2011 – Frontline Club

Behind the scenes: social media at the Israel Defence Forces

Frontline Club — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:00:16 +0000

This is an extended news report on the Israel Defence Forces’ social media activities including interviews with the soldiers updating the various IDFSpokesperson accounts.

The video is a year old, but I’ve been looking for this sort of material for a while.

The IDF started with a blog and a YouTube channel in 2008 during Operation Cast Lead which included airstrikes and a ground incursion into Gaza. The IDF began a Twitter account several days into 2009.

I was critical then, but it looks like things have come a long way since that hastily conceived project.

Five links from 2011: ‘Twitter’

Daniel Bennett — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:13:56 +0000

I am picking out a few of the more interesting links from my 2011 delicious bookmarks. On Monday, I selected five from my ‘war reporting’ tag.

Today, I’ve selected another five from among the bookmarks I labelled ‘Twitter’ in my delicious account.

Enjoy!

1. ‘Visualising the New Arab Mind‘

Computational historian Kovas Boguta visualises the Twitter influence network around the revolution in Egypt.

2. ‘The man who tweeted the attack on Osama Bin Laden – without knowing it‘

In May, computer programmer Sohaib Athar provided Twitter updates of the US mission to kill Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. Athar was unaware of the significance of what he was tweeting at the time but he knew something was up:

"Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event)."

The Washington Post collected his tweets using Storify.

3. ‘Taliban join the Twitter revolution‘

Meanwhile, Twitter’s rapid uptake by all and sundry included the Taliban in May and Somali insurgent group Al Shabaab by December.

A rather surreal interactive war of words online now accompanies serious military activity on the ground as ISAFMedia and alemarahweb engage in disputes over Afghanistan while HSMPress take on Kenya’s military spokesperson Major Emmanuel Chirchir.

4. Libya air strikes: NATO uses Twitter to help gather targets

"Potentially relevant tweets are fed into an intelligence pool then filtered for relevance and authenticity, and are never passed on without proper corroboration. However, without "boots on the ground" to guide commanders, officials admit that Twitter is now part of the overall "intelligence picture"."

5. British Prime Minister considers curbing Twitter use after UK riots

August’s riots in the UK prompted consideration of whether the use of Twitter and social media should be restricted.

As it turned out, BlackBerry Messenger appeared to be the communication tool of choice and recent research by the LSE/Guardian claims that Twitter was more useful in the aftermath to organise clean ups than to incite disorder.

Five links from 2011: ‘War Reporting’

Daniel Bennett — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 11:30:00 +0000

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 ‘best’, ‘most interesting’, ‘memorable’ or simply ‘random’ links on various topics from among the 530.

In this post, I’ve selected from those that are also tagged ‘war reporting‘.

1. Sebastian Junger remembers Tim Hetherington

In April, photojournalist Tim Hetherington was killed while reporting from Misrata in Libya. Colleague and friend Sebastian Junger reflects on his life and death:

"That was a fine idea, Tim—one of your very best. It was an idea that our world very much needs to understand. I don’t know if it was worth dying for—what is?—but it was certainly an idea worth devoting one’s life to. Which is what you did. What a vision you had, my friend. What a goddamned terrible, beautiful vision of things."

2. Libya conflict: journalists trapped in Tripoli’s Rixos hotel

"It’s a desperate situation," [the BBC’s Matthew] Price told Radio 4’s Today programme. "The situation deteriorated massively overnight when it became clear we were unable to leave the hotel of our own free will … Gunmen were roaming around the corridors … Snipers were on the roof."

3. War, too close for comfort

Simon Klingert talks to some people on a train about his life as a photojournalist:

““So have you ever seen someone die?” It was about two minutes into our conversation when the question had popped up. The question. Not that I minded though. After all, it seems like a natural question to ask when you tell people you’re trying to make a living as a war correspondent and it dawns on them you actually like what you are doing..”

4. The hazards of war reporting from behind a desk

BBC journalist Alex Murray reflects on reporting the conflict in Libya from his computer screen:

"But the war has been very close to me, too close sometimes. Viewing them [videos from Libya] in a corner of the newsroom on a screen with nobody else sharing the experience at that moment is a dissociative experience. The process of analysing it, effectively repeatedly exposing myself to the same brutal events, does not make it easier."

5. Image of the child of fallen soldier trends on Facebook

I typed ‘Afghanistan’ into the Kurrently search engine one day and noticed that this photo was being passed rapidly around Facebook in the United States. I find the photo jarring and unsettling: the artificial neatness of a homely, yet staged photograph here represents the tragic consequences of a chaotic, complicated and distant battlefield.

Terror in Mumbai and the evolution of crisis communications

Daniel Bennett — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:20:20 +0000

Several hours ago, three explosions hit the Indian city of Mumbai. At the current time (18h00 GMT), reports suggest seventeen people have been killed and 81 injured.

Less than three years after the siege of 26/11, the citizens of Mumbai are facing the consequences of another terror attack. It is hardly a surprise that people are using Twitter to communicate, but its use as a tool for crisis communications is evolving.

Back in 2008, I suggested that an eyewitness tag on Twitter, such as #EW, would help people identify relevant material from the vast torrent of tweets that were being posted about Mumbai.

In 2011, Twitter users have taken things beyond my rather simple idea by organising a number of separate hashtags to relay information.

Rather than only using one hashtag (#Mumbai) as many people did three years ago, today the Twitter users of Mumbai have started posting to:

1. #mumbaiblasts, for information relevant to the attacks

2. #here2help, for people who can offer assistance

3. #needhelp, for people who are in need of assistance

4. #mumbaitraffic, for updates on the transport situation

Of course, the system relies on users posting information to the right hashtag and for others not to post irrelevant information, so it’s far from perfect. But it is certainly more sophisticated than a single hashtag.

In addition, as Guardian journalist Laura Oliver has pointed out, Indians are putting together a shared spreadsheet to coordinate useful contact information in real time.

The network is evolving to find solutions to the problems of information overload and accessing relevant material quickly.

New tools are also being explored by journalists.

Digital strategist and freelance journalist Kevin Anderson said he heard of the attacks via Google+. His source, however, was a long-established contact – he had interviewed her after the Mumbai train bombings in 2006.