Media. Communication. Protest.

By Michael Cervieri in Features, Strategy.

Over the past decade groups around the world have utilized Internet communication technologies during crisis to broadcast their message to local and global communities. In the screencast above from the course I’m teaching at Columbia University, we look at three case studies to see how this has been done. In the process we see that over the years, the ability to harness Internet communications is moving from formal organizations to anyone with actual Internet access.

Case studies include:

• B92, an oppositional radio station in Milosevic’s Yugoslavia;
• Sokwanele, an oppositional group under Mugabe’s Zimbabwe;
• Iran Elections, a mass protest against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s 2009 reelection.

Before we review them though, we explore the the significance of the shear amount of digital content being produced on a global scale. In doing so we learn that 20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube per minute and the digital equivalent of a US Library of Congress is created every 15 minutes. What challenges does this present? What does such mass creation signify?

Run time is approximately one hour. Our review of digital creation takes place up to approximately minute thirty. Discussion of B92, Zimbabwe and Iran occur from there until the end.

Both the video and the presentation can be downloaded by selecting the links below.

• The “Media. Communication. Protests.” Screencast. iTouch/iPhone compatible. (160 MB .m4v file)
• The “Media. Communication. Protests.” PDF. Includes active links to sites and sources referenced in the presentation.

Michael Cervieri is a ScribeLabs co-founder, Executive Producer of ScribeMedia.Org and an Adjunct Professor at both the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and its School of International and Public Affairs. You can find him on Twitter at bmunch.

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