Currently browsing posts tagged: Media.

On Syria’s Media Narrative(s): A Rant

This week’s Listening Post–the Al Jazeera program that includes clips from citizens all over the world with varying views–discusses “Syria’s media tug of war.” I haven’t listened yet (I’m at a conference) but the subject is pertinent and timely. Today, there are two stories making the rounds that illustrate this “tug of war” perfectly. The [...]

03.03.2012

10 Comments

Journalistic Verification, Amina Arraf, and Haystack

How did a Syrian blogger, who told beautiful and heartwrenching stories of life as a lesbian in Damascus, manage to trick so many people? How did an American software engineer, whose passion for the Iranian cause led him to build what he dubbed the safest of circumvention tools, do the same? The stories of Amina [...]

10.06.2011

18 Comments

Internet & Mobile Access and Social Movements: Libya, Madagascar, Beyond

Lots of conversations in my life these days are inspired by single tweets. And those tweets, for me at least, are often inspired by my own frustration in the media’s ineptitude on certain issues. One of those issues, of course, is understanding the effects of social media and the Internet more generally in the Arab [...]

01.03.2011

3 Comments

Critique of media coverage of Egypt is a strong case for Twitter

In the summer of 2009, I watched, like the rest of the world, as Iranians rose up against their government, protesting rigged elections. Not speaking Persian or knowing anyone on the ground, I was limited in context and understanding of the core issues, and reliant on Western media–skewed hostile toward Ahmadinejad–for news. Though mainstream media [...]

04.02.2011

7 Comments

In Defense of Al Jazeera: A Response to Marc Ginsberg

Former Ambassador to Morocco Marc Ginsberg (during the Years of Lead, it should be noted) has penned a piece for the Huffington Post asking if Qatar-based Al Jazeera has fueled “Tunisteria” (that is, stoked the already-burning fires spreading across the Middle East toward the direction of intifada). It’s a valid question–that is, if we lived [...]

21.01.2011

6 Comments

Haystack and Media Irresponsibility

Last summer, a circumvention tool was born, out of opportunity and a desire to help the Iranian people, who suffer from a rather pervasive form of Internet censorship.  The tool, it was promised, was “encrypted at such a level it would take thousands of years to figure out what you’re saying.”  As it turns out, [...]

13.09.2010

27 Comments

“Terrorist” is the new “Commie”

At a lunch talk at the Shorenstein Center today, in the midst of a discussion on media influence, someone raised a question they had been asked at an event weeks prior: “Are you more afraid of terrorists or the U.S. government?”  The ensuing discussion centered on the fear mongering of the far-right media (e.g., Glenn [...]

17.02.2010

5 Comments

Obituary: Le Journal

Something is rotten in the kingdom of Morocco proclaims Issandr El Amrani in a Guardian piece about the closure of Moroccan magazine Le Journal Hebdomadaire. Though El Amrani notes that the Le Journal case is only one indicator, something is rotten, indeed. The magazine’s offices were liquidated after a commercial appeals court declared that Le [...]

31.01.2010

8 Comments

BBC: “Just trying to stay neutral”

“The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.” – Dante Last week, the BBC made the decision not to air an appeal on behalf of the Disasters Emergency Committee for Gaza on the basis that “the BBC’s impartiality was in danger of being damaged.” [...]

25.01.2009

9 Comments