remediation and iran election
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These are a few slides thrown together for a short presentation for the Research group at the Uni of Sunderland/CRMCS. Some of the Twitter/Wikiepedia images used here are drawn from a Mashable post by Ben Parr: http://mashable.com/2009/06/21/iran-election-timeline/TRANSCRIPT
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#iranelectionremediation
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Remediation?
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Remediation ‘act of correcting an error or a fault or an evil’
‘an action taken to remedy a situation’
‘the improvement of a contaminated site to prevent, minimize or mitigate damage to human health or the environment’
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Bolter and Grusin (1999)2 distinct meanings:
1. the repurposing of the content of one medium into another
2. the transformation of one medium into another
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#iranelectionA disparate series of events, reports, protests,
accounts, links, stories, etc across multiple media platforms by social agents seeking to redress a perceived and actual danger
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Top Twitter Trends of 2009“The terms #iranelection, Iran and Tehran were
all in the top-21 of Trending Topics, and #iranelection finished in a close second behind the regular weekly favorite #musicmonday.” Abdur, Dec 15 2009
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10th Iranian election, aka:Green Revolution
Sea of Green
Twitter Revolution
Persian Awakening
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NomineesMahmoud Ahmadinejad (Abadgaran)
Mohsen Rezaee (Independent Conservative)
Mir-Hossein Mousavi (Independent Reformist)
Medhi Karroubi (NTP)
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June 12: The ElectionOfficial (disputed!) results:
Ahmadinejad = 24.5 million votes (62.6%)
Mousavi = 13.2 million votes (33.7%)
Over 80% voter turnout
Both claimed they had secured majority of (58-60%) vote
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Other social mediaWikipedia
YouTube
Flickr
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June 13-14: ProtestsMainstream media fingered for poor coverage
= #CNNFail
Al Jazeera English charges Iranian government of direct censorship
Al Arabiya’s Tehran office shut down
NBC News in Tehran raided
BBC World Service claim signal jammed
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Other social mediaWikipedia
YouTube
Flickr
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June 15-18: EscalationRumours of Mousavi’s arrest flood the web
Supreme Ayatolla Khomeini initiates partial recount of votes
Iranian football team wear green armbands in game vs South Korea
US Govt asks Twitter to postpone its scheduled downtime
Ministry of Culture issues a directive banning foreign media from leaving their offices
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Other social mediaWikipedia
YouTube
Flickr
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June 19-21: ViolenceBloodiest days of violence across the weekend
Social media becomes the main way for citizens to communicate and organise in face of media censorship
Shooting of Neda Soltani by Basij forces becomes a rallying cry against the government
State run television reports 10 killed in Tehran over the weekend
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Other social mediaWikipedia
YouTube
Flickr
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Some dangers for usersTwitter being used for misinformation
Twitter being monitored by state authorities (retweet function)
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Remediation = retweet?
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Remediation of news = utopian? “A recent study … challenges utopian visions of the
internet as a brave new world with everyone connected to everyone else, a non-hierarchical network of voices with equal, open and global access. This latest ‘new’ world of ‘new’ media has not greatly expanded the news that we read or hear or changed mainstream news values and traditional news formats; neither has it connected a legion of bloggers to a mass audience. Rather, as the economic model for traditional news production stumbles and falls in the digital age, professional journalism has become the first casualty, the second, if we’re not careful, and pretty close behind will be the health of our democracy.”
Natalie Fenton, 17th Nov 2009
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Remediation ‘act of correcting an error or a fault or an evil’
‘an action taken to remedy a situation’
‘the improvement of a contaminated site to prevent, minimize or mitigate damage to human health or the environment’
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RemediationRemedy?
Democracy?
Suppression?
Veracity?
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RemediationHow useful is the concept of remediation?
To what extent did the remediation of the events surrounding #Iran Election resolve the problems surrounding the votes?
To what extent did social media provide a solution to the problems of state censorship?
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Sources Jay David Bolter & Richard Grusin, 1999,
Remediation: Understanding New Media, MIT Press
Ben Parr, 2009, ‘#IranElection Crisis: A Social Media Timeline’ Mashable