Ari Rusila,
MA SocSc, is a Finnish freelancer and project management expert who
lives in Jyväskylä, Finland. He has worked mostly in the Barents region,
the Murmansk region of Russia and Kosovo/Serbia (Balkans). His main
blog, Ari Rusila's BalkanBlog, covers issues such as conflicts, crisis management and geopolitics.
Introduction
Blogging
is a part of the social media and Web 2.0 environment. While the
first-stage web mainly included websites where people were limited to
passive viewing of the content, the new-generation Web 2.0 creates
highly interactive platforms that allow the creation of user-generated
content, discussion and sharing in the virtual community. Besides
blogging, the social media includes social networking sites (Facebook,
LinkedIn...), microblogs (e.g. Twitter), wikis (wikipedia, wikimedia,
wikileaks...), video sharing sites (e.g. Youtube), folksonomies (social
bookmarking, tags) and other web applications (e.g. JavaScript). In
conclusion, Web 2.0 has created a totally new level for communication
between organizations, communities and individuals, far from the
still-existing traditional and industrial media.
I have been blogging1
for over five years and have used some other social media applications
for a few years. I have average computer and Internet skills, but
programming is beyond my ability. So my experience of using social media
is much the same as any ordinary citizen and not at any kind of
expertise level. As my blog covers issues such as conflicts, crisis
management and geopolitics - and regionally, the Balkans, the Black Sea,
the Caucasus and MENA (the greater Middle East and North Africa)
regions - I describe my experiences of the social media from that
perspective. Another aspect should also be mentioned: I try to have blog
articles with a message; in general, I take a position, describe a
conflict from my perspective and give arguments for it. As my motto is
“the other side of the story”, I never claim that my articles are
neutral, or an academic description of different issues – the printed
media and broadcasts can more or less pretend to have that kind of
approach. In my opinion, when a reader compares my provocative or biased
post with information collected from the mainstream media, he or she
can get a more comprehensive picture of the related issues or events.
Web updated the media war
The
traditional media has had a role in wars and international conflicts
for at least a hundred years, e.g during the Armenian genocide it had
some influence on the small humanitarian aid from the U.S. and
afterwards influenced the trials against the perpetrators in Turkey.
However, it was not until a half-century ago that it came clear that
media hype can be far more effective than military combat success - as
the Vietnam war amply demonstrated. It is said that Vietnam was the
first conflict waged and won by the U.S. media.
The
civil war in Yugoslavia lifted the media war to a more professional
level when Croatian, Bosnian Muslim and Kosovo Albanian separatists
employed PR firms to get U.S. public opinion and political leaders on
their side, while the Serbs totally ignored the importance of the media.
This proved to be a fatal Serb error in twentieth century hostilities,
where public relations and media hype can be far more effective than
military combat success. Barry Lituchu hit the nail on the head with
these sentences2:
It
is said that the first casualty of war is the truth. Of course, today
with the appalling spectacle of the civil war in Yugoslavia filling our
TV screens and newspapers, this old axiom has taken on an uglier, more
sinister meaning. If four years ago we could say that the American
public was totally uninformed about the conflict ready to unfold, today
we can say with equal justification that Americans are doubly or triply
misinformed, and dangerously so, about this tragic and completely
unnecessary war.
Referring to the Yugoslav civil wars, Barry Lituchy describes the methods as follows3:
“All
public relations firms working for foreign governments must register
with the Justice Department. I found in documents obtained from the
Justice Department that while Croatia was contracted to pay Ruder Finn
$16,000 a month and Bosnia was to pay $12,000 in 1992, payments in some
later months were as high as $200,000, and total payments per year were
ultimately in the millions of dollars. Moreover, Ruder Finn was not the
only P.R. firm employed in Bosnia. Hill and Knowlton was also contracted
early in the war. Waterman & Associates was employed by Croatia.
Financial backing came from countries such as Saudi Arabia, which alone
funneled nearly $1 billion to the Sarajevo regime from 1993 to 1996,
according to the Washington Post, 2 February 1996. Ruder Finn was also
contracted by the non-existent "Republic of Kosovo" for $5,000 a month,
according to a Justice Department document dated 1 November 1992.
The
outcome of this demonizing anti-Serb campaign was so effective that
there was no market for stories by a journalist who discovered that the
reported Serbian “rape camps” did not exist, or who included information
about Muslim or Croat crimes against Serbs. Challenging the dominant
interpretation in the major media became increasingly impossible.
Two
decades ago the role of the average citizen with regard to printed or
broadcast media was still passive; with social media the situation
totally changed to the opposite – ordinary people can be creative
through interactive media. The new trend in the present decade seems to
be the ‘Internet revolution’. One of the first examples of this was way
back in 2001 when the Filipinos famously overthrew their government with
the help of text messaging. The latest example of the use of social
media in the context of catastrophes or terrorist acts comes from the
U.S., where, immediately after the bombs had exploded during the Boston
marathon (Spring 2013), tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands
or even millions, of social media users began to comb through still and
video images from the explosion sites, like so many self-deputized CIA
agents. These instant vigilantes not only shared images and theories on
Reddit, Imgur, Tumbler and countless blogs but also fingered (innocent)
suspects, most of them dark-skinned, as potential terrorists.
The
use of social media in present day conflicts can be seen from a few
examples I have studied or participated in in different roles (as a
neutral observer, as writing articles from the grassroots level
perspective or as an active participant in the virtual media war).
Case Moldova - Twitter revolution (4,5)
After
the Orange (Ukraine), Rose (Georgia) and Tulip (Kyrgyzstan)
revolutions, the first attempt at a next-generation demonstration took
place in Moldova after the 2009 parliamentary elections. Known now as
“The Twitter Revolution” the protest was organized by two youth
movements – Hyde Park and ThinkMoldova – using their generation’s social
messaging network to gather 10,000-15,000 demonstrators on the streets
in Moldova’s capital Chisinau at an event billed as “I am a not a
Communist”, which included ransacking the presidential palace and
parliament building.
As
many as 50 per cent of the eligible Moldovan voters cast their votes
for the Communist Party (PCRM). Thus the ruling party won a landslide
victory, leaving the other three political parties that made it to
parliament far behind. Three other parties managed to pass the 6 per
cent threshold required to enter the legislature. All three are in
favour of closer ties with the European Union, free-market policies and
pursuing NATO membership. The Communists (PCRM) are pro-EU, anti-NATO
and less market-friendly.
Election observers from the EU and OSCE accepted6
the voting as fair, though they expressed some concern about
interference from the authorities. But the results were a deep
disappointment in the capital. Expectation of change was in the air
before the voting, but that did not happen.
On
the other hand, the demonstration has been characterized in discussion
forums (by government supporters perhaps?) as an act where
youth,
paid by older internationally-acting manipulators with money, alcohol
and drugs, seized a presidential office, planted a Romania’s flag on a
president palace and set on fire country’s parliament, demanding
inclusion as a province in Romania.”
Natalia Morar, one of the leaders of ThinkMoldova7, described the effort in her blog as “six
people, 10 minutes for brainstorming and decision-making, several hours
of disseminating information through networks, Facebook, blogs, SMSs
and e-mails.” She said the protests organized under the slogan were organized online: “All the organization was through the Internet, and 15,000 people came on to the street.”
To
create a demonstration via social media was easy, but to have a common
view of its purpose and manage the crowd seems to have been problematic.
That the demonstration turned violent was a surprise to the activists.
Mr. Moscovici said the protests were never intended to turn in that
direction. “The situation got beyond any expectations,” he said. “If it
would have been planned in advance, they would have used Molotov
cocktails or other bad stuff. Today they didn’t have any tools to fight
back. The stones they got from the ground, from the pavement.” Ms. Morar
of ThinkMoldova also distanced her organization from the violence,
shifting the blame onto the opposition parties. What bothers her the
most, she said, is the suggestion that she and her friends somehow
contributed to the violence, which she watched on television. “Believe
me, there is nothing at all enjoyable about it,” she said8.
ThinkMoldova
gives an example of how a debate can be brought to the street level.
One problem is manipulation by the media, etc, which is a common
phenomenon in political actions, as well hijacking a demonstration for
the purpose of one interest group. In the Moldova case, the two
organizations behind the protest condemned the violence and were of the
opinion that the opposition parties were behind these acts. The
opposition parties deny this and of course it is possible that the
Establishment orchestrated the hooligan part of the demonstration to
weaken the NGOs. The truth – I don’t know.
The
Moldovan experiment showed that Twitter has made some difference since
the demonstrations in Ukraine 2004 and Belorussia 2006, which were
mainly organized with SMS. It is practical and effective, but from my
point of view not a sufficient method for democratic revolution. For
protest certainly, for revolution maybe, sometime, somewhere.
Arab Streets: Social media gave good start and bad follow-up
The
uprisings and revolutions on the Arab streets a couple of years ago
clearly demonstrated the force of the social media in the early stages
of those events. A sort of warm-up to the recent cyber war came with the
release of a number of US diplomatic cables on Tunisia9by WikiLeaksin
late November and early December 2010. The cables gave details about
the “Family Mafia” led by the Tunisian President. A Lebanese news
website that published the cables, Al-Akhbar, was blocked in Tunisia and
attacked by hackers. The political campaign on the Internet escalated
with Operation Tunisia10(an
open letter to the media, a request for help from journalists, bloggers
and hackers) in which activists targeted government sites with
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. The hackers also got their
Open Letter onto the main page of the Government of Tunisia website.
During critical days, the social media have been used to help get people
out on the streets.
In Egypt the social media played a decisive role by bringing the protest onto the streets. Anonymous leaflets11 - How to Protest Intelligently
– circulating in Cairo also provided practical and tactical advice for
mass demonstrations, confronting riot police, and besieging and taking
control of government offices. The leaflet asked recipients to
redistribute it by email and photocopying, but not to use social media such as Facebook and Twitter, which were being monitored by the security forces.
While
the social media was so effective during the uprisings, its role became
insignificant immediately after the change of regime. Traditional,
better organized religious groups got an almost landslide victory over
different “ad hoc” temporary action groups. It seems that with Tweet and
FB it is difficult to create any deeper group identity, common vision
or commitment.
Iran: Unsuccessful Green revolution, but successful cyber war
The
“green revolution” in Tehran started after the elections in the summer
of 2009. The Western media relied on its reporters covering the mass
demonstrations by opposition supporters. The most news coverage came
from Tehran via English-speaking students - the bulk of the opposition
demonstrators were drawn from the upper and middle-class students,
business and professional classes.
From
the post-election surveys it can be seen that the only demographic
groups where the opposition candidate Mousavi was leading or competing
with Ahmadinejad were the university students and graduates, and the
highest-income Iranians. This group had the language skills, equipment
and skills for using the social media for their purpose. But relying on
them as a source of information gives a totally false picture about the
grassroots level in Iran as, according to surveys, only one-third of
Iranians have access to the Internet. Commentators portrayed Iranian
youth and the Internet as harbingers of change in the 2009 election,
whereas in reality, 18-to-24-year-olds comprised the strongest voting
bloc for Ahmadinejad.
While
distributing real-time tweets and pictures of the “revolution”, the
Western media totally ignored and downplayed the huge turnout for
Ahmadinejad. Worse still, the Western media ignored the class
composition of the competing demonstrations – the fact that Ahmadinejad
was drawing his support from the far more numerous poor working class,
peasant, artisan and public employee sectors while ignoring the
provinces, small and medium sized cities and villages where Ahmadinejad
had his mass base of support.12, 13
Later,
when the core problem (information coming from English-speaking
students and highest income class) of the social media as a source of
information was clear, and to give a deeper view, I published the
traditional information from the Iranian opposition and, especially,
from a group named The Organization of Iranian People’s Fadaian (Majority) – in Persian: سازمان فدائیان خلق ایران اکثریت Sāzmān-e
fedaiyān-e khalq-e Irān (aksariat) – which is the largest socialist
party in Iran and advocates the overthrow of the Islamic regime there.
The group is banned from open activity within the Islamic Republic, and
works clandestinely inside Iran and openly abroad. I published their
letter to EU leaders14 as such, and their other letter15
to President Obama related to a planned Israeli strike against Iran's
nuclear facilities as, in my opinion, their wise words reflected the
grassroots attitude among the Iranian opposition.
While
social media like Twitter at a regional/local level can be a decisive
factor by encouraging the masses to throw out an existing regime, one
should remember that the stakes are on a different scale in a real cyber
war. The best examples are the introduction of the Stuxnet computer
virus into 30,000 computers in Iran’s nuclear reactors and the
explosions in October 2009 in which 18 Iranian technicians were killed
at a factory in the Zagros mountains that manufactured Shihab missiles.16
Israel: The most sophisticated use of social media as a tool of war
The
old tradition (called also Pallywood) in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict has been the use of some respected media, such as the BBC, to
show “Israel’s aggression” and, at the same time, Palestinians as
innocent civilian victims. During earlier conflicts it was usual to
bring the dead – anyone who had died or been murdered for reasons of
crime during these wars - out from the hospitals in front of the cameras
as victims of “Israel’s aggression”. This kind of media war is still
continuing on the Internet. The difference with the old times is that
while it is easy to create and publish (mis)information, it is just as
easy for the public to detect photo manipulations and other
fabrications.
During
the Israeli Pillar of Defence operation against Hamas terrorists in
Gaza, an Arab news site called Alarab Net released a photo17
that shows a family who were allegedly ‘massacred’ in Gaza on its
Facebook page on Sunday, 18 November 2012. The caption in Arabic roughly
translates into English as “martyred massacred family in Gaza shortly
before…” Thanks to Tazpit News Agency’s investigative work, it was found
that the photo had originally been published on a news site called
Moheet based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, one month earlier, on 9
October 2012. October 19. On the Moheet website, the photo18 was entitled “Syria killed 122 Friday…Assad Used Cluster Bombs.”
And
here another example where the Alqassam Brigades published an image
which was taken in during the Syrian civil war weeks ago and attempted
to pass it off as a picture taken in Gaza during current conflict.
The
only force in the Middle East that can beat the Israeli army is a bunch
of ragged reporters. Had it not been for the fear of world opinion the
Army would have rooted out Hamas and its rockets... World opinion
matters because Israel’s natural friends are democracies. Politicians in
democracies will follow public opinion. In today’s digital world, where
people can communicate across the world in seconds and access
information anonymously from their own homes, the internet is the new
battlefield. The BBC, with its halo of ‘impartiality,’ is the world
leader in dissimulation. The BBC aired dead Syrian children passed off
as Palestinians; a ‘badly injured victim of Israeli bombing’ was filmed
moments later walking around healthily. The BBC shrugged it off – "perhaps he just recovered quickly."
A
couple of years ago, the General Staff of the Israel Defence Forces
(IDF) established a Cyber Defense Division in the C4I Directorate, which
is responsible for protecting the IDF networks from hackers and
infiltrations, to combat this new virtual frontier. While modern cyber
warfare is more between skilled specialists, the information war in the
social media is possible for anyone who has some kind of equipment and
access to the web.
In my opinion, the most sophisticated use of social media as tool of war is the official blog of the Israel Defense Forces (IDFBlog)20.
This is a source of information where one can find news from the field,
including operational updates, photos and videos. Besides news, the IDF
blog also includes wide background information and facts about related
issues via different means (images, videos, FB discussions, interactive
means, contacts ...) and in many languages. The IDF are using Twitter as
a means of making conflict, and their part in it, as transparent as
possible. They are letting the world know exactly what they are doing,
as well as why
they are doing it. I think this is incredibly important as Israel is
too easily cast in the role of “the bully” by the mainstream press
abroad.
As
not all people have access to the social media, Israel has also used
old-fashioned methods such as aircraft dropping leaflets in Gaza stating
that the residents should “keep their distance from Hamas terror
operatives”. There were similar warnings via Twitter. The reason for
this kind of early warning was to minimize collateral damage (very bad
for the public image) in any conflict.25
A
very good example of how the IDF information unit works with the social
media is its actions on 14th November 2012, when Operation Pillar of
Defence was starting: in the morning, around 9:30 a.m. Eastern time, @IDFSpokesperson
tweeted that “The IDF has begun a widespread campaign on terror sites
& operatives in the #Gaza Strip, chief among them #Hamas &
Islamic Jihad targets.” Minutes later they tweeted26, “The first target hit, minutes ago, was Ahmed Al-Jabari, head of the #Hamas military wing.” The tweet linked to a post on the IDF blog27
that explained: “The purpose of this operation was to severely impair
the command and control chain of the Hamas leadership, as well as its
terrorist infrastructure.”...“The IDF will continue to target sites that
are used for carrying out terror attacks against the citizens of Israel
while improving their daily security.” Soon after, a video of the IDF Pinpoint Strike on Ahmed Jabari28 hit YouTube, where it has accrued over 800,000 views so far (despite being blocked and reinstated by YouTube) 29. On the opposition’s side, the Alqassam Brigades30 have
been live-tweeting their attacks on Israel as well - e.g during
Operation Pillar of Defence, tweeting the news of rockets being fired at
different cities in Israel every few minutes.
Web 2.0 As a Tool - My conclusions
The Egyptian autocrats removed the Internet from Egypt; the Chinese autocrats removed Egypt from the Internet (an anonymous quote from a web forum)
The
Web 2.0 revolution created a collective consciousness over the
Internet, and, in addition, the social media also made it possible for
large numbers of people to organize and, in certain cases create,
attacks against the establishment – in the virtual or real sphere. The
social media is different from the traditional/industrial media in many
ways, such as quality, reach, frequency, usability, immediacy and
permanence. A Web 2.0 site may allow users to interact and collaborate
with each other in the social media. This new Internet culture reflects
the fact of, or is a process by which, the centre of gravity of the news
cycle has shifted to the social media. The critical task is, of course,
criticism of the sources, so that what seems like complete
democratization of information and news reporting can lead to a tyranny
of the mob, even erupting into “virtual” and perhaps even physical
violence.
Today’s
communication tools are providing new aspects for election campaigns
and politics in general. One of them is that modern technology can
inspire young voters. Another aspect is that protest is not necessarily
channelled via voting but through street democracy.
One
can claim that both of these aspects can include undemocratic elements
because the majority of the population are not familiar with these tools
and directing democracy with violence can gain more than a fair share
of power. On the other hand, one can claim that the Establishment has
such strong means with which to exercise power that normal elections are
insignificant. My position is not clear, because the situation is
different in every society.
Web
2.0 has been excellent tool with which to mobilize huge segments of the
population with “Colour revolutions” or uprisings. However, the
problems start after the demonstrations or even when the regime changes.
After changing the regime or ousting a dictator, any further goals are
rarely discussed and accepted by the mobilized demonstrators. Indeed,
the real aims – labelled the promotion of democracy - can be imported
abroad to serve foreign interests (like pro-American economic and
foreign policies on Arab streets) or at least one leading domestic
interest group. So, in my opinion, the criticism is the core question
from this aspect.
I
do not think the Western traditional mainstream media are so interested
in in-depth critical analysis or investigations, which are a thread for
advertising money or other publishers’ interests. The Internet is an
excellent medium for alternative critical citizen journalism and even
investigative journalism. Speaking about today's whistle-blowers – the
most famous being WikiLeaks – it may be the only medium where these
kinds of actions are possible. One can, of course, find a lot of
nonsense and what I call Facebook journalism on the Internet. I
personally prefer more op-ed articles, alternative perspectives, etc,
with good links to background information. In blogging I have changed my
approach from daily commentaries to longer and not-so-frequent
articles.
I
think that at best, the social media can challenge the existing system,
policy and initiatives by looking behind the picture from the
mainstream media and finding the core interests in ongoing and coming
(e.g. Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, military
intervention in Syria, etc) interventions, conflicts and high-flown
statements, and investigate how the actions are implementing the
interests of different lobby groups. The blogosphere can tell what’s
really happening and why. The blogosphere can liberate us and our
thinking from the mainstream media box. It delivers a huge amount of
information and raw material from different shareholders. The critical
task is criticism of the sources, but even with this reservation it
makes a real change as a virtual think tank - far more than the
traditional media.
¤ ¤ ¤
Excerpt: Ari Rusila - My Blogosphere
My
motivation for blogging originates from my experience of working in the
Balkans. While working in the Balkans I saw a huge gap between the
mainstream media and reality, and between high-flown ideas from
Washington and Brussels from one side and the grassroots from the other.
To change the situation I started to write e-mails and memorandums to
policy-makers and comments to different forums – although the response
was modest at best. Then I went to different web forums and started
blogging, and got much more feedback. My motto is “The other side of the
story”.
My main blog is Ari Rusila's BalkanBlog31,
which covers issues relating to conflicts, crisis management and
geopolitics, and regionally the Balkans, the Black Sea, the Caucasus and
MENA (the greater Middle East and North Africa) regions. The content of
the blog is more in-depth analysis or essays from my personal viewpoint
on topics mentioned, not daily posts about current events. The main
blog has visitors from more than 140 countries, mostly from North
America.
There is a Finnish version of the main blog with a little different content: Ari Rusilan BalkanBlog32. I also launched a news portal, Ari Rusila's Conflicts,
where real-time news on diffferent topics was automatically generated
from different sources - but no more, as the service provider ended this
option. Then there is Themes of Ari Rusila33,
which includes some minicourses for e-learning purposes. This site is
still partly under construction. In addition to this, there is a more
static website, Ari Rusila WebS34. I also participate in a number of community blogs with the same content as my main blog but with a different audience.
Highlights & Achievements 2008-
2013
2012
TOP 10 political blogs rank in Finland (Cision)
Google Search can give a good score depending how high each article is at any given time (my best is 603,000 hits, normal variation is 7,000 – 200,000)
2011
Interviews in international printed and online media: Dan newspaper and Pokret za Promjen online (Montenegro), SNP Nashi, BTV, eNovosti, Pokretzasrbiju,Facebookreporter, Blogovnic, Vesti011, privreda, srpskinacionalisti(Serbia) , IRNA (Iran)
2010
Blog got 1st position among the most visited Babelblogs in Cafebabel.com (The European Magazine)
TOP 10 political blogs rank in Finland (Cision)
Article for AC Policy Team/NATO Strategic Concept
2009
“Intercultural Dialogue”
Training workshop of Anna Lindh Foundation in Luxemburg for EuroMed
bloggers. I was the only one selected from the Nordic countries
2008
Article in New Kosova Report (Kosovo/Serbia)
Active participation in different forums and articles referred to
Other outcomes
Citations in a few academic works
Answering questions from researchers and students for their studies or publications
Contacted by a few writers and discussions of common issues
Helping aid or development workers with advice when they are going on missions
Giving official statements to, for example, asylum seekers
Contacted by a few moviemakers and giving background information and hints for documentary movies.
Notes:
1 See “Excerpt: My Blogoshere”
33 (http://arirusilathemes.wordpress.com/ )
