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 […]
FRONTLINE CLUB SPECIAL: Protest, technology and the end of fear
EXTERNAL EVENT AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN
The start of 2011 will be remembered as a period in which the barrier of fear fell across the Middle East and North Africa as people took to the streets demanding freedom from the tyrants who had governed for so long.
No one can predict where these momentous events will lead and what the repercussions will be for years to come.
For this special event held at the The Royal Institution of Great Britain the Frontline Club and BBC Arabic Service will be bringing together some of the key players, journalists and experts to discuss what has taken place so far and to try to gauge what the future might hold.
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 […]
Visualised: A day in the life of Twitter
Continuing an inadvertent theme on the blog, I’ve just come across this visualisation of a day in the life of Twitter by informatics researcher Chris McDowall: Mapping a Day in the Life of Twitter from Chris McDowall on Vimeo. It’s worth viewing in full screen, in HD, on Vimeo as you can see some of […]
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. […]
Visualising the Egyptian revolution through Twitter
"I was very lucky to get this data", André Panisson tells us. He made the serendipitous decision to perform a test run of a Python server that would collect Twitter statuses around a particular hashtag on 11 February – the day that President Mubarak announced he would step down in Egypt. The following video documents […]
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, […]
Twitter reaction to the Korean border clash
Earlier today North and South Korea engaged in a cross-border clash. The North fired on the island of Yeonpyeong, shelling the area for about an hour. According to the South Koreans two Marines were killed and four civilians were injured in the attack. The South returned fire while around 1,600 residents on the island fled […]
Medal of Honor awarded to Korengal valley soldier
The video below describes the story of America’s first living recipient of the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam war. Staff Sgt. Sal Giunta was awarded the United States highest military honour for rescuing a captured colleague in the Korengal valley, Afghanistan. The Sal Giunta Story from Sebastian Junger on Vimeo. Meanwhile according to Militaryblogging.com, […]
The Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent on new tools for journalists
Harriet Sherwood reflects on life as a foreign correspondent after four months in Jerusalem for The Guardian. Here she offers an assessment of the new platforms available to journalists: "…in the digital age, there are other platforms to consider. I have flirted with Twitter and, to a lesser extent, Facebook. The former seems a useful […]
Upcoming paper on the BBC’s coverage of the Mumbai attacks
Just a note to let you know that later this month I’ll be speaking about the BBC’s coverage of the Mumbai attacks in 2008. The paper is a case study of the BBC’s adoption of live text commentary to report breaking news. Indeed, Mumbai was the first time the BBC had used a ‘live-blogging’ format […]
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 […]
Reporting the Moscow Metro bombings
ПоÑмотреть на ЯндекÑ.Фотках (Link to Tatiana Krasnova’s album) Two female suicide bombers were believed to be responsible for the deaths of 38 commuters in Moscow at rush hour this morning. Russian officials say that 60 people were also injured in the attacks at Lubyanka and Park Kultury Metro stations. There are more details here […]
‘A sort of extreme camping trip with people trying to kill you’
Cameraman Stuart Webb describes his experience of being on patrol with the Coldstream Guards in Afghanistan. He was working for Channel 4 News with Alex Thomson. The pair came under fire as they moved along a ditch with the Guards… "As-live" Twitter reportage Alex Thomson’s report from Babaji in Helmand was broadcast on Channel […]
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 […]
Counterinsurgency blogged: A 30-day tour of Afghanistan
This looks like an interesting new blog which apparently kicks off today. US Tech Sergeants Ken Raimondi and Nathan Gallaghan are going to travel through five regional commands in Afghanistan blogging and vlogging along the way. Unsurprisingly, they think the story of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan isn’t being covered by the media: "We want to show […]
‘Tweetwife’ application reminds US Admiral to use Twitter
The United States Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says his wife, a regular Twitter user, reminds him to tweet. Admiral Mike Mullen believes Twitter and other social networking sites like Facebook are important forms of communication which enable him to stay in touch with younger members of the US military…(or at least that […]
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 […]
Twitter and the Iraq Inquiry
The other day, Dave Lee pointed out that Sky were doing something interesting with a Twitter feed during their coverage of the Iraq Inquiry. They were showing foreign correspondent Tim Marshall’s Twitter feed alongside the live coverage of the Inquiry. At this particular point in time, Sir John Scarlett was being asked about the intelligence […]
Revisiting Moldova’s ‘Twitter Revolution’
I don’t usually crosspost, so if you’ve seen this post (which also a couple of interesting comments now) on the Media140 blog there’ll be nothing new below, but I hope you’ll forgive me for doing so on this occasion. The intro in italics was written by Dee Jackson, the Editor of the Media140 blog. I’m […]
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 […]
Who to follow: Twitter for the Afghanistan election
I’ve already added several people to the list since it was first published. New twitter accounts I add will appear at the top of each section from now on… In Afghanistan @ashrafghani – Dr Ashraf Ghani, Presidential candidate. @KevinFlowerCNN – CNN Correspondent. @hamishreporter – Hamish Macdonald, Al Jazeera English Correspondent and Presenter. @itamena – Helped […]
IDF Twitter feed breaks 179 day silence
Rather intriguingly the Twitter feed for the Israeli Defence Force, @IDFSpokesperson, has offered the world a tweet for the first time in 179 days. Clearly IDF Spokesperson was getting back into the swing of things because the first one was quickly followed by a second at around 6pm Israeli time: "IDFSpokesperson 106 aid trucks and […]
WRL: The ‘ghost war’ and war reporting
I tend to push most of my war reporting links through Twitter rather than on blog posts these days but I thought this little collection was worth a quick update. 1. Sean Smith chronicles three months on the front line in Afghanistan: "High explosive is zooming back and forwards, so the enemy is certainly there, […]
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 […]
Read beyond the “Marines ban Twitter…” headline
Articles like this one with the headline ‘Marines Ban Twitter, Facebook, MySpace" have been doing the rounds in the media. But it’s important to read beyond the headline. Because if you just read headlines you end up with a really distorted picture of the world. (You always did but I’d suggest it’s even worse in […]
Blogging NATO Sec General calls for openness
NATO’s new Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has used a video blog to call for NATO to be "as open and transparent as possible". Fogh Rasmussen, who took up his post on Saturday and has been outlining NATO’s strategic priorities today, said he wants to use the blog "to have a discussion" about the security […]
What’s really happening
Ex-SAS man and best selling novelist Andy McNabb had some nice things to say about the Frontline Club website and the bloggers who blog here in the latest edition of New Media Age this week. Thanks to Club member Peter Moore for pointing this out to us on Twitter and uploading the above snap […]
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 […]