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Trending: War

The Effects of Digital Media on Conflict Journalism

Honours thesis submitted in partial fulfilment

of the requirements for the award of the degree

BACHELOR OF ARTS (HONOURS)

from

UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG

by

Douglas Simkin, Bachelor of Communication and Media Studies

School of Communication and Media Studies

2014

Synopsis

The ways in which conflict is reported has changed throughout the course of

history. In an age of seemingly unlimited information, the practice of conflict

journalism has changed dramatically. Due to networking tools such as the

Internet, the job of producing information regarding war is not left to a small

minority of journalists but is open to every individual within the network.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore new and interesting ways in which

information is coming out of areas of conflict. It also aims to highlight a growing

disconnect between traditional, mainstream media sources and new media.

Online content such as videos, twitter posts, live video streams, blog posts,

comments on blog posts and photographs were all used as sources of primary

data. The importance of this data was then conceptualised within the framework

of a variety of key theories that help to explain the relationship between users

and content in this new information age.

The result of this research indicated that information regarding conflict is no

longer a static entity but a malleable object that can be pulled apart by users

online in near real-time. However, just as the process of this interaction is a

constantly developing practice, the research surrounding the topic must also

evolve, in order to keep up-to-date with current trends.

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Declaration

I certify that this thesis is entirely my own work except where I have given full

documented references to the work of others, and that the material contained in

this thesis has not been submitted for formal assessment in any formal course

and the word length is 15,085.

_____________________________ ____/____/________

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Table of Contents

SYNOPSIS............................................................................................................................................ 2

DECLARATION................................................................................................................................... 3

LIST OF FIGURES.............................................................................................................................. 6

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.................................................................................................................. 7

INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................ 8

CHAPTER 1 - BACK TO THE FUTURE.......................................................................................11

SECTION 1: A BRIEF HISTORY........................................................................................................... 11CONFLICT JOURNALISM.........................................................................................................................................11IN THE BEGINNING................................................................................................................................................13GLASS WARRIORS..................................................................................................................................................15

SECTION 2: THE ‘MODERN’ CONFLICT JOURNALIST.........................................................................17WORLD WAR TWO, VIETNAM AND BEYOND...................................................................................................1724 HOURS OF HORROR IN THE GULF................................................................................................................18THE EMBEDDED JOURNALIST..............................................................................................................................20

SECTION 3: A COMPARISON BETWEEN TWO MODERN EXAMPLES..................................................22VICE NEWS............................................................................................................................................................22ANNANEWS............................................................................................................................................................23

CHAPTER 2 – THE HERE AND NOW......................................................................................... 26

SECTION 1: THE BIRTH OF A NEW PARADIGM.................................................................................26A WORLD IN CRISIS.............................................................................................................................................. 26MEDIA AS A PRODUCT..........................................................................................................................................28THE DECLINE OF INDUSTRIAL MEDIA...............................................................................................................30

SECTION 2: THE INDUSTRIAL COUNTER-REVOLUTION....................................................................33THE AGE OF PARTICIPATION...............................................................................................................................33ONLINE CENSORSHIP............................................................................................................................................ 36THE GOOGLE DOCTRINE.......................................................................................................................................38

SECTION 3: THE ‘LONG TAIL’ OF CONFLICT JOURNALISM................................................................41INTRODUCING THE LONG TAIL............................................................................................................................41THE LONG TAIL OF CONFLICT JOURNALISM.....................................................................................................43

CHAPTER 3 – NETWORK SUPREMACY....................................................................................46

SECTION 1: NETWAR/4TH GENERATION WARFARE..........................................................................46

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THE POWER OF OODA LOOPS...........................................................................................................................46NETWAR AND NETWORKS...................................................................................................................................48

SECTION 2: COGNITIVE SURPLUS.......................................................................................................50@WARFARESTUDIES............................................................................................................................................50COGNITIVE SURPLUS.............................................................................................................................................53

SECTION 3: USER CURATED CONTENT..............................................................................................56LIFECYCLE OF ONLINE CONTENT........................................................................................................................56AGGREGATION........................................................................................................................................................ 58CURATION............................................................................................................................................................... 62

CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................... 65

REFERENCES................................................................................................................................... 68

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List of Figures

Figure 1: A screenshot of the discussion thread on Reddit 27

Figure 2: TweetDeck, a platform used to track multiple hashtags 33

Figure 3: The live stream provided by Jehad Saftawi 34

Figure 4: One of the tweets posted by the author 35

Figure 5: The top news story from the New York Times 39

Figure 6: The preview for LiveLeak as viewed on Google 40

Figure 7: A simple illustration of the long tail 42

Figure 8: The long tail of conflict journalism 43

Figure 9: An illustration providing a visual depiction of the OODA loop 46

Figure 10: Global operations, 18-24 August 50

Figure 11: An example of Kot-Ivanov’s “Map of Military Operations” 53

Figure 12: Lifecycle of online content 56

Figure 13: The process in which content is brought to the surface 58

Figure 14: Syria channel statistics on LiveLeak 59

Figure 15: A screen grab from YouTube highlighting the total number of views

for the highest ranked regarding Syrian War footage 60

Figure 16: The link based feed 61

Figure 17: The final destination 61

Figure 18: Examples of curated content with regards to Syrian War footage 63

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Acknowledgements

This thesis is the culmination of a myriad of theories and ideas. Combining these

into the finished product was both a rewarding and challenging experience that

would not have been possible without the help of a few key individuals.

Thanks Dad, for introducing me to the work of Robert Capa and providing the

spark of inspiration that underpins this work, Mum for always being at the end of

the phone for me to rant to when the going got tough, and Anna, for supporting

me in every possible way no matter the hour of day or night.

Finally, this thesis would not have been possible without the help of Ted Mitew,

possibly the greatest supervisor ever to live. Thank you for pretending not to be

stressed even when things got a bit tight, and also for being a walking

encyclopaedia. Your wealth of knowledge on every topic conceivable is second to

none.

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Introduction On 29 July 2014, Israeli forces, in a continuation of an already escalating conflict,

fired a series of rockets into the Gaza Strip, targeting a variety of key locations

including the Gaza Seaport. The attack took place throughout the early morning

and stopped at sunrise. Little coverage of these strikes was provided through

legacy media sources, however, throughout the period of the strikes the online

social networking platform Twitter was sent into overdrive, as a wealth of

information was beginning to build surrounding the strikes. Due to the absence

of mainstream media coverage, Twitter and other online sites such as UStream

provided a window into a world that the mass audience would previously have

never known to exist. A single civilian by the name of Jehad Saftawi had the

presence of mind to turn his simple web cam facing outside, providing a live

stream of the attacks from his balcony.

Over the course of the strikes the viewership for this stream increased, as did the

tweets surrounding it as a source of content on Twitter. The raw, unedited

footage presented by Saftawi provided no story in the traditional sense of the

term, it was simply a live stream of content coming directly from the warzone to

the computer screens of thousands of individuals worldwide. No content was

edited out and the only commentary provided to those watching were a few

sentences here and there, as Saftawi attempted to discern which targets had

been hit.

In a process that Anderson (2008) describes as “the democratisation of the tools

of production”, the Internet has radically redefined what it means to be a conflict

journalist. The live stream provided by Saftawi of the attack on Gaza’s Seaport

completely circumvented all mainstream media channels, as online users

demonstrated they now have the power both the create and share content. While

the face value of an individual tweet or comment made by a single user may

appear to barely contribute to the greater discussion, when one takes the

hundreds of thousands of tweets, images, photographs, blog posts and comments

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into account, they come face-to-face with a wealth of information previously

unimaginable in regard to the way information is disseminated in mainstream

media channels.

With the introduction of new technology, a new modality of operation takes

place regarding the content and method of reporting engaged with by legacy

media. The idea that the journalistic process is in lockstep with the technology of

the time is not far fetched. The electric telegraph for example, drastically

shortened the time required for information to be transported from one place to

another, allowing for an unprecedented immediacy of reporting. Compare this

with the invention of satellite communications and the rise of the 24 hour news

and the results are the same: a drastic reduction in the time taken for content to

travel from one place to another. The Internet has been a turning point in this

modus operandi, as now it is possible for individuals to publish and broadcast

content themselves. Due to the intrinsic ability of the Internet to allow users to

share content, the Internet has the real-time properties found in the previous

medium, but also adds a new element allowing user participation and

interaction. This user participation is key to this evolving paradigm.

It is important to keep in mind that in the context of this thesis, conflict

journalism refers to the emerging information flows that are coming out of areas

of conflict in new and interesting ways. The examples discussed in Chapter One

are given so that a historical background of the topic may be attained, giving

context to the concepts provided later as well as highlighting some of the issues

currently faced by the mainstream, legacy media. This thesis also had a limited

scope with which to work. Ideally, a concise history of conflict journalism would

be provided before exploring the current situation, however due to the

restrictions of time, resources and word limit, the provided summary of chapter

one aims to highlight some key turning points that have influenced the practice

of conflict journalism up to its current stage.

Chapter Two of the thesis takes a snapshot of where we are now, by analysing

online content posted regarding conflict, and how the end user now has more

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power than ever before with regards to choosing which content they wish to

view and which content they want to dispose. The key focus of Chapter Two is

that we are currently in the middle of a paradigm shift regarding the flow of

information and how we can both receive and create it. It is argued that this

paradigm shift is resulting in the slow death of mainstream ‘legacy’ media, a

format that cannot keep up with two way information channels provided by the

new medium.

Chapter Three then discusses these new information flows on a deeper, more

abstract level, by analysing how networks shape and change the way information

flows between users. The collective mass has an almost unfathomable power,

particularly with regards to the use of what Clay Shirky (2010) calls “Cognitive

Surplus”. In a world that contains unlimited amounts of content, the real power

of the network stems from this combined cognitive surplus, as users aggregate

and curate content in a never ending cycle, constantly updating information and

providing an ever clearer picture on the events taking place.

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Chapter 1 - Back to the Future

Section 1: A Brief History

Conflict Journalism

On 1 February 1968 whilst working for the Associated Press, a photographer

named Eddie Adams took an iconic photograph showing the execution of a

handcuffed Viet Cong prisoner on the streets of Saigon. This graphic image

depicted the brutality of war to many in the United States (US) and arguably

changed the way civilians viewed the war in Vietnam (Haggerty 2009). Adams

covered thirteen separate wars including Vietnam and the Gulf War and won 500

awards for his work, including the Pulitzer Prize1 (Times, 21 September 2004, p.

31). It could be argued that Adams embodied the traditional notion of the conflict

journalist through his powerful images and high standing within the profession.

The professional conflict journalist has changed little since Adams took the

notorious image on the streets of Saigon in 1968. Instead of wearing fatigues, the

modern perception is of a reporter, wearing a blue bulletproof vest with the

emboldened word ‘PRESS’ splashed in white across the front and back. Some

reporters may choose to wear a helmet for extra protection, while others may

not. They may be carrying a camera themselves, or in most cases, can be seen

through the lens, holding the microphone in front of the destruction taking place

around them. This reporter is the embodiment of the traditional2 way of

reporting on conflict. They are the first step in the logistical practice of creating a

story, the process of which up until now has been hidden from the audience. In

this media model, the audience are the information consumers.

The traditional definition of conflict journalism can be broken down into two

parts. According to The Oxford Dictionary (2014) the term conflict refers to “a

prolonged armed struggle”. This definition sets the parameters of the thesis, in

that all events discussed and examples used are considered to be within the

realm of conflict. An example discussed later in this thesis will examine the

1 The Pulitzer Prize a US award considered to be the highest national honour in print journalism, literary achievements and musical composition (Columbia Journalism School 2014).2 The word ‘legacy’ will be used throughout this thesis to describe the mainstream, traditional format of information dissemination.

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execution of James Foley. While this act itself is not strictly a “prolonged armed

struggle”, the fact that it takes place within the greater context of such a struggle

is testament to its relevance.

The traditional definition of what constitutes journalism is described by The

Oxford Dictionary (2014) as “the activity or profession of writing for newspapers

or magazines or of broadcasting news on radio or television”. Shapiro (2014, p.

555) however, notes “to define journalism might be seen as a hegemonic foray by

one discipline against another”. This hegemonic foray stems from the difficulty of

defining journalism in today’s world. Due to the democratisation of the tools of

production, consumers who once only had the role of being an audience are now

able to assume the role of a producer, critic and consumer all at once (Anderson

2008).

The integration of these facets into one single entity challenges the previous

conceptions of what it means to be a journalist. The traditional process of news

creates a dichotomous relationship between the media and the public3. The new

media paradigm, however, gives users access to a wealth of information as well

as the ability to create individual content and share it with the world. Taking

these changes currently shaping media in to account, Shapiro creates a new

definition of journalism that is more relevant and applicable to the less

traditional practices discussed in this thesis. Shapiro (2014, p. 561) defines

journalism as follows:

Journalism comprises the activities involved in an independent pursuit of accurate

information about current or recent events and its original presentation for public

edification.

The key aspect of this new definition is that it includes “activities involved in an

independent pursuit of accurate information about current or recent events”. It

is this pursuit of accurate information that has created an online community

focused on tearing content apart piece by piece, slowly building a picture of the 3 This dichotomous relationship is expanded upon By Axel Bruns (2003, p. 31), who describes the process as “gatekeeping”, a practice in which content undergoes an evaluation of its newsworthiness before publication.

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events taking place in close to real time. Journalism is no longer a practice

exclusive to the elite of the literary world. It is a process in which individuals can

now take part, evaluating raw data and information according to their own

personal ideals and experiences.

In the Beginning

An examination of the current state of conflict journalism is not complete

without first exploring the origins of the field. This will demonstrate that as new

forms of technology were created and introduced to the public, the methods of

information dissemination changed and adapted to suit those new media. Careful

consideration was taken in choosing where to begin in the history of conflict

journalism and war correspondence. Ever since there have been the implements

of recording news, albeit through media of art, words, song and so on, there have

been epic tales of wars and conflicts. While these battles have indeed been

documented, they were not reported on by journalists per se.

Artworks such as the Bayeux Tapestry4 are among some of the first visual

depictions of battles as we know them today and in most cases artists who were

not even present at the events created these visual depictions some time after

the events in question. In the context of history itself, even the Bayeux Tapestry is

a contemporary example of conflict journalism. Composed before 700BC,

Homer’s Iliad is essentially a poetic and mythological transcription of a conflict,

as it tells the story of the siege of Troy during the final years of the Trojan Wars.

Nearly two thousand years later in the fourteenth century, Jean Froissart’s

Chronicles are a series of manuscripts produced by hand that tell the story of the

Hundred Years War (Croenen 2002). Whether through mythology, tapestries or

manuscripts, the methods by which conflict is narrated has changed over time.

One of the first examples of the ‘modern’ conflict journalist can be found in

Henry Crabb Robinson, a British diarist and member of the literary elite who

operated in the early nineteenth century. Between 1807 and 1809, Robinson

4 Depicting the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

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worked for The Times (Roth 1997), an English publication that still exists today.

The key mode of Robinson’s reporting was the dispatch, in which his description

of the war and any battles contained therein would be sent back to The Times to

be published (Roth 1997). The delay in publication for this medium of

communication was immense, as the report of the battle could only be printed

once the dispatch was received back at the news outlets headquarters.

Depending on the origin of such a dispatch, this delay could be days or even

weeks. For example, the Battle of Waterloo took place on the 18 June 1815, just

south of the Belgian capital, Brussels. Wellington’s dispatch of the battle was not

received in London until four days later, when it was published in the London

Gazette on 22 June (Wellington 1815).

The medium of the dispatch was limited to the speed at which the physical

document could be transported from one location to another. Due to the

constraints of technology, the dispatch remained the only form of

communication enabling publication until the introduction of the electric

telegraph in the middle of the nineteenth century. The first communication via

telegraph was sent by Samuel Morse in 1844, and it was only twenty-two years

later that the first transatlantic telegraph cable between the United States and

Europe was laid, dramatically reducing the amount of time it took to

communicate between the two continents (Schwartz & Hayes 2008). According

to Menke (2013, p. 67):

The great marvel of the electric telegraph was that it once and for all decoupled data

transmission from physical transportation, relieving the circulation of messages from the

constraints of geography or movement.

The introduction of the electric telegraph made it clear that quick

communication over long distances was possible. However, the power to publish

the information sent via this new channel of communication still resided within

the big news networks. In this regard, nothing had changed.

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Glass Warriors

In 1826, after years of experimentation, Joseph Niepce created the first ever

photograph after he coated an 8” x 6-1/2” pewter plate with asphalt varnish

(Karwatka 2007). The image is less than rudimentary by the standards of today;

however, in the early nineteenth century it was an incredible feat. The

development of photography as a medium added a whole new element to the

reporting of conflict as images were now able to sit alongside the text-based

stories reported in the newspaper. The first known photographs of conflict were

taken by an Englishman named Roger Fenton during the Crimean War. These

images were “displayed at photographic exhibitions throughout Britain, and

available as postcards and stereoscope5 images” (Anderson 2005, p. 14). The

popularity of Fenton’s images highlighted the appeal of this new technology as a

way to spread information in a format never encountered before.

Photographers during the American Civil War ran into a variety of problems in

their attempts to cover the conflict. According to Anderson (2005, p. 28)

“Southern photographers quickly ran short of photographic materials, none of

which were produced in the confederacy”. This predicament highlighted the

issues with the medium, particularly in its infancy when equipment was

expensive, resources scarce and the production of the images themselves

generally expensive. The invention of the Kodak ‘Box Brownie’ camera in 1900

was a significant development that effectively democratised the tools of

production (Anderson 2008) by diminishing barriers to photography and

making it cheaper and more accessible for the whole population. According to

Kodak (2014):

It sold for $1 and used film that sold for 15 cents a roll. For the first time, the hobby of

photography was within the financial reach of virtually everyone.

The wealth of photographs that exist from the First World War is a testament to

the ease of access created by Kodak upon releasing the Box Brownie. In an age

5 A stereoscope allows the viewer to look at two separate images simultaneously, giving the appearance of a three dimensional object.

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where there were simply too few professional photographers to cover every

aspect of the conflict, Anderson (2005, p. 90) notes:

Tens of thousands of soldiers, at least in the western theatre, took their own cameras on to

the battlefield…In Britain publications like the Illustrated War News, the Daily Mirror, the

Sphere, and War Illustrated urged soldiers to send in their pictures, and offered prizes for

the best shots in a variety of categories.

Improvements in technology often lead to an increase in user accessibility. The

invention of the Leica A in 1925 for example far surpassed any previously mass

produced camera, as it was both portable and produced images of a high quality.

The smaller size of this camera allowed the photographer to get far closer to the

action. It was the Hungarian photojournalist Robert Capa6 who said, “if your

shots are no good then you aren’t close enough”. While these improvements in

technology vastly increased the ability for individuals to record and capture

content, the creators of such content still lacked the power to publish their own

material. The images submitted to major news publications still went through a

closed editorial pipeline before they were published and disseminated to the

public. While the means of creating and recording content became more

democratised, the means of publishing this content still remained highly

concentrated.

Section 2: The ‘Modern’ Conflict Journalist

World War Two, Vietnam and Beyond

True to form, the developing technologies throughout the early part of the

twentieth century played a vital role in shaping the media that became the main

6 Capa is famed for his image titled “The Falling Soldier”, which depicts a Loyalist Militiaman at the moment of death during the Spanish Civil War of 1936.

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source of information dissemination. While the medium of print and the static

image of photography was the main form throughout the period of the First

World War, by the middle of the twentieth century this format had changed

(Anderson 2005). McEwen and Fisken (2012, p. 3) note:

With the development of radio and film after 1918, the prominence of print journalism in

the dissemination of information diminished in the Second World War. The distribution of

new by various media was a potent force in shaping national morale.

The rise of the radio as a medium throughout the golden age of the 1930’s and

1940’s marked the real beginning of broadcast media, a tool that challenged

existing communication paradigms but this “was not immediately obvious at the

time” (Chapman & Kinsey 2009, p. 9). It is the challenging of existing forms of

media that marks the beginning of a paradigm shift7 in the media landscape.

Hadlow (2014, p. 78) discusses how the introduction of the moving image led the

Australian Army to create training and documentary films described as forms of

“visual education” that would be shown in cinemas throughout the country.

Keeping in mind that these cinematic documentaries were produced by the

Australian Imperial Force (Hadlow 2014), it is fair to assume that a reasonable

amount of bias would underpin the content contained within them.

The Vietnam War provided another challenge, not only to the medium through

which content was disseminated but also through the kinds of journalistic

practice used to gather information (Page 1988). In his book Page After Page,

Tim Page (1988, p. 8) states that “it [Vietnam] was a war covered by civilians

rather than civilians in uniform enlisted to distort the news”. Drawing on the

experiences of Page and other journalists who reported on the war, it is clear

that the coverage of Vietnam had a different dynamic not previously seen in

conflict journalism. According to Landers (2004, p. 74) the weekly publication

schedule of newsmagazines “enabled correspondents to search for combat,

travel to the scene, interview participants, and return to write dramatic

descriptions of the battlefield”. The ability for journalists to travel without

restriction and freely search for battles and engagements was a major shift from

7 The concept of a paradigm shift will be discussed in greater depth in Chapter 2, Section 1.

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the parameters placed on the media, particularly in Britain, during the Second

World War. In the previous context, the British press was reported as being

frustrated by the lack of information disseminated by the Ministry of

Information, a government body designed to “prevent panics, allay

apprehensions, remove misconception and generally keep up public moral”

(McEwen & Fisken 2012, p. 4). The results of allowing journalists such freedom

can be seen in the powerful images and footage that was collected when

journalists were able to report from the frontline and immerse themselves in the

midst of the action.

24 Hours of Horror in the Gulf

During the first Gulf War between 1990 and 1991, United States broadcaster

CNN began transmitting footage for twenty-four hours a day. For the first time, a

news organisation was providing a continuous stream of content, running

uninterrupted newscasts. According to Zelizer (1992, p. 71):

CNN possessed the ability to present, transmit, arid distribute news 24 hours a day,

making it the sole news organization capable of “keeping up” with satellite-fed

communication.

Satellite communications vastly improved the time taken to relay video footage

from one place to another, so long as a satellite was in range of the both the

sender and the receiver (Beakley 1980). Live streaming of content from the

battlefield was now possible. In some respects, satellite communication was the

electric telegraph of the twentieth century in terms of the improvement to

communication speed. A combination of this new technology coupled with the

foresight of CNN’s newsgathering team allowed the world to watch the beginning

of a war in real time (Gutstadt 1993).

The 24-hour news coverage of the Gulf War is not without criticisms. Payson

(1991, p. 40) argues that despite the constant stream of coverage, the Gulf War

was in reality, a highly sanitised affair and even the “near-instantaneous media

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coverage… has done little to expand the breadth of media coverage”. This lack of

breadth is partly due to the desire for the United States to avoid the kind of

publicity that gained notoriety during Vietnam (Sloyan 1992). By devising a war

where “no one dies; where no one is killed; where there are no bodies; where

there is no blood” (Sloyan 1992, p. 650) the United States was able to keep public

opinion on their side. Payson (1991) describes a particular news report in which

the anchorman describes the current situation as quiet, with only one Scud

missile landing on Tel Aviv. According to Payson (1991 p. 40), this fabricated

reality could not have been further from the truth as:

US-led forces dramatically increased their bombing raids over Kuwait and Iraq, launching

some 2,000 missions in 24 hours. The bombing nearly equalled the total number of sorties

launched by Allied forces over Dresden, Germany, in 1945.

Despite having the capability to cover the war for twenty-four hours a day, the

quality of content produced suffered, due in part to the restrictions placed upon

how close the press were allowed to be to the frontlines. “Despite around the

clock media coverage, it [content] still lacked substance and came entirely from

the perspective of the military that controlled both the content and the context”

(Hutchinson 2008, p. 36). This control included placing the media in “press

pools” (Mould 2006, p. 136), a system through which all controlled information

travelled to the networks. These press pools resulted in networks broadcasting

the same content with a completely one-sided view of the war. DeGhett (2014)

argues that the Gulf War contained a particular aesthetic not dissimilar to that of

a video game, particularly as the conflict appears to be made more humane

through discourse surrounding precision bombing and visuals showing the scene

through the lens of night vision goggles.

The Embedded Journalist

Just as Henry Crabb Robinson reported on conflict during the Napoleonic wars

through the use of the dispatch, correspondents have covered war through a

variety of mediums for generations. According to Casey (2014) the war

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correspondent is society’s window onto the battlefield. While this view is at odds

with the paradigm shift8 currently taking place in the media landscape, it does

perhaps help us to understand the reasoning behind the introduction of the

embedded journalist. Journalists have in some respects always been embedded

within military units. Even William Howard Russell who is regarded by many as

the father of war reporting, was by no means separated from the soldiers as he

revealed the awful conditions suffered by British soldiers in Crimea in 1854

(Greenslade 2013).

According to Mosdell (2008) the 2003 Iraq War transformed the scale and

manner of media operations on the battlefield. Mosdell (2008) also notes that of

the thousands of journalists present during the Iraq conflict between 600 and

700 of these were embedded with coalition troops9. The phrase ‘embedded

journalist’ became something of a sound bite during the Iraq War, as news

networks jostled to be competitive in a global news market. As discussed

previously, CNN was the only 24-hour news channel to cover the first Gulf War,

however, by 2003 there were a myriad of international players involved in

covering the conflict.

It was not long, however, before the process of embedding was called into

question. Cockburn (2010) frames this elegantly when arguing that:

The embedded journalist is a grisly throwback to First World War-style reporting, when

appalling butchery in the trenches was presented as a series of judiciously planned

advances by British generals.

Ignatius (2010) expands on this opinion by observing that the process of

embedding comes at a price, as the information broadcast to the public is from

one perspective only and does not provide a holistic view of the situation. By

adopting the perspective of the soldiers amongst whom the journalist is

8 More on this in Chapter 2, Section 1.9 There were only a very small number of journalists embedded with the insurgent forces. One such crew was from the international news network Reuters. Wikileaks has released footage of US airstrikes killing two of Reuters’ embedded journalists in 2007, as they targeted suspected insurgents that the group was covering.

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embedded, the camera effectively inserts the audience within in this same point

of view. On the surface the process of embedding with troops allows a greater

media coverage of the events taking place. Cockburn (2010) argues that the most

damaging effect of embedding is that the process effectively softens the brutality

of any military occupation. Through the censorship and bias inherent to the

process of legacy media, any hostile response to such an occupation is

underplayed (Cockburn 2010). The main weakness of the embedded journalist

stems directly from its implied strength. The ability to view war from the

soldier’s perspective, an inherent quality given that journalists are placed in the

midst of such units, effectively gives journalists a one-sided bias to what they are

reporting. Embedding journalists with troops means that the ability of that

journalist to report on both sides of the conflict objectively is greatly diminished,

simply because they are viewing the conflict from a single perspective.

Broadcasters, no matter if it is CNN, BBC, or VICE News, all face this same

problem.

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Section 3: A Comparison between Two Modern Examples

VICE News

VICE News is a shining example of an outlet struggling to adapt to the new media

paradigm. VICE was created in 1994 as a Canadian magazine known as Voice of

Montreal (Griffith 2014). The media outlet in its current form has a presence

worldwide through online, print and television mediums. While there is no doubt

that VICE has a sure footing on the global media stage, there are a host of

examples that show why VICE is effectively no different from the more

traditional forms of legacy media than one would initially think.

VICE is attempting to, and succeeding at, creating a visual characteristic to their

footage similar to that of the amateur journalist. A simple analysis of the footage

they upload to both YouTube and their HBO channel is exactly the kind of footage

one would see produced by amateurs filming events with a handy cam. This

aesthetic is purely intentional, given the fact the company has a net worth of

approximately $2.5 billion and could easily afford to create the polished and

edited kind of content produced by other established media networks (Steel

2014). It could be argued that this amateur aesthetic is used in order to give an

extra sense of legitimacy to the content displayed within the story. Interestingly

enough VICE co-founder Shane Smith notes that young people “are angry,

disenfranchised, and they don't like or trust mainstream media outlets” (Swaine

2014). By broadcasting their content in a format that appears to be under-

produced and amateurish, VICE successfully manages to trick their audience into

believing that they are different from the more traditional, mainstream media

outlets. By producing content with an amateur aesthetic, VICE is presenting its

viewers with a Trojan Horse of sorts, one that contains a pre-packaged and

produced story that is no different from other mainstream media sources.

In an interview with The Telegraph Andy Capper, the head of the British division

of VICE said:

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We see ourselves as CNN for kids who can't be bothered to watch CNN… We feel there are

things people should know about. In a way, we try to educate people by tricking them into

being interested in stuff. 'Look - trainers!', and then you find the piece is about Liberia or

Sierra Leone” (Horan 2006).

He is not the only member of VICE to parallel the company with other

mainstream media firms. Co-founder Shane Smith is quoted as saying that VICE

is on a “relentless quest for total media domination” (Deans 2014). However, by

achieving “total media domination” as Shane Smith so desires, VICE is effectively

becoming its own worst enemy.

Even the production process of the content published by VICE remains the same.

While the footage may look somewhat amateur or under-produced, the viewer is

still only seeing what the editors want them to see. The whole editorial process

behind the creation of the story is hidden from the viewer10. While VICE may

appear to be a cutting edge news outlet that utilises all the tools of the new

paradigm, that is as far as the story goes. The reality is that VICE is no different

from other legacy media networks in that the method of production remains the

same, albeit with a style that attracts the attention of the younger generation

(Wilkinson 2008).

AnnaNews

The other end of the media spectrum is populated by the likes of networks such

as AnnaNews1112, a Russian-based news network that exists purely online

through their own website and through the immense number of videos uploaded

to video hosting sites such as YouTube and LiveLeak. Anna is an acronym for

Abkhazian Network News Agency. Abkhazia is a semi-autonomous region

bordering Georgia that is considered as such by neighbouring Russia, however,

tensions between Abkhazia and Georgia have been ongoing since 1991

(Palmowski 2014).

10 This process will be discussed in greater depth in Chapter 2, Section 1.11AnnaNews homepage, current as of 8 October 2014: <http://www.anna-news.info/>.12 AnnaNews YouTube channel, current as of 8 October 2014: <https://www.youtube.com/user/newsanna1945>.

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The network’s tagline is “Truth Explaining Facts, Facts Supporting Truth”

(AnnaNews 2014). In order to support this, AnnaNews (2014) uses video hosting

sites to upload hundreds of hours of raw footage, shot from a variety of locations

including Syria, Libya and Ukraine. This is not to say the channel does not have

its critics, particularly as an article in The Moscow Times labelled the channel as

having “a forceful pro-Assad slant” (Nechepurenko 2013). On the other hand,

Marat Musin, founder of AnnaNews, claims that the channel aims to “counter the

advanced information technologies that are used by Al-Qaeda to make

insurgents in the Middle East look like freedom fighters” (Nechepurenko 2013)13.

In some cases, the very sites through which AnnaNews post their footage work

against them. One such example is in the deletion of the network’s YouTube

channel by YouTube after AnnaNews uploaded a video showing graphic footage

of civilian casualties in Ukraine14. In a blog post on LiveLeak, the administrative

user LaGrandeBouffe (2014) describes this as “another shameful zioncon war

against ‘non-aligned’ journalism.” However, in proving the survivability of the

medium itself, AnnaNews immediately created another channel on YouTube and

began uploading fresh content. The channel is still running, however, as they

have no control over YouTube’s actions of censorship, the question really

remains for how long.

While the likes of VICE News use an amateur production aesthetic as a way to

appeal to a certain audience, the reason for this amateur look of the content

produced by AnnaNews is simply for the reason that the footage is actually shot

by amateurs. Sticking GoPro’s on tanks and recording hours of footage is not

uncommon, neither is sending a reporter straight into the middle of a fire-fight in

order to capture video of the conflict. A key argument throughout this thesis is

that the real value of the footage shot by organisations such as AnnaNews is that

it provides no story. There is no supposed truth that the viewer is told whilst

13 This concept described as “Netwar” will be discussed throughout the thesis, however particular attention should be paid to Chapter 3, Section 1.14 Interestingly, a VICE News YouTube video also reporting from Ukraine shows graphic imagery of dead soldiers in a morgue, displaying them with a variety of injuries including loss of limbs and grievous bullet wounds. Even under YouTube’s graphic content conditions, this footage has not been removed.

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watching the video; the truth is left up to the viewer to ascertain through the act

of watching an accumulative amount of footage.

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Chapter 2 – The Here and Now

Section 1: The Birth of a New Paradigm

A World in Crisis

On 19 August 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) released a video

showing the execution of North American journalist James Wright Foley. Barely

two weeks later, another video was made public by ISIS, reportedly showing the

execution of another North American journalist named Steven Sotloff. Both of

these events have received high levels of publicity through a variety of

traditional and social media channels. The fact that the event received so much

publicity is not surprising, considering that a white, well-educated citizen of the

United States had been executed in a Middle Eastern hotspot. What is surprising,

however, is the response from numerous channels in the hours and days

following the event.

In less than twenty-four hours a thread titled ‘Possibly a fake? ISIS beheading

American journalist Foley (video)’ (Tacoram 2014) appeared on the popular

news/blogging/forum site Reddit (See Fig. 1). As the thread name suggests, the

user is calling into question the authenticity of the video released by ISIS,

speculating that the killing may be staged due to the lack of blood visible in the

initial scene.15 The thread contained 263 comments as of 14.08pm, 17 September

2014 and these comments include a wide range of input from various users. By

looking at the variety of input in the thread it is possible to decide for oneself the

correct story based on the evidence and opinions presented. The collective

aggregate of information surrounding the event now becomes a source of debate.

15 The video contains two sections. The first consists of Foley’s last words, coupled with the initial stages of his beheading, in which a militant appears to saw at his neck with a knife in an attempt to decapitate the prisoner. After he has completed 7 cuts with the knife the video then fades to another scene showing a deceased body lying on the ground with the head sitting on its back.

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Figure 1: A screenshot of the discussion thread on Reddit

Contrast this with a headline from The Times (UK) on 25 August, six days after

the execution of James Foley. Titled ‘Foley video with Briton was staged, experts

say’, the article quotes forensic scientists in an attempt to convince the reader

that the truth is being reported and that the video was staged, as shown in the

quote below:

“I think it has been staged," said one expert in visual forensics, after he was commissioned

by The Times to examine the footage. "My feeling is that the execution may have happened

after the camera was stopped" (Haynes 2014).

Compare this with the community of contributors on Reddit and the viewer

comes face-to-face with a set of questions that old methods of information

dissemination cannot possibly answer. As this example shows, there is a clash

between two conceptually different ways of organising information. Discussion

now happens almost instantaneously rather than days or weeks later, as would

be the case in the legacy media format16. Arguably, this is a new paradigm, one in

which end-users can take the raw information and create their own narratives,

drawing on the aggregated content and taking part in the never-ending exchange

of information. The legacy media model, one that relies purely on the one-way

path from production to consumption is poorly equipped to deal with a new,

16 This almost instantaneous feedback is covered in greater depth in Chapter 3, Section 1.

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more fluid model that largely owes its success to the cognitive surplus17 of users

who are constantly aggregating and curating data (Shirky 2010).

In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn (1996)

introduces the idea of a ‘crisis’. Kuhn (1996, p. 91) describes it as “the

proliferation of competing articulations, the willingness to try anything, the

expression of explicit discontent, the recourse to philosophy and to debate over

fundamentals”. It is this crisis that marks the beginning of a paradigm shift.

According to Danesi (2009, p. 225) a paradigm is a “set of assumptions,

principles, or practices that are characteristic of a science or philosophical

system”. Arguably, media is currently in a state of paradigmatic transition. This

transition is occurring as users begin to migrate from old forms of media

consumption such as watching television, reading the newspaper and listening to

the radio, to a more participatory culture.

The difference between the old and new paradigms is no more prevalent than in

the example given at the beginning of this chapter. Kuhn (1996, p. 67) notes that

“failure of existing rules is the prelude to a search for new ones”. This could not

be more appropriate when discussing the dichotomy between old and new

media formats, as legacy media does not allow for substantial user participation

or interaction. Bruns (2008) describes this lack of user participation as the

response and notes that it takes place through the publication of letters of

feedback or calls made to a news network. The search for new rules has been led

by this desire for user participation.

Media as a Product

On 10 July 2014 a disastrous headline posted by the New York Times (Akram

2014) read “Missile at Beachside Gaza Cafe Finds Patrons Poised for World Cup”.

The headline caused uproar amongst Palestinians and media critics alike, as the

phrasing made the story sound completely harmless, and not the tragedy that it

was. In reality, the rocket strike caused the death of eight people (Goodman

17 This will be discussed in more depth in Chapter 3, Section 3.

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2014). The anti-Palestinian agenda shown by the New York Times was

highlighted by Ali Abunimah, co-founder of pro-Palestinian blogging site The

Electronic Intifida on Twitter not long after the original article was posted.

Tweeting @nytimes, Ali Abunimah (2014) said “Israeli missile stops by Gaza cafe

for a drink and dialogue with its Palestinian friends”. It was this tweet that drew

attention to the article and created a “social media firestorm” (Goodman 2014).

Interestingly enough, the New York Times responded to the criticism by changing

the headline to “In Rubble of Gaza Seaside Cafe, Hunt for Victims Who Had Come

for Soccer”. Legacy media outlets have the opportunity to frame stories in their

own best interests. The addition of online platforms such as Twitter gives users

the chance to publish their own content and provides a tool to question the

validity of such manufactured stories. This feedback loop18 is an inherent

advantage of the new media paradigm as the response time is dramatically

decreased in comparison to legacy media.

Axel Bruns (2008) describes the traditional news process as having an input, an

output and a response. He calls these the “three stages of gatekeeping” (Bruns

2008, p. 4). The input includes the gathering of news by staff dedicated to the job,

namely the journalist. The output then consists of a closed system, in which an

editorial hierarchy make decisions on the actual content that is edited and

disseminated through public channels (Bruns 2008). The third stage or the

‘response’ is often feeble, consisting of only a few letters (or calls depending on

the medium) made by the audience that are published (Bruns 2008). The end

product of this traditional news process is a heavily curated product, one that

has gone through many hands before it makes it to the viewers. The New York

Times article is a prime example of this. What the news outlet has published is a

packaged product, framed in such a way that it portrays the event as less serious.

It is clear that the old system contains a series of failures in regards to

information access, clarity, and user participation. As described by Kuhn (1996,

p. 67) “failure of existing rules is the prelude to a search for new ones”. In the

eyes of the new paradigm, the existing rules of legacy media contain an extensive

18 Feedback (or OODA) loops will be discussed in further detail in Chapter 3, Section 1.

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list of failures. In fairness to the existing legacy paradigm, these failures have

only become visible when there is a viable alternative that highlights the

ineffectiveness of certain parts of the system. The first stage of gatekeeping as

described by Bruns (2008), for example, fails to include the voice of anyone else

bar the minority of journalists. There are undoubtedly a myriad of other news

stories not being reported, simply because in the past, journalists could not be

available to report on every news story.

The new paradigm aims to rectify this failure by allowing the user to both create

and share their individual content, and the content of others. The second stage or

the output contains one of the most serious failures of the old media landscape

(Bruns 2008). It is the closed editorial hierarchy that has all the power when it

comes to deciding what is and is not published. As evidenced by the Gaza missile

example above, this enclosed system has the power to frame an issue in a

particular light. It is this lack of transparency within the legacy media paradigm

that creates the most cause for concern, as what is broadcast and published is

consumed with an implication of truth. The consumer of this pre-packaged story

is not able to decide the truth for themselves, as they only have access to a small

segment of the information originally collected.

The Decline of Industrial Media

The term ‘industrial media’ aptly refers to this existing process of media

production and dissemination, in which there is a media producer (the news

network) and a media consumer (anyone listening to the radio, watching the

news or reading the newspaper). Envisage an assembly line, in which the raw

information undergoes a long and involved process that moulds and shapes it

into a story. This story is the finished product, presented to the public as the

truth, when in reality it has been commodified and packaged on a news assembly

line.

According to the official website of Fairfax (2014) the company owns some of

Australia’s largest news publications, including the Age, Australian Financial

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Review, Sydney Morning Herald and Canberra Times. Meanwhile, according to

Flew and Goldsmith (2013) “News Corp Australia titles account for 59% of the

sales of all daily newspapers, with sales of 17.3 million papers a week, making it

Australia's most influential newspaper publisher by a considerable margin”.

Companies such as News Corporation and Fairfax Media exemplify the industrial

process, as they control a number of media outlets that all report the same story,

albeit with a different author.

An example of the decline of the industrial process occurred 23 May 2014 which

marked the end of a series of programs on Channel Ten, including Wake Up, and

both the early morning and late news broadcasts. These cutbacks are estimated

to bring about the loss of nearly two hundred jobs from across the network (ABC

2014). Channel Ten is not the only news source that has been hit hard due to the

universality of these trends. Snyder (2014) notes the decline in ratings for three

of the United States largest media outlets including CNN, MSNBC and Fox News.

According to Snyder (2014), “more Americans than ever are loosing faith in the

establishment-controlled media and are seeking out alternative sources of

information”.

Similarly, data collected by Pew Research (2014) reaffirms this point and gives

an in-depth analysis of the current state of the media landscape in the United

States. While the research is restricted to news sources within the United States

alone, it nonetheless provides an insight into the trends of one of the biggest

media consumers in the world. According to Pew (2014), the prime time

audience for the three major news channels (CNN, Fox News and MSNBC)

dropped 11% to three million in 2013. However, this is not the biggest decline.

According to Snyder (2014) the drop in ratings for CNN and MSNBC, for the

demographic of 25-54 years of age has dropped by a staggering 59 and 52

percent respectively, demonstrating that the younger generation is looking

elsewhere for such information.

The potential causes for this major decline in viewership can be found in a

partner piece of research also conducted by Pew in 2013. The study entitled

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“News Uses across Social Media Platforms” highlights the current trends in the

way that news is accessed by adults in the United States (Pew 2013). According

to the study, Reddit, Twitter and Facebook top the list for social networking

news sources (Pew 2013). Furthermore, the study shows that 30 percent of all

adults in the United States get news from Facebook (Pew 2013). What the study

does not show is whether the users get their information primarily from

Facebook itself, or if it is simply a gateway that allows them to access other

online news sources through updates in their newsfeed from already established

publishers that already have a strong online presence. Only further research will

be able to discern whether or not this is actually the case, however, no matter the

outcome it is clear that there is a strong paradigmatic shift at work, with users

finding different, more suitable ways to gain their news.

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Section 2: The Industrial Counter-Revolution

The Age of Participation

On 29 July 2014 I partook in a piece of citizen journalism, covering a conflict from

the other side of the world. The end of July marked a dramatic increase in

tensions between Israel and Palestine, culminating in an Israeli invasion

alongside consistent airstrikes. Using a program called TweetDeck, I was able to

consistently track a variety of trending hashtags that were being used by both

‘viewers’ of the conflict, as well as those who were actually inside Gaza at the

time. TweetDeck (2014) is a program that allows the user to:

Create searches to track topics, events and hashtags. Refine the results with filters,

organize and build custom timelines, keep track of lists, searches, activity and more—all in

one interface.

It is the perfect tool for keeping a track of the content being posted in real time,

allowing for almost instantaneous interaction with content (Fig. 2).

Figure 2: TweetDeck, a platform used to track multiple hashtags simultaneously

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The hashtags I tracked were ones that I had seen being used over the previous

few days by mostly pro-Palestinian sources, as I wanted to get information that

attempted to tell a side of the story not covered by industrial media. These

included #Gaza, #GazaUnderAttack, #GazaUnderFire and #SkyBreaking.

Following these hashtags revealed a wealth of information, with both outsiders

posting their thoughts on the conflict, as well as actual reports from people

within the warzone.

One tweet that I found particularly interesting drew attention to a live stream of

the conflict that was being hosted on a Palestinian website. After looking into it,

the stream was overcrowded and did not load, so I went in search of others.

Eventually I found one hosted on a site called UStream (2014), (Fig. 3) a site that

claims to be “the easiest and most powerful way to stream live video”. The

streamer was a man named Jehad Saftawi, a local university student studying

journalism. The stream was of reasonable quality. From what I gathered there

were many people viewing (as evidenced by the number of interactions shown in

Fig. 3) on other social media sites (7.3K Facebook, 14.5K Twitter), and there was

a constant feed of comments displayed to the right of the video.

Figure 3: The live stream provided by Jehad Saftawi

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The stream was simple. It could be easily achieved with equipment costing no

more than a few hundred US dollars ( including webcam, computer and internet

connection) and it broadcast raw, unedited footage of the bombing of Gaza. The

footage did not go back to a newsroom to be cut and edited, instead that job was

left to the users watching the feed.

It was evident that many users did edit the content. At approximately 5.30am

Gaza time a series of explosions could be seen well into the distance on the

webcam Saftawi had covering the attacks. In the background it was possible to

hear his voice, noting in a mixture of English and Arabic that they had just hit

Gaza’s Seaport. Minutes later, posts using the hashtag #gazaseaport and

derivations thereof, were popping up claiming the seaport had been attacked. I

was one of these voices. After taking a screenshot of the video footage posted by

Saftawi I put up a series of tweets (Fig. 4) commenting on the fact that Gaza

Seaport had just been bombed. I had got my information solely from the live

video stream, and by curating the information I essentially took on the role of the

editors within the industrial news organisations mentioned earlier. My tweets

received two retweets and served to add to the wealth of information that was

gradually appearing as to the events of the previous night.

Figure 4: One of the tweets posted by the author

As the morning progressed to about 6.30am Gaza time, other residents of the

area also posted their images and gradually, after following the conversation

surrounding some key hashtags, it was possible to gain an accurate picture of the

night’s events. According to Bruns (2008):

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Citizen journalism provides news-as-process: a continuing and necessarily unfinished

coverage of topics and events inviting user participation, aiming to achieve what can be

described as ‘deliberative journalism’.

It is this continuing and unfinished process that gradually created a picture of the

events of the night. We are now entering an age where it possible for almost

anyone to report, not only on conflict, but on topics that interest them.

Technological advancement combined with the networking power of the

Internet has democratised the tools of production to such an extent that it is

possible for the everyday user to create content that would have once been left

in the realm of those with sufficient funds or authority to do so (Anderson 2008).

Online Censorship

As previously discussed, on 19 August 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

(ISIS) released a video reportedly19 showing the execution of North American

journalist James Wright Foley. The original video was posted to a variety of video

hosting sites including YouTube and LiveLeak. However, it was not long before

the video started to be removed by the various hosting sites through which it

was posted and shared. In a statement on their website, LiveLeak (2014a) said:

We cannot find any compelling reason to even be thought of as promoting the actions of

this group. We know they do not find support here on LL and that condemnation is

virtually universal but there is no reason at all to show more beheadings.

While the beheading of Foley and the other hostages since is a terrible event, it is

the aftermath of the executions that is particularly interesting from a media

perspective. LiveLeak and YouTube were not the only sites that took offence to

the execution videos. On 20 August, CEO of Twitter, Dick Costolo (2014) posted a

tweet saying, “We have been and are actively suspending accounts as we

discover them related to this graphic imagery. Thank you”. This was a historic

move. In an article posted in the Guardian Emily Bell (2014) notes:

19 As mentioned in Chapter 2, Section 1, there is speculation surrounding the authenticity of the execution videos.

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For the first time, Twitter acknowledged it was a platform that exercises editorial

judgment. It was not controversial somehow for news organisations to censor the images.

Yet the debate raged for days about whether executives in software companies could

decide what we see.

This example of Twitter and other sites regulating the content shown is

essentially a step backwards, to the industrial model discussed at the beginning

of this chapter. By deleting the tweets and suspending the accounts of those who

posted the graphic content, Twitter was adhering to the output stage of

gatekeeping proposed by Bruns (2008). By deleting the posts containing the

graphic imagery Twitter was assuming an editorial role20.

It is not just the deletion of posts that is cause for concern in regards to the

content we see on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. The issue of

algorithmic filtering is increasingly becoming a hot topic as users debate both the

advantages and disadvantages to this method of content curation. Eli Pariser

(2011, p. 9) calls this the “filter bubble”, and says these bubbles “are prediction

engines, constantly creating and refining a theory of who you are and what you’ll

do and want next. Together, these engines create a unique universe of

information for each of us”. Engin Bozdag (2013, p. 211) states that:

When the user interacts with the system by consuming a set of information, the system

registers this user interaction history. Later, on the basis of this interaction history,

certain information is filtered out.

While this process is designed to find user relevant content, it is this very design

that is also its fatal flaw. The beauty of Twitter in particular comes from the

ability of the user’s network to discover topics that interest them. When Twitter

CFO, Anthony Noto, announced that Twitter was going to implement changes

from the reverse chronological order of tweets to a more algorithm-based

system (Koh 2014; Tufekci 2014a), Zeynep Tufekci (2014b), a prominent

20 In an interesting side note, Twitter did not delete the tweets of major news organisations who had posted images or footage surrounding Foley’s death. The New York Post & the New York Daily News did not have their tweets removed (Holmes 2014).

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contributor to medium.com and assistant professor at the University of North

Carolina tweeted “I'm not on Twitter just so people see my tweets but b/c my

network finds me stuff. Fascinating stuff. From people the algorithm will ignore”.

It is the networked human intelligence that powers Twitter (Tufekci 2014b) that

is one of the reasons it is such a powerful tool in terms of information

dissemination. It is the users that have the ability to decide what content will rise

and which will fall.

The Google Doctrine

If the execution of James Foley made at least one thing clear, it is that the

Internet is a tool that allows many sides to have a voice. Due to the ubiquitous

nature of the Internet, it is easily accessible by all sectors of the community. It is

common to hear this as an upside, that so many people have access to this new

tool of communication and organisation. However, as Evgeny Morozov (2011, p.

7) notes, the fact that “Al-Qaeda seemed to be as proficient in using the Internet

as its Western opponents did not chime well with a view that treated technology

as democracy’s best friend”. Arquilla and Ronfeldt (1996) discuss this idea at

depth in a variety of publications, including The Advent of Netwar. Terrorist

groups such as Al-Qaeda and others are using the information revolution to their

advantage and using the power of the online network in a way “that may have

overarching effects on society and security” (Arquilla & Ronfeldt 1996, p. 2). It is

these overarching effects that Morozov believes to be ignored by western media.

In his book The Net Delusion, Morozov (2011) introduces the concept of what he

calls the ‘Google Doctrine’. Morozov (2011, p. xiii) defines the ‘Google Doctrine’

as the “enthusiastic belief in the liberating power of technology accompanied by

the irresistible urge to enlist Silicon Valley start-ups in the global fight for

freedom”.

Subsequently, the Google Doctrine applies directly to the actions of social media

sites that removed the content depicting the murder of James Foley, as their

actions exemplify the desire for technology to aid the global fight for freedom

described by Morozov, not inhibit it. An article posted by the New York Times

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shows the bodies of three dead children, all under the age of eight and killed by

an Israeli attack on Gaza on 17 July 2014 (Mackey 2014) (Fig. 5).

Figure 5: The top news story from the New York Times, depicting three dead

Palestinian children in Israeli attacks

James Ball (2014) of the Guardian observes that:

Photos of groups of civilian men massacred by Isis across Iraq and Syria – widely shared

on social media and used by publications across the world – caused no outcry whatsoever.

This raises some serious questions about the legitimacy of certain hosting sites,

particularly Twitter and LiveLeak. For LiveLeak to refuse to host anymore of the

combat footage videos is a particularly worrying step, as they pride themselves

on hosting graphic content that is unavailable elsewhere. A simple Internet

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search for the site leaves the viewer with no doubt of the kind of content

available if they choose to proceed (Fig. 6).

Figure 6: The preview for LiveLeak as viewed on Google

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Section 3: The ‘Long Tail’ of Conflict Journalism

Introducing the Long Tail

The idea of the ‘long tail’ was first introduced into the wider public

consciousness21 in October 2004, through an article in popular technology and

culture magazine Wired. The long tail is an example of a powerlaw that “isn’t

cruelly cut off by bottlenecks in distribution such as limited shelf space and

available channels” (Anderson 2008, p. 126). A Dictionary of Media and

Communication (Chandler & Munday 2011) defines a powerlaw distribution as “a

mathematical relationship between the frequency and size of an event, where the

frequency increase is inversely proportional to its size increase”. Anderson

(2008) explains that it is this lack of constriction that gives the principle its

name, as a key feature of the powerlaw is that the amplitude of the curve

approaches but never reaches zero, providing us with a ‘long-tailed’ curve.

Anderson (2008, p. 132) argues that “in Long Tail markets, where the carrying

costs of inventory are low, the incentive is there to carry everything, regardless

of the volume of its sales”. It is this ability to carry more stock than what can

simply fit in a store that makes the long tail so powerful. If a book only sells two

copies every quarter when it is taking up shelf space then it is considered

unprofitable. If 10,000 books only sell 2 copies every quarter from an online site

that can carry a potentially unlimited catalogue, that is 20,000 sales that when

accumulated, has the potential to outstrip sales of the so-called bestsellers.

21 This is the most cited article ever published in Wired (Anderson 2008, p. 10).

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Figure 7: A simple illustration of the long tail (Anderson 2014)

The above graph (Fig. 7) (Anderson 2014) shows a simplified version of a

traditional powerlaw distribution. The red section represents inventory22 that is

‘mainstream’ or at least made available through older, more traditional forms of

distribution. The yellow section represents the other inventory accessible once

the bottlenecks23 of distribution have been removed. Anderson (2008, p. 6) notes

that:

The new niche market is not replacing the traditional market of hits, just sharing the stage

with it for the first time. For a century we have winnowed out all but the best-sellers to

make the most efficient use of costly shelf space, screens, channels, and attention. Now, in

a new era of networked consumers and digital everything, the economics of such

distribution are changing radically as the Internet absorbs each industry it touches,

becoming store, theatre [sic], and broadcaster at a fraction of the traditional cost.

22 The term ‘inventory’ is used as this depiction can apply to anything, from media content to products that can be bought and sold. 23 An example of a bottleneck is the limited shelf space available in a physical store.

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It is the combination of potentially infinite niche markets that make up the long

tail. The Internet has provided a platform that allows niche market users to

access content, albeit through blog posts and hosting sites or Amazon’s seeming

unlimited catalogue of products that contains upwards of 270 million items24

(Amazon 2014), more than could ever be held in a physical store.

The Long Tail of Conflict Journalism

Figure 8: The long tail of conflict journalism (image by author)

The principle of the long tail does not only apply to the millions of items in the

catalogue of Amazon. Information on conflict and the means by which content is

both produced and disseminated has radically changed in the last decade. Figure

8 is a standard power law distribution graph, formatted to show how the long

tail has affected the niche market of conflict journalism. In much the same way

that the Internet allows sites such as Amazon to carry a seemingly unlimited

number of products, it also gives users access to a potentially unlimited amount

of information. The Internet provides a space in which all content can be both

stored and accessed by users at their leisure.

24 This number was gained by searching the term ‘-abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz’ under the ‘all departments’ filter on the Amazon website. As of 19 September 2014, the total results for this search term are 272,507,110. Searching for each letter of the alphabet draws together every possible search result on the site, giving an overview of the number of items stocked.

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The graph presented in Figure 8 is split into three sections that display the

distinct types of content through which information regarding conflict is

distributed. The dotted line on the left of the graph shows the content available

via industrial media sources. The reason that the ‘head’ (refer to Fig. 7) of this

graph is so slim, is due to the fact that there is so much content available

regarding war, that subsequently what is posted by industrial media sources is

the equivalent of a drop in the ocean. While key events25 may be covered both

online and through more traditional means, due to the Internet’s inherent

capacity for content production the long tail axiomatically has a higher

aggregated number of views than the head. The second dotted line marks section

two of the graph; the raw data and content sourced by aggregators. This includes

hundreds of thousands of hours’ worth of video footage uploaded by civilians

and soldiers alike26, a constant update of tweets updating multiple times per

second27, photos posted through image hosting sites28, blog posts, comments on

blog posts, comments on videos, even comments on other peoples comments.

This raw data is then pulled apart by curators who can splice together different

videos to create their own story, use data to create accurate real-time mapping of

the conflict, as well as discussing inaccuracies in official sources. This process is

called content curation29. The Gaza Seaport example described previously30 is an

example of content curation at work. By assuming an editorial role I pulled

information from the live stream, combined that with a screenshot and created

my own piece of curated content, ready for Twitter. It is this content malleability

and the capacity to publish combined with the potentially infinite “carrying

capacity” (Anderson 2008, p. 128) inherent to the Internet that gives the long tail

of conflict journalism its length. This nature of content reproduction is

25 Battles, engagements.26 Uploaded to sites such as YouTube, LiveLeak, RuTube (Video hosting site similar to YouTube, targeted at Russians), Facebook.27 A program such as TweetDeck (reference Fig. 2) can be used to track multiple tags simultaneously.28 These sites include Instagram, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter (to name a few).29 Content curation will be discussed in depth in the following chapter. See Section 3 ‘User Curated Content’. 30 See Figure 2, 3 & 4.

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reinforcing to the model itself, as each curated piece of content is essentially a

new piece in its own right31.

31 More on this in Chapter 3, Section 1.

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Chapter 3 – Network Supremacy

Section 1: Netwar/4th Generation Warfare

The Power of OODA Loops

Figure 9: An illustration providing a visual depiction of the OODA loop (Porter

2008)

As previously discussed in Chapter Two, Section Two, the execution of James

Foley sparked what can only be described as a firestorm, through both industrial

and new media channels. Online forum Reddit, was quick off the mark to host a

thread titled ‘Possibly a fake? ISIS beheading American journalist Foley (video)’

(Tacoram 2014), which called into question the authenticity of the video. This

thread was posted at 11.20pm (UTC32 time) on 19 August, the day of Foley’s

alleged death. This was just hours after the video was first made public. The first

newspapers began publishing this story, only six days later. While this example

was previously used to highlight the paradigm shift taking place in the new

media landscape, it is also a fitting example to demonstrate the concept of the

OODA (observe, orientate, decide and act) loop.

The concept of the OODA loop is “the most readily associated concept of [John]

Boyd” (Hammond 2013, p. 601), an American ex-pilot and military strategist

32 Coordinated Universal Time (Timeanddate.com 2014).

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who was active in the second half of the twentieth century. Hammond (2013, p.

601) notes:

For Boyd, the OODA Loop contained a complex interrelationship of feed forward and

feedback along with implicit guidance and control. It was an ongoing, many-sided, implicit

cross-referencing process of projection, empathy, correlation, and rejection.

It is this four-step process that is known as the OODA loop which stands for

observe, orientate, decide and act (see Fig. 9). While a major application of the

OODA principle has been within the military33, it is the concept itself that is the

most significant as it applies with equal validity to the flow of information and

content within networks. Due to the Internet’s capacity to host a two-way

feedback system through the variety of previously discussed channels (video

hosting sites, blogs, social media; anywhere a user can comment, post and create

content), the time taken to complete the OODA loop becomes noticeably shorter.

This occurs due to the potential for almost instantaneous feedback on

information shared in the network. John Robb (2011), author of blogging site

Global Guerrillas notes that “the more connected a loop is, the better the decision

loop is”. Considering that connectivity is a fundamental characteristic of the

Internet and the way it is designed, it is no surprise that the OODA loop can be

adapted to such a medium.

Osinga (2005, p. 269) takes the concept a step further by describing the OODA

loop as a series of steps that all individuals take in their everyday lives. He says:

Without OODA loops … we will find it impossible to comprehend, shape, adapt to, and in

turn be shaped by an unfolding, evolving reality that is uncertain, everchanging,

unpredictable.

The OODA loop then, is a conceptual tool enabling both easier and more efficient

adaption to a constantly changing situation. The discussion surrounding the

death of James Foley immediately thrived in the two-way information channel

system of Reddit, in which users were able to discuss, argue and debate the

33 Such as organisation and movement of troops, communication relays.

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content with which they were engaged. The existence of the thread itself is an

example of users’ posting feedback on the original video, and due to the users’

ability to act (by posting the thread) as soon as they deemed necessary, the

OODA loop regarding this particular side to the James Foley event was shortened

by six days. This example demonstrates the power of an OODA loop with a high

level of connectivity, as multiple users engaged with the content only hours after

it was first posted online. Reddit is not the only site that has proven the strengths

of such a concept. In Chapter Two, Section One, the case study surrounding the

bombing of Gaza Seaport displays the news-as-process model proposed by Bruns

(2008). This news-as-process is at its most fundamental level, an OODA loop, as

information is continually sifted and sorted by a community of users who give

provide constant feedback34 on the event that is taking place in close to real time.

Netwar and Networks

The OODA loop is not the only theoretical concept aimed at highlighting the

strengths and weaknesses of network forms of organisation. Arquilla and

Rondfeldt (2001, loc. 627), two theorists from the RAND35 corporation are

credited with developing the idea of netwar, which is “an emerging mode of

conflict and crime at societal levels, involving measures short of traditional war

in which the protagonists are likely to consist of dispersed, small groups who

communicate, coordinate, and conduct their campaigns in an internetted

manner, without a precise central command”.

It is this lack of precise central command on the ground that is mimicked by the

media paradigm we are now entering. The very nature of the Internet allows for

a series of connected nodes, each with equal power to create content. The

Internet is designed to survive and it is this survival aspect of its architecture

34 This feedback takes place in both comments on content, or through providing completely fresh content which then adds to the information surrounding such an event. 35 RAND is a “nonprofit research institution committed to exploring the most complex and consequential problems facing our society” (RAND 2014). RAND corporation has incredibly close ties to the US military. It was originally established with the aim of researching future weapons development over the long term. Interestingly, Paul Baraon, a computer engineer who first conceptualised the idea of the Internet as a distributed network, was working for RAND Corporation at the time.

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that allows content to be reproduced and shared through a variety of sources.

The video of James Foley’s execution may have been removed from sites such as

Twitter and YouTube but that did not stop the perpetrators from finding other

mediums through which to host the content. The flexibility of content means that

its online journey is much more fluid, never being limited to just one site,

particularly when users can share, download and repost at will.

Netwar takes place because the Internet does not discriminate between who is

and is not allowed to use it. Morozov (2011, p. 7) touched on this in the previous

chapter with the example of Al-Qaeda being “as proficient in using the Internet as

its Western opponents”. Arquilla and Ronfeldt (1996, p. 2) note that “terrorist

and criminal organizations are increasingly taking advantage of new information

technologies to realize the full potential of highly decentralized, networked

designs”. Considering that efficient information dissemination is vital to the

effectiveness of these small, decentralised groups, it is no wonder that the

Internet is one of their primary tools.

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Section 2: Cognitive Surplus

@WarfareStudies

Throughout July and August 2014, a Twitter user with the handle36

@WarfareStudies37 posted a series of highly detailed maps on both his Twitter

account, and Tumblr38 page. The maps (see Fig. 10) show complex troop

movements and battles with regards to the current conflict in Ukraine. The maps

vary in complexity, sometimes showing the troop movements within a small

region, and at other times showing the “global situation” (WarfareStudies

2014a).

Figure 10: Global operations, 18-24 August (WarfareStudies 2014a)

36 Username.37 <https://twitter.com/WarfareStudies>.38 Tumblr is “a free blogging site that makes it effortless not only to type in text, but to share photos, links, music and videos” (Boutin 2009).

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Figure 10 is an example of a conflict map (dated 18-24 August) created by

WarfareStudies, showing a myriad of troop movements from all parties involved

in the conflict. According to the WarfareStudies Twitter account, “I create maps

confronting [gathering] reports from different Ukrainian and pro-Russian

sources. Sometimes they are contradictory” (WarfareStudies 2014b). The

gathering of content for a map of this detail takes place through a variety of

media. “Sometimes some online social network can put you on the track.

Pics/vids are not always available or verified” (WarfareStudies 2014c). The

authenticity of information displayed on these maps has been called into

question by others as evidenced by the feedback of other users in the comments.

WarfareStudies, however, is well aware of the potential bias surrounding the

content produced. Figure 10 was a particularly hard map to create as “24 August

situation was changing quickly” (WarfareStudies 2014d) and “there was [sic] few

Ukrainian info to contrast pro-Russian reports in some places so map was more

biased there” (WarfareStudies 2014e).

The accuracy of the maps created by the user is a contentious point39, however,

the strength of Twitter as a platform for this kind of information dissemination

allows for an almost instantaneous feedback loop from other users who provide

their own input on the content. It is this continuous process of updating and

sifting, providing feedback and updating again, that gives this new way of

reporting its real power. The fundamental characteristics of the OODA loop can

be seen at work here, as the feedback between WarfareStudies and the other

users who follow the account takes place in near real-time. Users now have the

ability to provide an active critique, highlighting inaccuracies and suggesting

changes to be made.

This loop of consistent feedback and never-ending updating of content

exemplifies the news-as-process cycle as originally described by Bruns (2008) in

39 This is not to say the industrial media does not also get it wrong. A recent article posted by a variety of Fairfax media outlets including the Canberra Times and the Age in an attempt to publish an image of Abdul Numan Haider (earlier shot dead by police in Melbourne), inadvertently ran a front page with an image of an unknown man who had nothing to do with the story whatsoever (McKinnon 2014).

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Chapter 2. By compiling data from potentially hundreds of sources, users such as

WarfareStudies can now create the sophisticated kinds of maps once reserved

only for those who had access to such sensitive information. Now, when there

are a large number of individuals posting content depicting the events taking

place on and around the battlefield (often in close to real-time), it is possible for

users such as WarfareStudies to collate this information and create the map

exhibited above.

WarfareStudies is not the only blogger who curates individual pieces of

information into maps. Popular blogger Kot-Ivanov40 produced a thorough

database of information regarding the movement of troops throughout the

conflict in Ukraine from the period of 22 July through to 11 September 2014.

Each of Kot-Ivanonv’s blog posts create a considerable amount of commentary in

which readers offer corrections for his maps, based on new information from the

front. Unfortunately, Kot-Ivanov has stopped posting content, however, in a move

that demonstrates the resilience of the paradigm shift currently taking place in

the media landscape, Kot-Ivanonv’s work (see fig. 11) has been carried on by an

unknown user who appears online under the pseudonym ‘dragon_first_1’. Kot-

Ivanonv’s (2014) livejournal account actually states “kot-ivanov is gone, but his

work continues. You will find the continuation in this blog”. Not only has this

user continued creating maps of the same quality as the original blogger, they are

now translated into English, thus opening up the content to an even wider

audience.

40 <http://kot-ivanov.livejournal.com/>.

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Figure 11: An example of Kot-Ivanov’s “Map of Military Operations” translated

into English by blogger dragon_first_1 (dragon_first_1 2014)

Cognitive Surplus

Online users such as WarfareStudies and Kot-Ivanov collate this information and

create the maps in their own time using what Clay Shirky (2010) calls “cognitive

surplus”. These users are amateurs who work solely on both their own cognitive

surplus time, as well as the cognitive surplus of the network of users who have

produced and aggregated the content required to create the maps in the first

place. Cognitive surplus is a key component that underpins the whole system of

peer-produced content. In his book Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in

a Connected Age, Shirky (2010) aims to identify the ways in which we spend our

free time online and the possible benefits this may have for humanity as a whole.

Shirky (2010, p. 10) observes that “we can now treat free time as a general social

asset that can be harnessed for large, communally created projects, rather than a

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set of individual minutes to be whiled away one person at a time”. The cognitive

surplus argument put forward by Shirky supports the change in the user-

producer relationship that is taking place at an ever-increasing rate. Social media

gives users the opportunity to interact with the media they are consuming, by

giving feedback, commenting and most importantly, producing content.

Cognitive surplus is a cornerstone essential to the success of the new media

paradigm due to the fact that it relies so heavily on the input of Internet users.

The masses of content aggregated on hosting sites such as YouTube would not

exist if it were not for the cognitive surplus of the one billion active users

(YouTube 2014) that not only upload content but take part in the discussion

surrounding it. YouTube (2014) estimates that one hundred hours of footage are

uploaded to the site every minute. The ease of publication that is an inherent

part of this new media model is a key factor in the rise of cognitive surplus. It is

Shirky (2010, p. 46) who notes:

Publicity, publicize, publish, publication, publicist, publisher. They are all centred on the

act of making something public, which has historically been difficult, complex, and

expensive. And now it is none of those things.

Fundamental to the power of our combined cognitive surplus is the environment

in which this accumulated free time takes place. While the means (and ease) of

production is vital, the network that connects users together is also of vital

importance. Just as the printing rooms of Gutenberg would harbour the means of

production, they would also act as a space for the carriers of information to come

together and share their own ideas. Now, as then, this same space still exists.

Jarvis (2012, loc. 237) suggests that “the internet…is not just a means of data

exchange but of cultural exchange. It is not, in my view, a medium but instead a

connection machine”. He echoes the words of David Weinberger (2012, p. xii)

who argues that:

The smartest person in the room isn’t the person standing at the front lecturing us, and

isn’t the collective wisdom of those in the room. The smartest person in the room is the

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room itself: the network that joins the people and ideas in the room, and connects to those

outside of it.

While it easy to agree with Shirky on the majority of points, there are certain

aspects to his theory of cognitive surplus that may be less obvious. A major

downside proposed by Shirky (2010, p. 47) is that “freedom and quality are

conflicting goals”. This means that there can only ever be quality or quantity, but

not both. Though, due to the nature of the Internet and its ability to encourage

people to share their ideas and creations (recalling that social media rewards our

intrinsic desires for membership and sharing), quantity is such that quality is no

longer an issue. The work of bloggers such as WarfareStudies and Kot-Ivanov

exemplify this process, as creating such maps is done so purely off their own

cognitive surplus time. There is so much information available now, that with the

correct knowledge and research skills anyone can find quality information on a

topic they desire. Gone are the days of having available information limited by

the resources at hand, now is a time when the wealth of the world’s information

is at our fingertips.

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Section 3: User Curated Content

Lifecycle of Online Content

The development that content undergoes within the online space is a continuous,

never ending process much like that of an ecosystem. The lifecycle of online

content is a complex process that involves masses of aggregated information and

the previously mentioned cognitive surplus of an active community of citizens

who engage with such content. This engagement itself is a lifecycle, as users are

constantly processing information, adding to it and subtracting misinformation,

all the while fostering an environment in which news-as-process can thrive. This

lifecycle is a coping mechanism that helps the network itself deal with the

masses of content available at our very fingertips. Figure 12 depicts a basic

outline of the lifecycle of online content. The lifecycle has three central stages of

content interaction: the distribution (or production) phase, the aggregation

phase and the curation phase. While each of these sections plays an equally

important role in the lifecycle of online content, it is the continuous sifting of

information that makes the model unique.

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Figure 12: Lifecycle of online content (image by author)

All content, whether new or curated, begins its online lifecycle in the distribution

(or production) phase. As demonstrated by the live stream covering the Israeli

attacks on Gaza Seaport, this process can now happen in very near real-time. The

production phase then leads to aggregation. The very act of publishing content to

a site, whether it be a blog, social network site or video hosting site is essentially

an act of aggregation, as it adds to and builds on the other content already

hosted. The third and final phase is that of content curation. The curation phase

is the most complex and takes place only with the collective input of those

individuals who take the time to filter the content. The curation phase inherently

removes the ‘bad’ content from the system, even if that is not what is originally

intended by the curators themselves. As Tufekci (2014b) noted in the previous

chapter, “I'm not on Twitter just so people see my tweets but b/c my network

finds me stuff. Fascinating stuff”. Due to the structure of the lifecycle, the

network itself is almost a self-curating entity.

Figure 13 depicts this process of self-curation. The content enters the system at

the bottom and as ‘good’ content is curated and re-curated, it begins to make its

way to the top of the cylinder. ‘Other’ content will never actually be removed

from the system unless deleted by the user or an administrator, however, if not

considered worthy of curation, it will sit at the bottom of the pile. The obvious

downside to this system is that amongst the ‘other’ pile, there is undoubtedly a

wealth of content missed or ignored by the curators. It is interesting to note here

that the process of curation itself is subject to the powerlaw distribution

discussed previously in Chapter Two. Even a system such as this is unable to

overcome the ‘long tail’ created by such a wealth of information. Despite this, the

amount of content curated in the first place however, means that the quantity of

content is such, that quality no longer becomes an issue. Blogging site Reddit is

an example of the content curation depicted in Figure 13. Popular posts and

comments can be upvoted by other users, and thus appear closer to the top of

the page. Displaying the versatility of the medium, the user still has the ability to

sort the comments on the page in a variety of ways, including ‘best’ and ‘top’ (in

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which highest ranked comments are displayed first), ‘new’, ‘hot’, ‘controversial’

and ‘old’. These customisation options allow for different user experiences

depending on what they want to see.

Figure 13: The process in which content is brought to the surface (image by

author)

Aggregation

On 30 April 2011, LiveLeak (2014b) created a channel on their site marked

“Syria”. This channel appears alongside other popular categories on the site, such

as “News & Politics”, “Entertainment” and “Ukraine”. As previously stated in

Chapter 2, (see Fig. 6) LiveLeak is a site that prides itself on hosting graphic

content. The Syria channel of LiveLeak (2014b) contains upwards of 34,000

videos and has a total number of 45,347,922 channel views (Fig. 14)

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Figure 14: Syria channel statistics on LiveLeak

As of 23 September 2014, a simple search on YouTube (2014a) for “Syrian War

Footage” provides the viewer with approximately 296,000 video results, with the

videos ranging in length from less than a minute to over an hour. These videos

also contain a large number of views. While YouTube (2014a) does not display

the number of views for a particular search term, when the videos are ranked

from most-to-least viewed, the first page of search results (20 videos) has a

number of views totalling 13,614,697 (2014b) (as shown in Fig. 15)41.

41 The black circles in fig. 14 highlight the total number of video views.

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Figure 15: A screen grab from YouTube highlighting the total number of views

for the highest ranked regarding Syrian War footage

While the LiveLeak channel has substantially fewer videos than the YouTube

search, this example demonstrates the amount of aggregated content available

on only two video hosting sites. According to James (2009, p. 26) there are two

forms of content aggregation:

Link-based, of which RSS feeds – essentially an automatic syndication tool that works with

metadata tagging – are a well-known example; and those that aggregate full texts and live

within secondary Web sites.

While James (2009) is discussing aggregation in terms of industrial media, these

two forms of content aggregation apply even more so to the new media

paradigm evolving online. Twitter is an example of link based aggregation, as the

reversed chronologically ordered feed has a limit of 140 characters per post

(Twitter Development 2014). It is this character limitation that gives the site its

inherent quality as a link based feed, as there is not enough available space to

post a full story. This results in short tweets, often posting links to blogs, news

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sources, images or videos that explain the content of the original tweet in greater

detail (Fig. 16 & 17)42.

Figure 16: The link based feed

Figure 17: The final destination

The second form of content aggregation described by James (2009, p. 26) are

those that aggregate full texts and live within secondary websites. These

secondary websites include “specialized information services such as Factiva,

Bloomberg News and Nexis”. While these aggregate databases are relevant when

considering the industrial media, services such as LiveLeak and YouTube are

more contemporary examples. However, the line between what constitutes a

42 The reason for the low number of views is due to this screenshot being taken only minutes after the video and the Twitter link to the video were posted.

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secondary and primary website is not clear. Due to the user-producer format

fostered by sites such as YouTube and LiveLeak, users have the ability to upload

curated content back onto the site from which they originally garnered raw

footage in the first place.

Curation

Content aggregation and content curation are inextricably linked. The Syrian

Civil War exemplifies the aggregation to curation process that takes place when

content is posted online. Curated content is essentially, the direct result of

participatory journalism and this in turn is an example of commons-based peer

production (Deuze, Bruns & Neuberger 2007, p. 323). The role played by the

democratised tools of production (Anderson 2008) in this new media format is

reiterated by Yochai Benkler (2006) in his book The Wealth of Networks.

According to Benkler, the commons-based peer production now present in the

new media landscape has been influenced by these democratised tools. He (p.

60) notes:

Free software offers a glimpse at a more basic and radical challenge. It suggests that the

networked environment makes possible a new modality of organizing production:

radically decentralized, collaborative, and nonproprietary; based on sharing resources and

outputs among widely distributed, loosely connected individuals who cooperate with each

other without relying on either market signals or managerial commands.

This new decentralized mode of content production is the key component when

considering curated content. As exemplified by the earlier example of the

bombing of Gaza Seaport, content curators can be anyone, from central players in

the conflict, to outsiders who have an interest in the topic. These are the loosely

connected individuals of which Benkler speaks.

The power of the curation process can be seen when one looks online,

particularly to the previously mentioned sites such as YouTube and LiveLeak

that play host to a wealth of both raw combat footage, as well as masses of

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curated content. Figure 18 shows a list of videos hosted on YouTube that are

examples of curated content.

Figure 18: Examples of curated content with regards to Syrian War footage

Users can now download the raw footage directly from YouTube via the likes of

an application such as YouTube Downloader, edit the content and then upload

the curated footage back onto the same hosting site from which they sourced the

original, individual clips. In many cases, the ‘best of’ or ‘compilation’ videos look

very proficiently edited, with slick transitions between scenes, as well as a basic

storyline, albeit through the chronological ordering of events or the thematic

organisation of footage43. A particularly poignant example is a video compilation

that depicts both sides of an RPG44 raid in which rebels destroy a Syrian Army

tank (adri12345 2013). The video alternates between the Syrian and rebel

perspectives, allowing us to see both sides of the battle. The footage from the

perspective of the Syrian tank was collected through the feed of AnnaNews

mentioned earlier, however the footage from the rebels perspective originates

from an Al-Nusra associated channel.

43 Thematic organization includes examples such as a tank section, followed by a rebel footage section, followed by a section of footage covering helicopters being RPG’d for example. 44 Rocket Propelled Grenade.

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The editing together of the two scenes is like something out of an action film.

This example also demonstrates the power of the curator, bringing together two

pieces of footage posted online by a different source to tell both sides of the

story. Where possible some users reference a link to the original source of the

video via a video annotation, which itself is an example of the link-based

aggregation method discussed in the previous section. The process of curation is

a fundamental aspect of the new media paradigm. The cognitive surplus of a

whole community of users is focused not only on creating content but providing

feedback on content produced by others. Previously, content would remain static

whereas now it flows seamlessly through the network, in a constant state of

malleability. The process of curation highlights the growing disconnect between

the old and new media paradigms.

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Conclusion

Conflict journalism is a discipline that has transcended generations of different

media. From the earliest examples such as Homer’s Iliad, to more contemporary

illustrations such as the footage hosted on sites such as YouTube and LiveLeak, it

could be argued that the thirst for information regarding war and conflict has

existed since conflict itself. Despite this, never has there been such an inclusive

medium as the Internet. This new medium is one that allows all people to take

part in the greater discussion, through the very process of interacting with

content.

This ability to interact with and modify content was once reserved for the

literary elite of this world and those who had the ability to publish resided in the

monolithic organisations we like to call mainstream or ‘industrial’ media. The

means of production remained in the hands of a few select individuals. This high

concentration of media meant that all the editing of news happened behind

closed doors, in a system that would value its ability to create a product rather

than inform the public of the bare facts. By editing and moulding content within

a closed editorial hierarchy, the industrial media sells a packaged product that

has gone through a variety of hands before it reaches the audience.

Enter AnnaNews and the GoPro. By democratising the tools of production

through a product such as the GoPro, the ability to record an unlimited number

of hours of high quality footage did not rest solely with those elite news crews

who have access to such tools. Combine this with the publishing power of the

Internet, and users are left with a medium through which they can create and

access an unlimited amount of content at the click of button. This system is not

without drawbacks. Consider the execution of James Foley for example. In the

days where television was the main medium through which information could be

disseminated to a mass audience, it is highly unlikely that the footage showing

his graphic execution would be broadcast to the world.

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By giving everyone a chance to participate, the Internet effectively gives terror

organisations such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda more of a voice than ever before. The

theory of netwar is a key component that helps to conceptualise the way that

information flows in an online network with regards to conflict. Netwar is no

longer a threat, it is a reality. The use of online networking tools such as Twitter

and YouTube is a testament to this reality, as groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda

have a greater presence online than through any previous medium of

communication.

If the available medium is through a text-based format such as the newspaper,

then content will be formatted to fit this medium. If the medium changed to

television, then the formatting of content would follow suit and adapt to fit. It

could henceforth be argued that media is in lockstep with technology. The

Internet is a new technology and therefore contains a new set of parameters

through which content and information can flow. It should also be noted that

while outlets such as VICE News appear to embrace the new online platforms,

the reality is that VICE still creates a product through an editorial process that is

hidden from the end user. Just as this hidden process earmarks the legacy media

format, it is the concept of transparency that delineates new media.

In a landscape that is saturated with so much information, a completely new

skillset is required in order to manage such a problem. While it was the scarcity

of content that created value in items produced through mass media channels,

the value in the new paradigm must come from elsewhere. Due to the masses of

aggregated content accessible, the value now comes from the power of the

network in organising such content. In a never-ending display of cognitive

surplus, users, simply by engaging with content by viewing, posting or

commenting on it, are curating this mass of information for others in the

network. It is this characteristic that makes the network a self-curating entity.

These conceptual changes to the way information flows within networks means

that it is necessary for users to adapt and embrace this new modality of

production. Viewership of mainstream media outlets has declined in the United

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States but this is only the beginning. While the paradigm shift between old and

new media formats will take time, an eventual shift is inevitable.

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