[P2P-F] Fwd: [Networkedlabour] Social Media as The Weapon of Choice for the Oppressed? The Gaza Case

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: peter waterman <peterwaterman1936 at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Sep 27, 2014 at 4:20 PM
Subject: [Networkedlabour] Social Media as The Weapon of Choice for the
Oppressed? The Gaza Case
To: networkedlabour at lists.contrast.org


        Social Media: The weapon of choice in the Gaza-Israel Conflict
#GazaUnderAttack <http://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/gazaunderattack>

Palestinians using platforms like Facebook and Twitter counter the
mainstream narrative of the Gaza Crisis, reaching an astonishing number of
people around the world
   An injured Palestinian child waits at Ben Gurion Airport to be airlifted
to Turkey for treatments on 20 August (AA)
[image: Yousef al-Helou's picture]
<http://www.middleeasteye.net/users/yousef-al-helou>
Yousef al-Helou <http://www.middleeasteye.net/users/yousef-al-helou>
Thursday 21 August 2014 21:19 BST
Last update:
Thursday 25 September 2014 18:30 BST
   Shares:
324
Topics:
GazaUnderAttack <http://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/gazaunderattack>
Tags:
gaza <http://www.middleeasteye.net/tags/gaza>, Social media
<http://www.middleeasteye.net/tags/social-media>, Twitter
<http://www.middleeasteye.net/tags/twitter>
0 comments
<http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/social-media-weapon-choice-gaza-israel-conflict-1807202428#comments>

When 16-year old Palestinian, Farah Baker began tweeting about the bombs
falling around her, she could never have guessed that she would rise to
such prominence. But in the space of just a few weeks, her followers on
Twitter jumped from 800 to 207,000 with people hungry for a first-hand,
personal account of what was transpiring in Gaza. Baker is just one of the
few Palestinians turning to social media platforms such as Facebook and
Twitter to share photos of the destruction in the Gaza Strip, disseminate
information, updates, and posts.

Even when the power was out, citizen journalists managed to post pictures
of dead bodies, destroyed neighbourhoods and injured people to the outside
world. Photography has always been a powerful force, but the Gaza conflict
was one of the first wars to be photographed mainly by amateurs and social
media platforms, allowing those images to spread far and wide at the click
of a button, helping the people of Gaza win hearts and minds, and
subsequently causing unprecedented outrage against Israel. In
demonstrations around the world, such photos were enlarged and carried by
demonstrators, demanding that their respective governments take action to
halt Israel’s onslaught.

“I noticed that most of the Western media supports Israel, so also some
people abroad believe that we Palestinians are the murderers and that it is
us who started the attacks on Israel. This is not right. I felt I had to do
something to help Gaza. I used Twitter as a weapon to share what exactly
happen in Gaza by posting links of recorded clips of bombs, photos of the
smoke to make people who follow me feel as if they are living in Gaza. to
let them know we are the victims.”  Farah Baker said.

No doubt reporting in a war zone like Gaza is risky, even if you take all
required precautions. Of the 2016 Palestinians killed in the current
Israeli assault, 14 were journalists, including a foreign reporter who
worked for local and international media outlets. Simultaneously, a number
of buildings housing media offices and outlets were attacked.

Israel is ranked 96th in the world on the “Press Freedom Index” - a report
compiled by Reporters without Borders - because of the Israeli military's
targeting of Palestinian journalists in the occupied Palestinian territory.
This ranking was published before the start of Israel’s 3rd war on Gaza,
called “Operation Protective Edge.”

“Since the start of the Gaza blockade in 2006, a new generation of
Palestinians have come to prominence in Gaza. Articulating their message in
fluent English through blogs and Twitter, they conveyed their message to
the world as a means to break their isolation, not only from the outside
world but also from the rest of the occupied territories in the West Bank
and the capital of East Jerusalem,” said Abed al-Nasser Abu Oun, a TV
correspondent and radio presenter at a local radio station.

As the war progressed, it was an online battle of narratives - between
heavily funded Israeli state media outlets, represented by Israeli
spokespersons of the Israeli government and the army with decades of
experience - versus Palestinian citizen journalists who only had their own
laptops, smartphones and cameras.

Some citizen journalists from Gaza argue that they were even able to win
the cyber-war, and reach the public in the West by repackaging, commenting
on, and distributing content in innovative ways, tweeting updates a lot
faster than other media outlets.

“Most of the Western corporations and outlets are biased in favour of
Israel, so they totally mislead people by fabricating news, showing
Palestinians’ destroyed homes as Israeli ones. This attitude sparked uproar
and disgust toward those news channels - namely Fox News. Alternatively,
Palestinian activists firmly focus in revealing the reality through social
media tools,” said Maram Humaid, social media activist.

The use of social media also forged connections with international media
organizations, who contacted Gaza residents and citizen journalists with
questions and interview requests.

Twitter became a platform for tens of thousands of regular people who have
an opinion to share, for those who wish to challenge someone else's point
of view, or those who simply want to share updates and their own personal
feelings on the human cost of Israel’s war. Many of these messages can be
viewed under the hashtags #GazaUnderAttack and #PrayforGaza.

“Many people - young and old alike - are using social media to report on
their immediate circumstances in ways that the mainstream media cannot. We
see this shifting coverage and understanding of events from Gaza to
Ferguson. In both places, tweets from local residents have offered
immediate news to those watching from elsewhere. In some cases, citizen
journalists have greatly challenged the narratives of more established
sources,” said Joe Catron, an American pro-Palestine activist in Gaza.

Citizen journalists can publish their own work, analysis and breaking news
in a free, un-censored and un-filtered way, unlike professional reporters
of the mainstream media who have to stick to their corporations' editorial
policy and guidelines.

One of the motivating factors that drive more citizen journalists to
volunteer dismantling information is due to what they said about the unfair
media coverage of the Palestinian narrative.

“The rise of the internet has helped to reconstruct the fragmentation of
Palestine, as it is a way for Palestinians to reconnect and break their
isolation. I think the effect of the social media boom among young
Palestinian social media activists somehow succeeded in changing public
perception of the Palestinian in the West,” said Majed Shuplaq, a
Palestinian journalist.

Citizen journalism from Palestine is especially valuable for those who are
looking for information which has not been filtered through a Western
agenda. Social media has definitely weakened the Israeli narrative, as
Palestinians are able to connect directly with overseas audiences and tell
the stories that they feel are important.

Hundreds of thousands of tweets exchanged reports, opinions, and challenges
to mainstream news reports and to each other. There were of course, many
other tags that hosted additional discussions. In hindsight, it seems that
Twitter hosted the most open and democratic discussions, compared with
other social media venues.

“Twitter is the fastest social media tool in disseminating information, so
I found it suitable to publish my tweets about the situation in Gaza as
attacks and developments happen around me. People from other countries
always believe such reports coming from eyewitnesses, from people who live
on the ground. Before the recent Israeli aggression on Gaza, I used to
receive between 20-50 retweets on my Twitter account. But during the
aggression, the number of retweets increased rapidly to reach over 1,000
retweets for each tweet I post. That has encouraged me to divide my tweets
into three major categories: breaking news, full stories, and the
massacre,” said Khaled Safi, blogger and social media activist.
- See more at:
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/social-media-weapon-choice-gaza-israel-conflict-1807202428#sthash.eZQnVN2U.dpuf

-- 

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   <http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/recovering_internationalism/>.  [A
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   Explorations http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/world_social_forum/
   <http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/world_social_forum/> *
   3. *Interface Journal Special (co-editor), November 2012: For the Global
   Emancipation of Labour <http://www.interfacejournal.net/current/>*
   4. *Blog: http://www.unionbook.org/profile/peterwaterman.
   <http://www.unionbook.org/profile/peterwaterman.> *
   5. *Interface Journal Special (Co-Editor) Social Movement
   Internationalisms. See Call for Papers <http://www.interfacejournal.net/>,
   (Deadline: May 1, 2014). *
   6.
*Needed: a Global Labour Charter Movement (2005-Now!)
   <http://interfacejournal.nuim.ie/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Interface-1-2-pp255-262-Waterman.pdf>*
   7. *Under, Against, Beyond: Labour and Social Movements Confront a
   Globalised, Informatised Capitalism
   <http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/under-against-beyond/>(2011) Almost 1,000
   pages of Working Papers, free, from the 1980 <1980>'s-90's.*
   8. *Google Scholar Citation Index:*
    *http://scholar.google.com.pe/citations?user=e0e6Qa4AAAAJ
   <http://scholar.google.com.pe/citations?user=e0e6Qa4AAAAJ> *


   -


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