December 10th, 2008
My Interview with Indian Weekly Tehelka on the Role of Citizen Journalism in the Mumbai Terrorist Attack
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I was interviewed by Indian weekly Tehelka recently for a story on the role of citizen journalism in the Mumbai terrorist attack.
Here is the full text of the Tehelka story –
‘Twitter was the fastest and the most updated source of news’
Gaurav Mishra has been tracking citizen journalism on the web as it has evolved over the course of the Mumbai attacks. Here, he answers PARVATI SHARMA’s queries about the role of new media in disseminating information and creating nuanced analyses.
You are quoted in an interview as saying that citizen journalism “has given new voices to mainstream media and gives new options of how to collect news, how to create news and how to disseminate news.” Could you elaborate a bit on this? And what would you say was its most important contribution during the Mumbai attacks?
New media differs from traditional media because it’s distributed, because it doesn’t have any gatekeepers or editors, because anyone can go online and write a tweet or a blog post, or upload pictures or videos. This results in extremely high volume of content, which is variable in quality. However, there are two mechanisms through which good content is highlighted in new media.
The role of editors in traditional media is played by influential curators in new media, who collect the best content and highlight it. That’s the role I played during the Mumbai terror attack. The wisdom of the crowd is the second mechanism through which good content is highlighted. Posts that are Dugg or linked to by many people get more traffic, tweets that are retweeted by many people are highlighted. Even Google’s search algorithm works on the wisdom of crowds. I think that traditional media needs it own curators, influential netizens who are immersed in online communities, highlighting important content.
New media played an important role in the Mumbai terror attack. Twitter was the first and fastest updated source of news related to the terror attack. Vinu’s photographs on Flickr were some of the first photographs from the scene. Then Global Voices, DesiPundit and I, amongst others, slept sleepless nights curating new media content related to the attack. Dina Mehta, Peter Griffin and others also stayed awake coordinating the work at the MumbaiHelp blog, directing and making sense of the conversation on Twitter.
You have written in a recent post about the need to encourage and create nuanced analyses of the Mumbai attacks, and to actively discourage and delete comments that are fuelled with hatred or anger. Would you say that there is a difference in how ‘liberal’ bloggers and ‘liberal’ news media have dealt with this crisis?
I would say that the general sentiment in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attack, in both the traditional media and new media, is one of anger; anger against the government for not protecting us, and also anger against Muslims and Pakistan. I’m sure that it is only representative of the general sentiment on the ground.
Both traditional media and new media news organizations are equally driven by compulsions of viewerships. Coverage of such angry sentiments are likely to push up viewerships and, therefore, they will continue to be highlighted with only token airtime being given to messages of calm and peace.
The difference online is that there are no gatekeepers and each one of us can choose to curate our own news. So, those of us who are concerned about such divisive voices hijacking the post 11/26 discussions will work hard to highlight saner, more moderate voices. I have a feeling, however, that we will be heavily outnumbered, even online.
There is also a lot of anger online against television news (Facebook even has a ‘Get rid of Barkha Dutt’ group). Would you say that conventional media is being discredited online, or that there is emerging a competition between the two?
I’m sure that there is much anger in general against the coverage of the Mumbai terror attack by mainstream media both online and offline. However, mainstream media is unlikely to highlight such stories themselves and therefore, most of such conversations are primarily seen online.
I would say that conventional media did a reasonable job in covering the crisis, in spite of its tendency to sensationalise the news and its inability to draw the line at showing news about the movement of the security forces. In general, more information is often better than less information during a crisis and the mainstream media did provide timely and detailed coverage of the event.
There have been reports of sparring between the Indian and Pakistani press – the Pakistani press is upset by the Indian media’s supposed unwillingness to question the Indian state’s interpretation of events, its assignment of blame. Have you been tracking Pakistani blogs about the Mumbai attacks, and if yes, what kind of comments have you seen there?
The sentiment in the Pakistani blogosphere is similar. Most Pakistani bloggers are upset at the fingers being pointed at Pakistan. Some of them have expressed sympathy and solidarity with India and said that we face the same enemies, whereas others have taken a more combative position in support of Pakistan. Similar mixed sentiments are also being expressed amongst the Kashmiri bloggers. Most of them have expressed shock and sadness at the event while some have pointed out that such events are normal in Kashmir.
You’ve remarked in interviews that there is a paucity of first-hand accounts of the attacks by Mumbai bloggers; that “there’s value in reporting news, and there’s a good time to offer opinion, but I think that the 11/26 Mumbai terror attack was a time for first-hand original reporting, and the Indian blogosphere didn’t quite rise to the task”. How do you see the role and voice of citizen journalism across social media changing in the near future? What can, or should, it become?
I think that there are many roles that citizen journalism can play, some good, some bad.
In a fast unfolding and distributed crisis situation (earthquakes/hurricanes/floods/war/terrorist attacks/riots), citizen journalists have faster and deeper reach to the affected areas and can become important sources of distributed first hand news in the form of photos/videos/tweets/blog posts/text messages (see Ushahidi). [A service that allows the dissemination of crisis information through text messages]. In the aftermath of such an event citizen journalists can give us insight into what people are thinking and feeling in general. We need to realise, of course, that citizen journalists are hardly representative of the general population, especially in a country like India, with low Internet penetration.
I’m a little suspicious of citizen journalism when it moves into analysis mode. As someone who is teaching a graduate course on social media (and is a heavy user of social media himself) I’ll probably have some valid views on the role of citizen journalism in the Mumbai terror attack, so you would do well to pay attention. However, if I start talking about my views on India-Pakistan diplomacy or anti-terrorism intelligence, I’ll be totally out of my depth and you would do well to not pay attention to me. The right way to analysis is to speak to the topic experts first-hand. For instance, I’m doing an interview tomorrow with South Asia expert Ambassador Howard Schaffer and I’ll probably follow it up with more interviews. I see very few citizen journalists going that far.
Gaurav Mishra is Yahoo! Fellow in Residence at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, at Georgetown University. He blogs at www.gauravonomics.com.
