MICHAEL KRONA

Even if my research interest is mainly on media, communication and technologies, it is necessary to try and grasp some socio-political development and contemporary Zeitgeists in order to understand the role of media in present societies. In particular, since my present research is focused on the Middle East and North Africa Region (MENA) I believe enough time has passed to reflect upon the emergence and unfolding chain of events in what is now labelled the Arab Spring. So, here I offer some personal thoughts on the subject.

Few people with a sense of dignity and credibility can argue that the events starting in Tunisia in december 2010 and continued over the region, was an expected development. On the contrary it was a rapid development that swept former definitions of governing and citizenship away and replaced the with hopes and dreams of a new and better future.

However during the last decade there were signs of coming change, especially evident in the series of Arab Human Development Reports which already in 2002 started marking major transformations within the Arab public sphere. They declared serious structural and financial breakdowns i several states, democratic deficit, violations of human rights and so forth. The reports continously showed an increased distrust towards goverments, lack of legitimacy and proof of extremist oppositional movements operating across national borders. During the last ten years the UN has backed the reports and demanded reformations in the MENA contries, almost threatening with serious sanctions. During the same period of time several protests carried out by labour unions and political affiliations, also increased through the region, especially in Egypt and Tunisia.

The demographic transformation, the growth of population during the last decades and the major percentage of young people in the MENA-countries, was an additional factor as well. As an effect of educational reforms since early 2000’s, the level of education among a younger generation has substantially increased, hence provided capital to resist and challenge the ideological structure. In combination with a very high unemployment rate, this development embraced a critical mass of young educated people, frustrated and equipped.

I believe it is fair to say that this generation to a great extent had lost much hope of a better future when the Arab Spring began. This lack of hope and trust had much to do with extensive corruption and bribing-traditions among government, especially in the MENA-region. This debilitating system of corruption has taken several decades to be internalized and finally establish itself on the societal body, making it natural for each member of society to adopt it. In a society where everybody steal from each other, the sense of insecurity and unsafety spreads, the sense of belonging disappears and solidarity/empathy diminishes. In turn this may foster passivity, negativism and intolerance – which to me emerges as the most important explanatory model yet.

Finally the ICT development and transformations in the media landscape. I strongly believe that the democratization of the MENA region is closely related to the democratization of the media. The technological development in relation to mentioned psychological and educational transformations is of high importance to understand. For example, the rise of educational reforms did not only contribute to political (and religious) radicalization, but above all increased peoples’ knowledge and awareness of social injustice and the outside world (west). Hence, expectations of material standards (including media technology) spread and in the long run also hopes of an end to the corrupt system of governing. The former made the latter seem more possible.

With the emergence of satellite-tv (the birth and expansion of Al-Jazeera) as well as Internet communications during the 1990’s and early 2000’s, the structure of the Arab public sphere changed. Al-Jazeera combined arab-nationalistic, liberal islamistic and economic neo-liberalistic views of the world. In comparison with traditional (and state censored) channels, they were also more diversified and had a different tone of language. The most important contribution was perhaps that new satellite-channels scrutinized government systems and exposed the handling of opposition movements, the wide-spread corruption, the indifference to fight poverty etcetera. Bare in mind that this media revolution started at a time when political islam emerged as a significant challenger to the authoritarian regimes, and by letting different voices connected to political islam take place in the new (mediated) public sphere, the public became aware of things within the political spectra that hadn’t been visible before.

And the recent growth of participatory culture, the use of ICT and social media platforms has once again transformed the Arab public sphere, not least due to extensive use of influential blogging. I have several times mentioned the impact of social media during the Arab spring so I will not go there now. However in relation to my former blog post (read it here), the aspect of civic participation in information processes (i.e citizen-journalism) one can see the importance for in this case Al-Jazeera, that people used their cameras and told their stories from the ground, from the streets, from the demonstrations and from the final overcoming of authoritarian regimes. Speaking weeks after former president Hosni Mubarak’s resignation, Al-Jazeera’s managing director, Wadah Khanfar, thanked the dissenting citizens of Tunisia and Egypt for serving as network reporters, proclaiming:

“The youth of the Middle East, choosing universal values from within while embracing tolerance, and diversity — they are our reporters.”

The other day I posted this video on Twitter, illustrating the importance of the online video streaming application Bambuser and its integration with traditional journalism. Since I have a chapter in a forthcoming anthology written on the subject, I thought it was interesting to see that the text me and my co-writer produced over half a year ago, is still valid and was rather right in its predictions. The development we argud for in Syria, where Bambuser is still the leading technology for activists streaming video on the ground, is now being realized. Although with a long way to go.

In the video above, the Global Video News Chief at Associated Press (AP), states some interesting insights on how AP are using user-generated content (UGC) in their operations, on more event-like pieces but above all, in areas and ongoing conflicts like Syria (where traditional reporting is hard to conduct). He argues that the most important thing for AP is to first see that the individual contributor, the person standing on the ground filming through his/her mobile, is verified as a reliable source, that the live content is authentic and claim copyrights for the content.  The difference between individual contributor and activist, doesn’t seem to matter for AP as long as they can be transparent with the contributors agenda to the public. It is clear that several traditional news companies have realized the potential (as well as the difficulties) with UGC and increasingly trying to adapt, take advantage, of this development.

Of course this integration is a long process (for ex. CNN:s extensive use of iReports during the post-election turmoil in Iran 2009) and takes time to develop into a reliable cooperation between established media companies and minor players within technological development. But few can argue against that the survivial of traditional journalism, or the ideal of a transparent and ideological scrutiny of powers, is dependent on the success in adapting operations to a civic framework in which citizens participation constitute one of the key aspects. The interview with the chief from AP here is interesting since we often tend to discuss these matters only from a citizen point of view, but here being put forward from an institutional perspective.

The emergence of citizen-journalism, its potential as a tool for resistance and mobilization, is for real starting to evoke potential. But the significance of technologies and people’s use of it, are not really possible to measure until it is related to and integrated with other sectors of society, other institutional practices (as in this case the journalistic one). And the full potential is still dependent on the mentioned integration, and one can still claim that it is mainly in times of crisis and extra-ordinary situations that citizens participation in journalistic processes is evident, just as for example this article discuss. And before established structures of journalism can be bent, challenged and adapted to new communication technologies and patterns of participation and political engagement, the information super highway is still a rather modest path of gravel.

I recently participated in a national media conference gathering in which both senior researchers and doctoral candidates had the opportunity to present ongoing work and projects. My task was to act as opponent to a paper on geo-social structuration in relation to news consumption, a field I admittedly was/am not an expert in by far, however with a keen interest on the key issues. The paper was a draft for a journal submission and presented at its final stage. As well written and interesting as it was, it challenged my perception and knowledge of both the sociological base of Anthony Giddens structuration theory and its appropriation in an updated media- and communication context. I have no intention to make a deeper analysis of it here but rather mention some conclusions.

 

The authors presented a solid empirical base of both qualitative and quantitative empirical material and extracted results that are cross-disciplinary interesting. One of the main findings in the article was that citizens living in small-town areas, as oppose to major cities settings, are more likely to consume news that are local/regional to its nature instead of international. Former studies have indeed witnessed of similar trends however one could imagine that new patterns and dimensions of news consumption (through mobile devices, transmedia platforms, nisched and alternative news outlets, speed, competition etc.) would increase a general interest in foreign/international/cosmopolitan information. In this framework I find it particulary interesting that there is still a fundamental need for beloning, communities that are small, regional and local. This then happens at the same time as the regional press, local newspapers, are struggling for survival and experience major crisis on several levels. However, people’s interest in these issues doesn’t seem to decline. So traditional media (in this case newspapers, television, radio) need to integrate and develop the transmedia textures of operations, since not only this article but several studies over the past few years show similar results regarding use of media platforms to consume news.

 

 

The authors of the article here state that we are witnessing a paradigmatic transition as to the ways news are consumed; the spatial practice of news-consumption is changing into an increasingly amalgamated, mobile practice. You argue that you have shown that transmedia textures flourish above all within geo-social settings marked by affluent mobile lifestyles. Another conclusion is that local. vs. cosmopolitan outlooks (what type of news we tend to take interest in) follow traditional patterns which hence are reproduced – therefor there is a continuity in the midst of change. In other words, the way we consume news is changing, but what we are interested in is basically the same.

 

Our spatial news consumption and orientations within, is affected by urban vs small-town settings as well as education, gender and lifestyles, and I’d argue for variables such as income, technological assets, media literacy to be of importance here as well.

 

I believe that this connection between sociology, communication geography and media- and communication studies, is a staggering part of the intellectual field and can continue to present results of importance within the disciplines themselves.

The bombs that went off in Boston three days ago immediately took major place in both traditional and digital media platforms. The news flow in social media was quickly filled with stories, updates, pictures, videos and condolences. The narrative structure followed the same pattern as the relatively recent high-profile events in the U.S., such as the school shooting in Newtown, or for that matter also Hurricane Sandy’s rampage. The impact of social media on news reporting has been widely discussed in the aftermath of these two events and there is no doubt that it is specifically during tragedies like the one in Boston this week that this impact becomes most clear. Even if media stories around the Boston-events follow established narrative patterns, it is possible however to now discern some changes for the better, perhaps as a result of previous criticism of the handling of information and source credibility in social media.

During the last few days we have witnessed a rather careful restraint of speculations on the number of injuries, deaths and possible suspects following the Boston bombs. New York Times quite early published reports that at least 12 people were killed. This information was however received with very adequate skepticism by other media outlets. When such a dominant news channel publishes this type of information, usually it has a major impact in other media. But this time there was too much information that pointed to the contrary, too much information that did not corresponded with the estimates. This does not mean that false information were spread through other channels, but a greater caution in both traditional journalistic channels in social media was evident. Media companies that previously dominated the news market are forced to take precautions regarding proliferation, partly for competitive reasons but also due to the fact that false informations linked to the organization that distributes them are deployed rapidly and the digital traces of incorrect information could damage its credibility.

 

Moreover, there is an interesting juxtaposition that a platform like Twitter now seems to constitute. Twitter’s core idea is based on speed and immediacy, but in the last few days users consistently have urged journalists and fellow citizens to be cautious about the speculation and rumors after the events.

 

Although this should not be the case, it appears to be justified to promote reminders of this kind for larger journalistic institutions which primarily operate through traditional media channels (take for example the false accusations of a suspect surrounding the school-shootings in Newtown in December last year; accusations that lasted for several days and broke every human and reasonable limits).

 

Another aspect of the importance of social media concerns the authorities’ work through these platforms. The Boston police has during the last days used both Twitter and Facebook pleeding for help in collecting images and movies from the crime scene in order to contribute to the investigation around what happened and why. This displays a contemporary communication pattern in which media, citizens, governments and politicians are not isolated from each other but integrated, especially in emergency situations, hopefully leading to the fulfillment of visions on a greater sense of responsibility for each other and our community.

 

 

In other words, it is possible to interpret these events as a step in the right direction where social media, citizens’ as well as public institutions’ use of them, has become a trigger to a degree of thoughtfulness and reflection. To sort, select and report information in emergency events like in this case the bombings in Boston is no easy task for journalists, especially not when journalists are no longer dominant in the news market as before. At best, this competition works in favor of democracy, although we both have and will experience how it can work in the opposite direction. But in light of what happened during the last few days, there is still reason to believe in this development as progressive. From now on, however, there is a great need to work actively to proceed this development and make progress also in the daily routine of news flow and production, where even for journalists the “smaller” events fit.

As should be obvious I have now chosen a new design for my website, thanks to advice and skills from those who know better than me on the subject. Hopefully this can inspire me to write more often on this blog, as the purpose still is to update on my current research and provide insights on teaching areas as well as ongoing debates on global media issues. In the midst of relaxing times in a cabin by the ocean, with just silence and wind as company, I am recovering from a hectic year and trying to make plans for the next. Just as last year, one of the promises is to be more frequent on sharing ideas here, and this is from now on a priority. I will do some travelling in the following months but will post anyway. From mid-January I will also be more frequent on answering mails.

Happy New Year!