Social Networking, Social Media and Complex Emergencies: an ...

empirical examples of reporting on conflict and war
in the blogosphere.
The author explores how the issue of power defines
the framing of conflict by traditional news media,
serving to prioritise the interests of authority and
media organisations. Within this context, blogs
have the potential to dilute the traditional process
of frame production and in turn, potentially
transform the role of the news media in situations
of conflict and war. The results demonstrated that
by promoting alternative and progressive voices,
blogs have the capacity to shift power over framing
away from the usual sources (in news reporting) and
turn the media system into a greater constraining
factor for governments. Blogs enable a wide range of
sources to access mainstream media, representing
voices that are often distanced/marginalised from
political power. Blogs are also able to maintain
commentary without the sponsorship associated
with media organisations. The author argues that this
enhances the credibility of blogs.
Tufekci, Z. & Wilson, C. (2012) ‘Social
Media and the Decision to Participate
in Political Protest: Observations
From Tahrir Square’, Journal of
Communication, vol. 62, no. 2,
pp. 363-379.
Keywords: Facebook, Egypt, protest,
participation.
This paper demonstrates that social media
(especially Facebook) provided new sources of
information that the Egyptian regime could not
easily control and were therefore critical in shaping
how citizens made individual decisions about
participating in protests, the logistics of protest, and
the likelihood of success (p. 363). Data was collected
through a survey of media use by participants in the
Tahrir Square protests (starting 24 February). 1,200
interviews were conducted with people who had
participated in the protests.
Findings:
ƸƸ
ƸƸ
ƸƸ
ƸƸ
ƸƸ
An overwhelming majority of respondents
used phones for communicating about the
protest (p. 369)
Social media greatly increased the odds that
a respondent attended protests on the first
day of protests (p. 363)
Half of the respondents had produced
and disseminated visuals from the
demonstrations (mainly through Facebook)
(p. 373)
People learned about the Tahrir Square
protests primarily through interpersonal
communication, Facebook, phone contact,
or face-to-face (p. 363)
Traditional media was a lesser source of
information for people about the protest
(despite significant media coverage) (p. 370).
The 25 per cent composition of women participants
indicated a significant push by women to be part of
the political process.
Van Niekerk, B., Pillay, K. & Maharaj,
M. (2011) ‘Analyzing the Role of ICTs in
the Tunisian and Egyptian Unrest from
an Information Warfare Perspective’,
International Journal of Communication,
vol. 5, pp. 1406-1416.
Keywords: ICTs, Tunisia, Egypt,
communication, dissemination.
This article aims to provide an alternative
understanding of the role of technology and
Social Networking, Social Media and Complex Emergencies:
an Annotated Bibliography
33