without delay.” (2011)
However the news reports circulated on the day made associations between UK Uncut and acts of violence (explosions; the burning of a Trojan horse; members of the black bloc - the name given to a group of balaclava-wearing anarchists - smashing windows). A phone call with the BBC producer Aleema Ahmed who was inside Fortnum and Mason was broadcast live on the day (posted on YouTube by ‘resistthedaleksrule’ and entitled Tea Time At Fortnum and Mason). Ahmed reported that there was “a bit of chanting,” and the protestors were “opening up their lunches.” She added, “security don’t seem to be doing much” and “the staff and the police are all just standing… deciding what they can do.” She said there was “no, sort of, violent damage [her emphasis], they’re not trashing everything.” According to the website Newsniffer.co.uk, which monitors news articles and tracks changes made, Ms Ahmed’s comments were reported on the BBC website but edited to make them sound as negative as possible: "The shop was shut down. Police have sealed off all the exits. There is a lot of produce on the floor and the shop is a bit of a mess." However In later revised versions of the article the quote disappeared and there is almost no evidence online of her original full conversation.
96% of arrests made that day were of people banging tambourines in a peaceful protest, none of whom were present at the scenes of violence continually shown on the news. At the time of writing 30 people are still awaiting trial. There is an online campaign, a Facebook page, a Twitter ID @FM15 to publicise the injustice but the powerful and dominant media institutions who seem to want to give UK Uncut a bad name can justify the actions of the police by misreporting or choosing a biased angle on events.
The number of protests in the UK has increased since the Conservative Liberal coalition government came into power. These protests have taken place because of human reactions to problems in society, not because of technology. In fact, in July 2011 The Guardian reported a drop in UK Facebook users for the second month running (Arthur, 2011). With an increasingly dissatisfied public wanting to be heard, surely 2011 should have seen a steep incline. Bad policy makes people protest, social networking sites just make it easier to know when and where to meet. People will protest regardless of social networking.
As well as arguing against technological determinism, Williams criticises the opposing idea of a determined technology – where technologies are created as a specific response to a human need and fulfill only that need. This approach ignores the fact that technologies can be reappropriated for different purposes in different societies.
The Sukey app, launched early this year by a group of young software developers, reappropriates GPS (Global Positioning System) technology (a navigational tool originally created by the U.S. Department of Defense ) to aid protestors. Sukey collates information from a range of sources: Tweets, texts and GPS positions from protestors on the ground about potential kettles or unsafe places. These are then marked on a live map which can be accessed by protestors who use it to inform their actions on a protest.
Aside from the occasional small software development such as Sukey, there is little evidence that existence of a technology can create a better, more democratic world. Perhaps that seems cynical but surely attributing the scale and success of a protest to a technology is even more cynical as is devalues the human spirit and effort required to go out into the streets to protest against something that angers you. Social action is a physical manifestation of an emotional response to a problem; no technological tool is likely to dictate what that response will be. Similarly, Williams, although writing predominantly about television, argues that falling down on the side of either technological determinism or determined technology is ignoring the impact that individuals, organisations, culture and politics have on their media environment and it is the same with social media and protest. Social networking sites are predominantly a method of communication but communication doesn’t always lead to positive action or even any sort of action. It may be more likely to lead to gossip or bullying. Admittedly social networking allows communication between activists to happen more quickly and on a larger scale – but size and speed are not the most important ingredients of a successful protest.
