The internet penetration into our everyday world has opened up a new avenue for expression, activism, entertainment and what not! The cyber space is a whole new virtual world. We as a society are still grappling on how to use this potent force. Since the late 1990’s till the present; there has been a phenomenal rise of internet users along with the boom of social networking sites and blogs.
A paper titled “The Tech Intellectuals” published in the Democracy Journal by Henry Farrell, an associate professor of political science and international relations at George Washington University, discusses about the shift in the work space of a public intellectual. Once, author and critic Russell Jacoby ( professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles) in his controversial book ‘The last intellectuals’ (1987) had lamented the loss of public intellectuals as they found it difficult not to get co-opted into the system with permanent well paid jobs. The end product was that the intellectuals turning away from the public sphere and burying their talents in the vast and remote fields of academic research and other creative pursuits.
However ‘experts’ have argued with proof that over the last decade or so; a ‘suave’ new avatar of the ‘Public intellectual’ has risen, thanks to the internet blogging and social networking sites. This space provides ‘room’ for the new scholars to stamp their presence. If you are worth a read among the thousands of other material available, then you certainly command respect. The economics of this new territory gives these ‘intellectuals’ an incentive for being famous- they can make a viable living featuring advertisements. These bloggers have created a niche for themselves in scores of fields like sports, politics, fashion, entertainment, gossip columns, satire, gaming, sciences, culinary, creative pursuits, education, and language amongst others. Some bloggers write exclusively on one theme whereas a few others flit around various avenues.
Henry Farrell argues in his paper that these ‘new’ thinkers are usually self made and they are certainly more publically accessible than their predecessors, the reason being the ‘geography’ of the internet; it is accessible anywhere on the planet as long as one has the necessary connection. Farrell further argues that the ‘yester years’ wrote only for the elite few whose numbers ranged in mere thousands while the new are not constrained by any elitist classes, they literally cater to the masses worldwide. He cites the examples of blogs and the popularity of TED talks on YouTube. He wrote-‘ To do well in this economy, you do not have to get tenure or become a contributing editor to The New Republic…you just need, somehow, to get loads of people to pay attention to you.’
The Indian blogosphere can be imagined as a kaleidoscope in making, its every turn leading to a newer perspective. The most famous amongst the many are:
The blog of the famous news anchor and cricket fanatic Rajdeep Sardesai’s – Newsman, offers his deep insights into the major news stories of our times. The chairman of the press council Justice Markendey Katju’s blog- Satyam Bruyat, is an interesting platform to scan as the man posts his unapologetic opinions on a variety of issues often to the irk of ‘others’. Film celebrities are certainly not behind on this curve, the ‘once angry young man’ and the ‘forever’ legend Amitabh Bachchan’s owns a blog titled ‘Bachchan Bol’, in which he inks his thoughts in the virtual world. The ‘Perfectionist’ Aamir Khan wields a blog of his own.
The ‘aam aadmi’, has taken this sphere by a storm too. The now famous website ‘Youth ki awaaz’ started out as a blog by its founder and editor-in-chief Anshul Tewari who said in a summit organised by the British Council’s Delhi chapter that for the first two years since the blog’s creation; only his mother used to read it. ‘Dubukku’ is a famous Tamil vernacular blog which focuses on humour and sarcasm. The now famous memes and trolls had their inception in the blog world. The most notable out of them were the Tambrahm rage, which poked fun at the Tamil Brahmin Diaspora’s superstitions and practices and the Amit rage, a pot boiler collection of the difficulties that North Indians face in the southern regions of the nation.
New media, especially, blogging and social networking sites have been major contributors for political change since the late 2000’s. December 9, 2013 marked the 1,000 th day of the Syrian conflict and the grim statistics released that day showed that 9.3 million people were in need, out of which 4.65 million are children. Some 2.2 million have become refugees, 2.5 million live in areas cut off by conflict, and 1.9 million children are out of school. Over 1,00,000 have been killed and 5,75,000 people are estimated injured. The statistics are important as the war in Syria is cut off to journalists unlike the others in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya. The war correspondents are far removed and are stationed in the borders inside Lebanon. The Syrian-Turkish border province of Hatay is another journalist hotspot and the news agencies have stationed their bureaus here. Therefore the only first hand information is that of bloggers and updates on social networking sites. The government gags on media make the bloggers the prime focus for news dissemination to the world. The videos of various heinous crimes like beheadings; public floggings, murders etc have been uploaded on You Tube. They act as news sources and this war has been dubbed by the western media as the first ‘You Tube’ war. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Syria is the most dangerous dateline in the world. Reports say that at least 28 journalists have been killed and many have been imprisoned. These stats stress the significance of You Tube videos, bloggers and updates. The importance of these citizen journalists was recognised by the ‘big brother’ so much that the United States invested heavily in transferring media know-how and telecommunications equipment to the citizen journalists, activists and rebels from the early days of the conflict. Millions of dollars have been invested in this programme. Links have been set up with the Syrian exiles to act as go-betweens. This act has transmitted the infectious cry-‘Yalla Erhal Ya Bashar’ (it’s time to leave Bashar!, you have lost all your legitimacy! Depart, Depart , Bashar!) to the outside world; penned by one Ibrahim Qashoush, who paid for it with his life.
One of the many such crude ‘camera shot’ You Tube video shows a crowd which has gathered in a square to chant anti-Bashar slogans on 3 July, 2011. This protest was in response to Bashar’s speech where he degradingly compared the spread of revolutionary uprisings and ideas to ‘germs’. This was one of the many videos shot, written and analysed about. Sensing the ‘underground’ movement, Bashar tried to deceive the world by giving ‘exclusive’ interviews to some channels and hosts who were politically motivated and calculated. These circumstances make this ‘parallel’ media so very important. These are revolutionary moments. Finally here was a situation where the media was analysing a conflict without being physically present. The very name and reputation of big media houses was on the line. One error would sound the death knell. The various You Tube videos being analysed make a gory watch, they show that human kind is bordering on the barbaric. The million stifled voices find their ‘voice’ in the internet space, though feeble, they exist to be heard.
“Brown Moses is among the best out there when it comes to weapons monitoring in Syria,” said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch. New York Times war reporter CJ Chivers said that fellow journalists should be more honest about the debt they owe to Higgins’ Brown Moses blog. “Many people, whether they admit or not, have been relying on that blog’s daily labour to cull the uncountable videos that circulate from the conflict,” he said. Amnesty International said that the Brown Moses Blog was vital in proving the Syrian regime was using ballistic missiles, information then used to send a research mission to Syria.
Eliot Higgins has been a subject of interest in the press. He was profiled in The Guardian on 21 March 2013, on Channel 4 News on 30 March 2013, on CNN International on April 1, 2013. He has also received a lot of coverage in foreign press.
This is what the Wikipedia search for ‘Brown Moses’ spurts out. The ‘Brown Moses’ in the above paragraph is Eliot Higgins. The profile of the man is as normal as it gets-until the summer of 2011, he was just another finance and administration employee, was laid off, and then worked for a while in a lingerie company until he walked out. Then this Leicester settled man took to caring his two year daughter Ela; while in his spare time he started his blog. Higgins browsed through scores of Syrian revolt connected You Tube videos sitting in the comfort of his house as he thought that the media was covering the Libyan uprising well enough; he believed he could do the same for Syria, where the media was cut off. This activity of his splashed to the world the brutal colours of the Syrian tension. He is self taught in the various war weapons and over time wrote well informed pieces. He is now labelled as an ‘expert’ and has even hosted a lecture on “Conflict in a connected world” in the Google Ideas Forum in New York. He then went on and wrote for the New York Times on their “On War” blog.
To cite other examples:
1. The year 2003 is often claimed to be the year of arguably the ‘best known’ blogger- Salam Pax. Salam Pax, a pseudonym of Salam Abdulmunem, who wrote during and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In his blog Salam wrote about his friends, disappearances of people under the government of Saddam Hussein, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and his work as an interpreter for journalist Peter Maass.
2. The Egypt uprising majorly erupted with the brutal killing of a 28 year old man- Khaled Said. He was killed when two plain clothes policemen came to the internet café and beat him up violently leading to his death. They later lamely claimed that he was a ‘wanted’ on two cases. Onlookers claimed that the police officers hit him even after he was dead. His 41 year old brother Ahmed clicked the photos of his grotesque face which went viral on the social networking site. A Facebook page titled- ‘We are all Khaled Said’ went viral and further protests were planned on the page. The image is often referred as the ‘Face that started a revolution’. This act of wild cruelty brought out the fear that nobody was safe in Hosni Mubarak’s police style run state. One led to another till Hosni was successfully ousted from power.
The sudden emergence of blogs was summed up by the Pulitzer prize winning investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh, who said that- ‘times have changed. New players have brought their new forms of journalism as the old notions of journalism have faded away’. He feels that it is required now as- ‘there is the issue of dwindling advertisements etc in newspapers, of grabbing headlines off the internet and this leads to less competent and less successful investigative reporting. The industry has had nearly two decades of warning about the surging power of the internet with its impact on revenue and interest, and done little to stop it.’
Blogs are now certainly viewed as an alternate media. The few issues troubling it are competency, credibility, viewership and clutter. These will heal when the world will form a ‘culture’ for its online presence. For now, blogs are surely the way ahead. Whether or not they will replace the mainstream media can be debated. The most accepted answer is that they will be a powerful parallel media in the days to come.
Sources:
The Fountain Ink Magazine: Now Streaming live: the Youtube War, Alia Allana
Wikipedia page on Brown Moses
Wikipedia page on Egypt uprising and Salam Pax
Passions 