Questions we will investigate in our web features and opinion pieces:
(Based on themes mentioned in my last blog)
- In what ways is social media being used as a tool to incite social change/unrest?
- In what ways are social media's roles being framed differently in the context of Egypt and London by the government and media?
- How have governments and media reacted differently depending on whether the unrest was abroad or at home? (Looking in particular at the English government and media
- Is social media being used as a scapegoat for underlying problems in society? Is this just moral panic?
- How do social media transform conventional ideas of privacy and censorship?
- How has social media been used to reveal rioters? In what ways does this relate to concepts such as Boyd's (2008) concept of 'the privacy trainwreck'?
- Should social network sites be closed to curb riots? Is closing them a violation of freedom? (perfect for an opinion piece)
Focusing on England for a moment...
One of our web features will explore the riots in England solely, investigating both the positive and negative role of social media..
Negative:
- Smartphones and Twitter fuelling the violence amongst teen gangs- seen as a means of accelerating the unrest.
- Activity being co-ordinated through the use of BBM, using 'group chat' sessions.
- Gang members able to post live updates of their location and activity on Twitter.
- Trophy pictures of rioters
- It is suggested that the use of BBM was one of the reasons police were unable to keep up with the moving riots, and were unable to reach areas before looting and violence occurred.
- News of the disorder appeared on Twitter before mainstream news outlets, apparently giving those involved time to act by following the feeds under the #Tottenham hashtag.
Positive:
- Just hours after the rioting began in Tottenham, the hashtag #Riotcleanup emerged on Twitter. This gained 87 000 followers, and as a result groups of people gather in an effort to clean up the street.
- According to David Cameron in his statement 'A fight back is under way', whilst the riots have shown "the worst of Britain", they have also shown "some of the best of Britain- the million people who signed up on facebook to support the police"
- Tumblr blog 'Catchalooter' emerged (@CatchaLooter on twitter), encouraging social media users to expose looters, now directed to Zavilla: Identify UK rioters website.
- 'OperationCupOfTea' - an anti-rioting page, started as a Facebook group asking people to post pictures of themselves enjoying a cup of tea rather than going out onto the streets. It then turned into a website to raise funds for those whose businesses and homes were damaged during the riots.
- Police are using Flickr in their attempt to identify rioters and looters.
- Police are also using Twitter and Facebook and the trophy pictures which were posted to track down rioters and looters, and to use them as evidence against them.
3 comments:
I am surprised that a teenager would have such a civil responsibility and a sense of courage to take action for restoring social order. Though the result may not be great enough, I appreciate his motive a lot. And I would like to know if it is end up successful or not.
It's actually quite scary watching this Operation Cup of Tea fellow. He encourages us to tweet, tag, hashtag, link and follow (all social media tools used to quickly and effectively spread a message) to help his cause. Within days, his operation is trending on Twitter and he has a quarter of a million supporters.
Imagine if his cause were in favour of the rioters.
If there are enough like-minded people out there, social media is the vehicle by which these individuals can connect and organise themselves. It is placating to think that the more humanitarian and pacifistic sentiments are the ones that get more quickly picked up. Perhaps this can be attributed to some universal human good.
But there are a lot of people who don't think this way. People with agendas that intend to cause chaos, and imagine what they could do with a social network.
Can anyone think of any examples of this that are already out there?
I think the main facet of social media that is most greatly affecting communication (and society in general, I suppose) is the generally borderless reach of social networks, as well as their unrivalled immediacy.
In the research I've done this week, I read and article in the Wall Street Journal by G. Crovitz entitled 'Egypt's revolution by social media'- (you'll see I mention this more in my post). Crovitz makes a few points that I really like. He says firstly that:
1). revolutions have always been social and involved some form of media;
and
2). that what social media online gives us is a new pace and scale for these revolutions. He writes that the difference with social media in facilitating civil unrest, is that it makes action unprecedented and unpredictable.
Also, as we know, it has the ability to organise people unlike any other form of communication we've known.
More on this soon!
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