Revolution live on the internet

Thousands of protesters in Tehran, June 15, 2009 (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Since the hotly contested elections in Iran last Friday, protesters have been taking to the streets in what has been reported to be the largest public protest since the 1979 revolution. Western news media have been accused of not devoting enough attention to this major world event, and the internet savvy are turning to alternate means of getting information on the unfolding events.

If you've been following this story at all, you've probably heard about the explosion of information coming from Twitter, the highly satirized social networking website where people can post short personal messages and updates. Initially, protesters began using Twitter as a way of quickly communicating information about the election riots in real time and under the nose of the authorities. However, in the past few days the amount of tweets with the hashmark #iranelection has skyrocketed, with hundreds of new updates arriving each minute. Some come from Iranian protesters, many come from Americans and others around the world following the events in Iran, and it's rumored that some are coming from the Iranian government as a way of seeding false information. One thing is clear, that with the shear volume of messages - all 140 words or less - getting accurate information is next to impossible.

However, this hasn't deterred people from relying on Twitter, YouTube, and Wikipedia for their most up-to-date information about the Iran elections. In an embarrassing moment for CNN, another Twitter hashmark has gotten a tremendous amount of attention this weekend: #CNNfail, in reference to another popular internet site, "failblog."

Not all the blame can be placed on the news media; the Iranian government is working overtime to suppress all media coverage of the protests. Variety reported yesterday that reporters have been threatened with physical violence, and in some cases have been asked to leave the country, while a BBC reporter states that government officials confiscated video footage from them. In the face of this kind of opposition, some news agencies are turning to amateur video to get shots of the streets of Tehran and other protest sites, largely recorded using cell phone cameras and other hand held personal devices.

Iranian youth are very internet savvy, and in spite of reports that the government is disrupting communications, blogs and YouTube videos are being posted daily. Many of the videos are graphic, but provide raw footage of events happening on the ground. In the videos, you can see dozens of Iranians with hand held devices recording video and taking pictures, and whether or not many of these images will make it into the public sphere, it's clear that the level of documentation on these events is startling.

Is the nature of documenting and reporting historic events changing? Will the media be able to adapt to the rising tide of amateur content published on the internet? When we look back on the 2009 Iranian elections, or any other recent world events, will we be looking at YouTube, Twitter, and Flickr as the primary documents?

For more info: 

Social media allows youth to spread information - Variety.com

How Iran's internet protesters slipped past censors - London Evening Standard

Iran puts curb on media - AP

YouTube video of protests (WARNING: some graphic content)

Flikr - images of election and protests