Cannot find 'armmenu' template with page ''
տպել
19.09.2011

MOBILE CIVIL JOURNALISM: OPPORTUNITIES AND PROBLEMS

   

Samvel Martirosyan

Expert, the Center for Informational Studies, “Noravank” Foundation

A parallel development of social media and mobile technologies caused serious changes in the information field. Ordinary citizens with mobile phones and other mobile devices have turned into information sources from the spots and very often they forestall traditional media. Appearance of a great number of civil reporters broadcasting by means of the mobile devices from the places where traditional mass media is unable to provide operative work has made it urgent to revise the notion of the source of information and possibility of verification. On the one hand during the critical events traditional mass media are not able to provide the information flow from the spot promptly (not counting the cases when mass media’s work is simply prohibited) which causes surge of interest towards civil journalism. On the other hand, civil journalism has a number of serious shortcomings – very often the sources are anonymous, even open sources do not have motivation on providing competent, verified information which in theory is a purpose of the traditional mass media.

Combination of mobile internet and development of alternative or civil journalism form rather specific segment of mobile reporters. Especially, in the places where socially significant events, which demand special attention of the press, but where the press is unable to work, take place. Those are such cases as chaotic events (civil wars, convulsions of nature and others) under which mass media are not able to be on the spot in time or when the authorities and powers which seized local power impede the work of the journalists. In this case socially active citizens who, using mobile technologies, initiate online outside broadcast are put in a forefront. The technologies available today to the vast masses in terms of both cheapness and easiness in usage can approximately be divided into several types:

  1. Blogging from the spot. This type is not the easiest from the technical point of view that is why it is not widely practiced. Most often blog entries are made after the events.
  2. Usage of micro-blog platforms (the most popular is Twitter). In this case in many countries it is not even demanded from the user to be connected to the mobile internet as there is an opportunity to make a post in your micro-blog by sending an SMS with the text to a definite number. (In Armenia this option is not available currently). At the same time the owners of smart-phones connected to the mobile Internet has an opportunity not only to make entries in their micro-blogs but they can also post photos and videos from the spot.
  3. Posts in the social networks. Today most of the social networks have convenient mobile versions or special programmes for smart-phones. Besides, there is an opportunity to make entries by means of SMS. (In Armenia one of the mobile operators already provides an opportunity of posting directly to your Facebook profile by means of SMS).
  4. Online live broadcasting by means of smart-phones. This way for most of countries is connected with comparatively big financial expenses as rather considerable traffic is used,

Besides there is less prompt but easier for the majority way when the mobile phone is used as a photo or video camera and then after the event the material is uploaded on the Internet by means of computer. In some cases even this way is prompter than interference of the traditional mass media.

The availability of the mobile reporters on the spot causes the deformation of information field. When it comes to the crunch traditional mass media may be sidelined as a primary source of information and civil journalists with their mobile phones come into the spotlight.

At such moments problems connected with verification of information arise. Thus, e.g. if we consider the events in Iran in 2009 which followed the presidential events, at some moment Twitter had in fact turned into the only real time source of information, as the work of the foreign correspondents on the streets was blocked by the order of the authorities. The domination of Twitter in the information field was so strong over that period that the US State Department made a request to the administration of Twitter not to turn off their servers when information appeared that they would not be functioning for a while due to the maintenance reasons1.

At the same time domination of Twitter over that period caused unbelievable interest to the topic. At some moments dozens of thousands messages were generated on Twitter per hour, and on the peaks this rate even reached hundreds of thousands (See Diagram 1). This causes serious problems in verification of the information sources, exposure of provokers, detection of reliable sources and etc.

Diagram 1
Number of posts on Twitter referring to Iran on June 16-17, 20092

So, the following serious concerns arise when Twitter dominates as a source of information:

  1. A huge number of provokers with different motives appear on the web. E.g. some users were blamed in being provokers on opposition’s part which tended to escalate the situation, the others were suspected in connections with the Iranian special services which wanted to disorient audience outside Iran; some accused special services of Israel and etc.
  2. As soon as a trend topic appears on the Internet, spammers, i.e. those who want to gain additional traffic for their sites, immediately tend to be involved – many users click on the posts which disguise advertisement under the popular topic.
  3. In the same way hackers are also involved; they are tending to make many people to go to their sites which infect their computers.
  4. But the biggest problem for the popular topics is the huge amount of messages.

Most commonly the number of real information sources (even connected with the events where many people are involved) does not exceed several dozens, as skillful formation and spreading of information, especially under a strictly restricted format, as it is in case with the mobile devices, demands definite habits. Even among the immediate participants of the mobile journalism, the majority copies the posts of the main sources.

This problem caused formation of several new trends in the traditional mass media. Thus, special editors appeared whose goal is to find and to verify the source of mobile reporting. Besides, traditional mass media also penetrated into the sphere of mobile information. Thus, e.g. during the Egyptian revolution at the beginning of 2011 which was called Facebook or Twitter Revolution, in spite of a huge amount of information available on Twitter, the main centers of information in social networks were traditional mass media and professional journalists who accepted the rules of the game and directed two parallel flows of information – in traditional style and as an alternative mass media3.

So at this moment an eager development of mobile civil reporting is taking place. At the same time only professional mass media are able to filter a huge amount of posts which appear during serious events.

1 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2348833,00.asp

2 http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Iran-And-Twitter-Pro-Mousavi-Supporters-Drowned-Out-By-US-And-UK-Tweets-Amid-Election-Protests/Article/200906315311513

3 http://www.lenta.ru/articles/2011/02/15/mediaegypt/

“Globus National Security”, Issue 4, 2011

Return
Another materials of author


©  "Noravank" Foundation, 2010