social media
“Welcome to Syria”: Embedding with ‘citizen journalists’
This Al Jazeera English report on Syria’s citizen journalists is interesting. When people in the media industry talk about "embedded journalists" they usually mean journalists embedding with military units. It is, of course, possible to ’embed’ with other people or organisations and it is perhaps a sign of the times that ‘journalists’ like Jane Ferguson are […]
Social media from the front line
Major Paul Smyth is one of the people responsible for changing the Ministry of Defence’s approach to social media particularly in the context of front line operations. I’ve spoken to him previously for the Frontline Club about his Frontline bloggers project. In this interview with David Bailey, Maj. Smyth talks in some detail about how […]
Wael Ghonim in conversation with Ben Hammersley: Revolution 2.0
By Emily Wight A key element to the Arab Spring was the role of social media in giving momentum to the revolution. In countries such as Egypt, Facebook and Twitter have been used as a democratizing force, a platform for activists to share ideas. At last night’s #FCBBCA event Wired UK’s editor at large Ben […]
Five links from 2011: ‘War Reporting’
This year I bookmarked at least 530 links on delicious. I know that because I try to tag each bookmark by year – I’m three hundred or so links down on last year’s total of 854. Seeing as we’re coming to the end of the year I thought I’d pick out a few of the […]
Twitter memorial for members of the Canadian Forces
The Ottawa Citizen has started a memorial Twitter account for members of the Canadian Forces who have lost their lives in conflict. The account will tweet the name of one service member at 11 minutes past every hour. The name is chosen at random by a computer from a list of more than 119,000 Canadians killed […]
Multimedia Storytelling One Day workshop with Brian Storm
This one-day workshop provides an overview of multimedia storytelling approaches while engaging participants in discussion about the most appropriate ways to create a multimedia story. Through real world examples, the instructor will share proven techniques to improve reporting and post production. What you will learn: Narrative Storytelling – Examples of successful projects – Developing the best approach for […]
FULLY BOOKED – Masterclass: Brian Storm on Multimedia Storytelling
Storytelling opportunities continue to evolve as a result of technological innovations and an expanding media universe. The digital age is giving documentary photographers and photojournalists extraordinary new ways to tell stories. With this new ability, you can also exercise a greater level of authorship with your work. How can the long-form, in-depth visual storyteller satisfy […]
US Navy “burning the boats” to join social media conversation
A speech on the US Navy’s approach to communications by Admiral Gary Roughead has surfaced in my Twitter feed. The Admiral is the US Chief of Naval Operations and he gave these remarks to a Public Relations Strategic Communications Summit in June. The general message is that the US Navy realised it could no longer […]
The role of social media in the UK riots
"The ability to communicate to groups of people easily and on a regular basis is more powerful than previous incarnations of ‘word of mouth’ technologies." Click here for more on the BBC College of Journalism website…
Paul Mason: journalism and the power of the network
He’s a self confessed “geek” who bought a Sinclair Spectrum computer with his first wage packet and says the arrival of the internet was "like Christmas". So it’s not suprising that BBC Newsnight‘s economics editor Paul Mason embraced social media with enthusiasm. One of the first BBC journalists to start a blog, Mason said during […]
Media coverage of Osama bin Laden’s death on Storify
I’ve been collecting some interesting articles and tweets on media coverage of the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan on Sunday evening. Rather than a usual ’round up’ style blog post, I thought I’d experiment with Storify to bring some of the strands together. I was impressed; it’s very easy to use and update. […]
Egypt’s digital revolutionaries: It’s not about the technology
The special joint event organised by the Frontline Club and the BBC Arabic Service brought together some of the key players, journalists and experts to discuss what has taken place in Egypt over the last few months. The first half of the evening at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, considered the role of technology […]
Khalid Abdalla: I’m convinced that revolution stage two will come
British-Egyptian actor and producer Khalid Abdalla flew from London to Egypt soon after it became clear that the protests of 25 January were gathering momentum and was there for the Friday ‘Day of anger’ on 28 January. The Kite Runner star, whose other credits include Green Zone and In the Last Days of the City, […]
Five years since the first tweet: a Twitter revolution in breaking news
Today, Twitter is celebrating its birthday. Five years after the first tweet was published, its impact on the field of Internet communication and many others beyond has been much debated. Recent events in Tunisia and Egypt re-ignited the debate over Twitter’s role in the political process and whether the world has seen its first Twitter […]
China’s Twitter – inside Sina Weibo
I was reading a Foreign Policy article about the Chinese government’s "deep suspicion of social media and the Internet" which included a link to a very interesting presentation about Sina Weibo – one of several Chinese answers to Twitter. Founded in August 2009, Sina Weibo had 80-100 million users by the end of 2010. […]
Protest, social media and the importance of journalism in post-Mubarak Egypt
The Empire programme on Al Jazeera English looking at "cyber-generated" change examined how the media "missed" the warnings of looming trouble in Tunisia. The programme looks at some of the themes which were covered at the Frontline Club’s discussion: The changing nature of protest: does the mainstream media get it? Following the #sidibouzid hashtag […]
Exploring the role of Twitter and social media in revolutions
I’m afraid I haven’t been able to follow events in Tunisia and Egypt as closely as I would have liked as I was determined to enjoy an overdue holiday and a break from computer screens. And my mission was largely accomplished. As part of an attempt to catch up, I’ve just been reading Jeff Jarvis, […]
How the People Lost their Fear of the Pharaoh, but is the Regime Getting Away With Murder?
Hosni Mubarak is gone, ousted by a revolution. As someone who lived in Egypt and can testify to the brutality of the Mubarak regime, I celebrated with the millions of people who were glad to see the back of him. These picture galleries from the New York Times and photojournalist Matthew Cassell show powerful images of protesters in their pain during […]
The U.S. Navy’s social media manual and (not) “flattening communications”
The U.S. Navy has produced a social media handbook including guidance for sailors and Navy personnel as well as a section for commanders. In the introduction, the Navy’s Chief of Information, Denis Moynihan, suggests the manual is necessary because "the rapid growth of social media platforms and technologies have flattened and democratized the communications […]
Online Protest: power to the people?
View in iTunes Social media has opened up new ways for people to communicate, organise and campaign. But in what ways are people using social media for political ends? Looking at examples from around the world we will be examining the ways in which new tools are being used and the ways they have been […]
Admiral Mullen’s social media strategy
The Public Affairs Office looking after Admiral Mullen has revealed his social media strategy for 2010 by sticking it up on Slideshare. Admiral Mullen is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for US forces and admitted a while ago that his wife reminded him to use his Twitter account. Some interesting bits […]
Department of Defense switches default policy on social media to ‘open’
As of last Friday, all US servicemen have been able to update social networks like Twitter and Facebook from non-classified military network computers. The announcement by the Department of Defense is the first time a single policy has been used across all branches of the Armed Forces and effectively reverses a Marine Corps ban on […]
Introduction to Social Media – Blogging and Beyond
This intensive one-day course will get beginners up to speed with the social media world. We will teach how to set up a blog, research, publish and distribute content online. By the end of the day they will have begun their own engaging mini social media enterprise. Participants on this course may be eligible to […]
Frontline Club: blogging and social media training
Cross-posted from my now rather inaccurately named Mediating Conflict blog, this is just a note to let you know that I’ll be running the Frontline Club’s blogging and social media training course on 1 and 2 February 2010. Hopefully it will be great fun and a really good way to get yourself started in online […]
DoD Director of New Media: “It’s not about controlling the message anymore”
Continuing what is rapidly turning into an autumnal video season here on the blog, I came across this interview by David Meerman Scott with Roxie Merritt, the Director of New Media Operations at the U.S. Department of Defense. There’s some very interesting stuff in this brief video. A few points for those of you […]
Access Denied: Twitter, Iran and embedding journalists in online culture
You can now watch the event here. The Iranian Election was the moment when Twitter “exploded into our consciousness as a really powerful newsgathering tool” Adrian Wells told the Frontline Club earlier this week. Sky’s Foreign Editor was discussing how media organisations cover ‘news black holes’ with Richard Sambrook, Head of Global News at the […]
MoD (sort of) “encourages” use of Twitter, blogs, Facebook
The Ministry of Defence has issued a new set of social media guidelines "encouraging" their personnel to "talk about what they do, but within certain limits to protect security, reputation and privacy". In a notable development the policy allows soldiers to dicuss "their work online without prior authorisation from their chain of command" as long […]
Strategic Communications: New Media
Here in the bunker – it is a rather swish conference room but there’s a serious shortage of natural light – we’ve been looking at new media and strategic communications. In a moment, three themes from the session and the morning’s discussion. But if you want a frankly more interesting general overview of what the […]
MoD and digital media: “We haven’t gripped it, but we’re getting there”
"I could not write about the past week without mentioning the tragic death of Rifleman Adrian Sheldon. Shelly was a much loved member of the Fire Support Platoon here at FOB [Forward Operating Base] Inkerman and his loss has been extremely hard to come to terms with." In among the stories about political meltdown you […]