With over one hundred million ‘views’ the Kony 2012 video has started a far-reaching debate on the aims and value of a production seen by many as an over-simplification of complex situation.

Produced by the NGO ‘Invisible children’, the video calls for military intervention to “stop Kony and disarm the LRA”.

Host Paddy O’Connell of BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House was on the hunt for controversy – which is exactly what he found.

Perhaps the most scathing comments on the video came from film-maker and journalist Callum Macrae.

“Low and behold the world has paid attention and I’m hating every minute of it… This is a dreadful, I’m afraid, campaign. But nonetheless very important and we need to discuss it.”

Macrae says the unwavering focus on Joseph Kony puts him ill at ease.

“We shouldn’t be lowering ourselves to the level of Kony or the people who see him as an African bogeyman, we should be looking at the issues that are raised by it.”

Mareike Schomerus, of LSE’s Justice and Security Research Programme agreed that focusing entirely on Kony is a dangerous simplification.

“If you go into LRA controlled areas and actually stay there it becomes clear that the situation is actually much more complex than elevating just one man to the position of superpower…

When I talk, especially to military men,… and I say to them ‘do you honestly really believe that that one man can be responsible for messing about… 5 national armies and 3 UN missions and the US army, and the French army and sometimes the Israeli army.”

Programmes Director for the charity War Child, Amanda Weisbaum also casts a critical eye on the content of the video.

“They did 30 minutes of filming and they didn’t really do any history surrounding it or any complexities surrounding it… but yes I would have loved the 100 million hits”

But how then do people kindle an interest for African issues? Asks Benjamin Chesterton of production company DuckRabbit.

“Do you think we all start with PHDs?… we have to start somewhere… a percentage of [these people that watched the video] will go away and find out more… and maybe do something more than sitting around debating it.”

Poet and musician of Ugandan descent, Musa Okwonga rejects this out of hand.

“It’s utterly patronising to say that children can’t handle complexity… people followed complex narratives involving multiple characters over seven books with Harry Potter”

The idea put forward by the video that military intervention is the only solution held no water for the panel.

“The lessons of history” says Macrae, “are that it’s always gone wrong; it’s always scatter gun and it’s always brought more havoc”

Watch the full event here:

Live Video streaming by Ustream

The recent KONY 2012 campaign video has been met with strong criticism, but nobody can question its effectiveness in reaching a mass audience. The film, created by Invisible Children and featuring director and founder of Invisible Children Jason Russell, is reportedly one of the fastest spreading viral videos ever, reaching over 100 million views in a week.

It has been criticised for presenting a complex situation as a simplified problem with a simple solution, for reinforcing the idea that Africans are helpless victims who need to be ‘saved’ by ‘the West’ and for misrepresenting reality. 

Despite its inaccuracies this campaign has created wider awareness about Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) than any news report or campaign that has come before it, so what can be learned? Join us for April’s First Wednesday as we debate whether the KONY 2012 campaign is a force for good or a worrying development in campaigning.

Hosted by Paddy O’Connell of BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House.

With:

Benjamin Chesterton, radio documentary and photofilm producer, co-founder of the production company duckrabbit and the website A Developing Story.

Amanda Weisbaum, Programmes Director at War Child, who work on the ground with communities affected by the LRA in Northern Uganda and Central African Republic.

Musa Okwonga, a football writer, poet and musician of Ugandan descent. He is author of A Cultured Left Foot which was nominated for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award and Will You Manage?. He is one half of The King’s Will, an electronica outfit that blends poetry, music, and animated videos.

Mareike Schomerus, Research Consortium Director of the Justice and Security Research Programme at LSE and author of many publications including Chasing the Kony story in The Lord’s Resistance Army: Myth and Reality.

Callum Macrae, a film-maker and journalist who has reported, filmed and directed many award-winning television documentaries for Channel 4, the BBC and Al Jazeera English among others. He first made a film about Kony and the LRA in 2003, and has written and made several films about the LRA since.

Questions have been asked on topics ranging from the Taliban’s negotiations with the United States to their position on educating girls.

The Taliban banned girls from schools while they were in power, although there were reports in January 2011 that they had ended their opposition to education for women.

The number of girls in school has risen to 2.5 million since the Taliban were ousted in 2001, according to the government and aid groups.

The questions on the forum are being answered by Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid, who blamed a lack of funding for girls’ schools that were run in accordance with Islamic tenets.

In response to another question, he indicated that the Taliban monitors Facebook, YouTube and media reports. 

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.

WE-NATO also wants to livestream a series of talks and conduct video interviews in the run up to the NATO summit in Chicago in May.

Unfortunately it’s not really started off too well. First, we have the launch announcement from "Deputy Assistant Secretary of Pubic Diplomacy". (Yep, that’s NATO’s "pubic"…)

Which consists of a fairly dull YouTube video:

I’m sure Dr. Stefanie Babst has lots of interesting things to say about what NATO does but I’m afraid after she tells me I’m in the "right place" to follow global issues, I just feel like actually I’m in the wrong place. A shame.

Then on the About page we have an impassioned plea for YOUR contributions. (Yep, that’s NATO’s excitable capitals): 

"WE-NATO is an interactive platform, which will enable YOU to engage directly with other netizens around the world in an open and transparent dialogue on issues related to NATO’s current agenda.

"This site is not a one way communication talk-shop, but a forum where YOU contribute…

"WE also want to listen to YOUR views and comments and WE want to share with YOU our thinking on a range of security issues some of which you may not be familiar with.

"Join the discussion. Join the debate and WE look forward hearing from YOU!"

Brilliantly, we are then informed that "comments are closed".

To be fair, you can comment on the launch announcement page, other pages and a plethora of NATO’s other social media sites. No doubt somebody will reply to you there. 

There is more background on the WE-NATO project in a slightly more interesting YouTube video on WE-Magazine.net.

Here an unidentified woman informs us that "NATO itself, in its organisational structure, is not ready yet for what Web 2.0 is actually asking from the institution".

Hmm…that maybe says it all.

P.S. In a bonus irony, you can’t currently comment on this blog despite my occasional pestering of the good people at the Frontline Club…but YOU (sorry, couldn’t resist) can drop me a line on Twitter.     

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 he used social media to tell the story of British military deployments from Kosovo to Afghanistan. 

These are a few of the things that caught my eye (after I’d spent a few moments puzzling over the indoor brick wall):

1. In Kosovo, Maj. Smyth began making 2 minute YouTube videos and sending the URLs to journalists in Sarajevo to try to capture their interest. Putting these videos online meant they could also be viewed by military wives, girlfriends and families in the UK.

2. He says that in order to get coverage in national newspapers or on the BBC, he needed an "incredible story". But a blog allowed him to provide "behind the scenes" footage and to publish smaller stories for interested audiences on a regular basis.   

3. He targeted influential defence correspondents and outlets such as CNN’s i-Report spreading his news "footprint over a wider area".  

4. He describes how his blogging team inadvertently trumped the established news procedures of Buckingham Palace and the MoD Press Office.

The team had published a blog post revealing a visit by Princess Anne to Camp Bastion an hour too early. He claims the subsequent coverage of the post on the BBC and in The Times and The Telegraph "surprised a few people".

Footage from the scene of the aftermath was posted to YouTube and highlighted by the CitizenTube blog.

In June, CitizenTube said it would increase its focus on finding and collating videos of news events. Reflecting on this change of emphasis, Kevin Marsh at the BBC College of Journalism, noted, now rather eerily it seems, that Citizen Tube:

"will have to show users – who will, presumably, include news organisations – that its ‘non-traditional sources’ extend beyond the metropolitan, rich, northern hemisphere – and that an air crash in Bangladesh will be there, and findable, as assuredly as one in the Hudson".

Sadly, this incident demonstrates that it is capable of finding such videos.

It has ‘dallied’ with news videos in the past around the Iran election protests last year and the Los Angeles wildfires but says it will be increasing its "focus significantly" over the summer. 

One sceptic is concerned that CitizenTube videos might not "extend beyond the metropolitan, rich, northern hemisphere", but earlier this week it flagged up footage taken from the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border as Uzbeks fled from violence in southern Kyrgyzstan:

"1410

nataliaantonova tweets from Moscow:"Um, no @BBC & sources, #Moscow is not ‘a mess’. I live in the center, and my part of the city is getting along fine."

"Amazing how TV not showing ANYTHING. Soap operas, nature shows, etc since this morning, with just the random update here + there #metro29"

I seem to have slipped into videoblogging these days. I’ll write something soon…promise. Maybe you prefer the videos anyway.