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Center of Innovation for Media, Conflict and Peacebuilding

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Internet and Social Media

From the Peace Media Clearinghouse

Kenyan Media Urged to be Objective
National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK) Secretary General Cannon Peter Kara called for objective media coverage and positive content to avoid misrepresentation of the proposed Constitution and other critical issues affecting the nation. He noted the vital role played by the media and especially vernacular and community stations in relation to peace building efforts in Kenya cannot be ignored. He faulted ethnic based FM stations for perpetuating negative ethnicity at the expense of the country's tranquility adding that the government must monitor their broadcasts during this period.
See the full article (Capital News, 5/28/10)
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Times Square Terror
When a major event occurs with implications for one of the city’s ethnic groups, the ethnic press responds — sometimes analytically, sometimes angrily, sometimes defensively. In recent weeks, three newspapers — two Pakistani and one Indian — reported or reflected on the attempt by a Pakistani-American, Faisal Shahzad, to detonate a car bomb in Times Square.
See the full article (New York Times, Joseph Berger, 5/28/10)
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Al Jazeera: More Powerful than Ever
The influence and reach of Al Jazeera continue to astound. It is certainly the most powerful news-and-current-affairs channel in the Arab world, well ahead of Al Arabiya, its Saudi-owned, more pro-Western rival. Al Jazeera claims to beam its main Arabic-language channel into around half of all Arab homes. Its English-language channel is said to reach 200m elsewhere, making waves in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The Arabic service is a lot more controversial. Pro-Western Arab governments, particularly those of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which denies Al Jazeera a bureau, repeatedly accuse it of bias.
See the full article (Economist, 5/27/10)
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Inside the Air Force’s Secret PsyOps Plane
Name a recent U.S. military operation, and you can pretty much guarantee that a specially modified Air Force plane was somewhere in the vicinity, trying to influence the minds of the people below. The 193rd Special Operations Wing operates a fleet of three of these EC-130J aircraft, cargo haulers that have been converted into flying radio and television stations. These “psychological operations” aircraft can broadcast their own signal over AM and FM radio, UHF and VHF television bands, or override broadcast stations on the ground; something they apparently did during operations in Bosnia and Iraq.
See the full article (Wired.com, Nathan Hodge, 5/27/10)
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2 New Papers to Provide Competition in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe’s only national daily newspaper, the state-owned Herald, long a propaganda sheet for President Robert Mugabe, will soon have some competition. Almost seven years after the police shut down Zimbabwe’s biggest independent newspaper, The Daily News, a media commission set up under a power-sharing agreement with Mr. Mugabe’s political nemesis has announced that The Daily News and a new privately owned newspaper, NewsDay, have been granted permission to operate.
See the full article (New York Times, Celia W. Dugger, 5/27/10)
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Pentagon Tries to Steer Media Coverage on Iraq
The Pentagon may be sharply reducing its combat forces in Iraq, but the military plans to step up efforts to influence media coverage in that country -- as well as here at home. "It is essential to the success of the new Iraqi government and the USF-I [U.S. Forces-Iraq] mission that both communicate effectively with our strategic audiences (i.e. Iraqi, pan-Arabic, international, and U.S. and USF-I audiences) to gain widespread acceptance of core themes and messages," according to the pre-solicitation notice for a civilian contractor or contractors to provide "strategic communication management services" there.
See the full article (Washington Post, Walter Pincus, 5/25/10)
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Journalism and 'the Words of Power'
Power and the media are not just about cosy relationships between journalists and political leaders, between editors and presidents. It is about semantics. More and more today, we journalists have become prisoners of the language of power. Yet the most dangerous side of our new semantic war, our use of the words of power is that it isolates us from our viewers and readers.
See the full article (Aljazeera, Robert Fisk, 5/25/10)
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Internet and Social Media

Analysis: The Flotilla Fiasco
Israel is being further overwhelmed day by day in the newer world of social media: Those aboard the flotilla, and their supporters worldwide, are proving to be expert exponents of Twitter and other instantaneous social media channels (as my colleague Amir Mizroch details in an op-ed elsewhere in these pages). Official Israel, by contrast, could barely manage to depart from Hebrew long enough to manage a statement and an answer in English at its major press conferences during Monday.
See the full article (Jerusalem Post, David, Horovitz, 6/1/10)
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South Korea Probes War Rumours ahead of Elections
South Korean police are probing leaflets and Internet messages spreading rumours of imminent war and questioning an investigation into the sinking of a naval vessel, which they say could affect Wednesday's local elections. The crackdown on Internet rumor mongering is likely to resurrect a frequent opposition complaint that the government is trampling on democracy and free speech.
See the full article (Reuters, Nick Macfie, 6/1/10)
Read "On the Issues: After the Cheonan Investigation Report: What's Next?" by USIP’s John S. Park
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Pakistan Court Orders Facebook Access Restored
A Pakistani court on Monday ordered authorities to restore access to Facebook, nearly two weeks after closing the site in a row over blasphemy, but hundreds of web links remain restricted. Justice Ejaz Chaudhry of the Lahore High Court on Monday issued orders that access to Facebook should be restored, asking the government to develop a system to block access to "blasphemous" content online, as in Saudi Arabia. "Restore Facebook. We don't want to block access to information," Chaudhry told the court.
See the full article (AFP, Waqar Hussain, 5/31/10)
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Cyber Command: We Don’t Wanna Defend the Internet (We Just Might Have To)
Members of the military’s new Cyber Command insist that they’ve got no interest in taking over civilian Internet security – or even in becoming the Pentagon’s primary information protectors. But the push to intertwine military and civilian network defenses is gaining momentum, nevertheless. At a gathering this week of top cybersecurity officials and defense contractors, the Pentagon’s number two floated the idea that the Defense Department might start a protective program for civilian networks, based on a deeply controversial effort to keep hackers out of the government’s pipes.
See the full article (Wired.com, Noah Shachtman, 5/28/10)
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U.S. Uses Twitter, Facebook for Diplomacy
The Obama Administration, which is making the maximum use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter in governance, feels these are “effective tools” that can enhance diplomacy. Top officials are seen tweeting round-the-clock, and various wings of the United States government now have dedicated teams for websites such as Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. “We think that 21st century diplomacy involves a combination of capabilities — [one is] the ability to communicate with populations around the world through a variety of means, including social media,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.
See the full article (The Hindu, 5/27/10)
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Following Jamaica’s State of Emergency Online
As the armed confrontation between Jamaica’s security forces and gang members who are trying to prevent the extradition of their leader to the United States on drug and weapons charges continues on Tuesday, Jamaicans are using Twitter and YouTube to pass along news of the siege gleaned from firsthand reports and the local press.
See the full article (New York Times, Robert Mackey, 5/25/10)
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Jamaican Cleric Uses Web to Spread Jihad Message
A pattern is emerging about the way young Muslims in the U.S. are becoming radicalized. It is happening on the Internet. Young men are finding radical clerics on the Web and, at their direction, taking up violent jihad. Abdullah Faisal [from Jamaica] is one of the best-known radical clerics on the Internet today. U.S. intelligence officials' concern is that he could manage to open up a new front for violent jihad aimed at the U.S.
See the full article (NPR, Dina Temple-Raston, 5/25/10)
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From the Peace Media Clearinghouse

Turning the Lens - Peace it Together
Participants in this video explore how the mass media has contributed to their personal mis-impressions and stereotypes. They discover the power of engaging with their own experiences to shift paradigms through media.
Visit the clearinghouse
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