War 2.0, Propaganda 2.0 or Public Diplomacy 2.0: The Role of Internet and Mobile in Israel’s Gaza Strip Bombing

Comments 03 January 2009

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On December 27 2008, Israel launched a series of air strikes, known as Operation Cast Lead, against targets in the Gaza Strip, killing more than 400 Palestinians and injuring more than 2200 over the week (Wikipedia/ NowPublic/ Mahalo/ Global Voices/CrisisWire).

The Israel-friendly Help Us Win blog (Facebook/ Twitter) says that “the war is not only on the ground – but also in the international media” and encourages Israel’s supporters to “tell Israel’s side of the story” and “ensure that the international coverage of the Campaign Against Hamas is balanced”.

In fact, the Israel propaganda machinery is in full flow to ensure that everyone gets to hear Israel’s side of the story. The Israel Defense Force has a blog and a YouTube channel, the Israel consulate in New York held a press conference on Twitter and summarized the discussion on their Israel Politik blog, and the Likud prime ministerial candidate Benjamin Netanyahu is active on both Twitter and YouTube.

CNN quotes Israel consul of media and public affairs Davi Saragna on the Twitter press conference –

We saw that there is a big debate, a very vivid debate about the situation in Gaza, and we wanted to bring our point of view, we wanted to share it with people on Twitter. We wanted to outreach to the young generation, who does not read the conventional media, but is still interested in events in the Middle East.

The New York Times also quotes David Saragna on the Twitter press conference –

Since the definition of war has changed, the definition of public diplomacy has to change as well.

Jerusalam Post quotes Israel’s Foreign Press Branch head Maj. Avital Leibovich (via Nathan Hodge at Wired Danger Room) on the IDF YouTube channel –

The blogosphere and new media are another war zone. We have to be relevant there.

In addition to the Twitter press conference and the YouTube channel, Israeli officials have delivered multiple private briefings to bloggers around the world and several officials have started video blogs to share their point of view.

The purpose of the YouTube channel is to show that Israel’s attack is an act of self-defense. YouTube, however, was not impressed and removed four of the videos from the channel after viewers marked them as objectionable, only to reinstate them later when bloggers like Noah Pollack protested (via The Independent and Dion Nissenbaum in Checkpoint Jerusalem).

According to The Jewish Chronicle these efforts are part of a long-term initiative for the online rebranding of Israel (via Nancy Scola in TechPresident) –

Log on to the website of the Israeli consulate of New York at www.israelfm.org, and you will find… prominently displayed on the homepage… links to Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and isRealli, the “new blog of Israel”. These innovative web efforts are at the forefront of the consulate’s current hasbara (public information) campaign — whose aim is no less than to change Israel’s image.

According to Gwen Ackerman at Bloomberg, this effort is also part of a larger cross-media initiative to manage international perceptions of the Israel-Palestine conflict –

The media blitz includes interviews with Arab-language media, almost-daily international press briefings by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and even an Israeli Army channel on YouTube, the popular video- sharing Web site.

Israel’s public-relations campaign stands in marked contrast to 2006, when spokesmen scrambled to explain the bombardment of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon and Beirut. The goal this time is to keep international pressure at bay for as long as possible, allowing Israel’s military to operate without outside interference.

Jerusalem Times and and Rachel Sabi in The Guardian believe that part of the credit goes to National Information Directorate –

Established in the wake of the Winograd Report’s criticism of insufficient coordination in the media effort during the 2006 Second Lebanon War, the NID’s purpose is to synchronize the content and tone of Israel’s message across the many organizations that carry it to the world, whether official or unofficial.

Several observers, like John Cole, have also questioned the effectiveness of the IDF videos in proving anything beyond the banal fact that “the IDF is in fact blowing up buildings in Gaza.” Paul Reynolds at BBC also feels that the Israeli propaganda mechanism has only been partially successful.

There hasn’t been much sign yet of a concerted Palestinian social media response, apart from @gazanews and #gazawarofwords on Twitter, the Free Gaza Flickr channel, the Gaza Talk and Palestine Video blogs, a podcast, and a Second Life protest (via Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing).

Hamas’s own public-relations effort has been rather unsuccessful. After YouTube censored its video posts, Hamas began using an alternative video-sharing site called AqsaTube, but even that is now inactive, according to Gwen Ackerman at Bloomberg.

However, 300 Israeli websites have been reportedly hacked, as per Kelly Jackson Higgins in Dark Reading and David Byers in The Times. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has urged US muslims to speak out against Israel on social media websites.

Even the hyperactive Gaza related discussions on Twitter is strangely devoid of useful news, even though #gaza has been on the Twitter trending topics list for the whole of last week with active tweets from both sides, and observers like Jillian York are curating Twitter discussions on the conflict.

Similarly, the numerous pro-Israel (I Wonder How Quickly I Can Find 1,000,000 People Who Support Israel.., I Support Israel in the War Against Terrorism, I Support the Israel Defense Forces In Preventing Terror Attacks From Gaza) and pro-Gaza (Let’s collect 500000 signatures to support the Palestinians in Gaza, PREVENT A NEW GENOCIDE; SAVE GAZA, Sympathise with GAZA !) groups on Facebook are focused on sharing photos and videos to support one side or another, but have little unbiased discussion (also see Ethan Perlson and Benjamin Sarlin in The Daily Beast).

The same can be said of blogposts about the conflict, even though the Global Voices special coverage page is doing a great job of curating discussions on the conflict from bloggers on both sides.

Katrin Verclas at MobileActive points out that technology is being used for propaganda in the war, not for citizen journalism –

Some people are claiming that the conflict in Gaza is a “social war.” But so far, social media is used mainly for propaganda and there is a marked absence of voices from people affected by the conflict, and of useful applications of mobile and other social media.

Alan Abbey at Poynter compares the Gaza social media coverage to the social media coverage during the 11/26 Mumbai terror attack –

I’m intrigued by the contrast in Twitter/blog coverage between the current Gaza conflict and November’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai. During the Mumbai attacks, Twitter and blogs seemed more useful, in the sense of providing up-to-the-minute independent reports of specific details of specific events. This contrast suggests to me that:

1. The situation in Gaza is too technically primitive and politically controlled to permit independent, journalistic blogging.
2. The extreme politicization of the situation here has blinded bloggers and Twitterers to the value of straightforward news reporting.

Jenny Percival at The Guardian blames the sporadic blogging from Gaza itself because of the lack of electricity.

To make matters worse, Israel continuesto bar foreign journalists from entering the Gaza Strip, citing security concerns, despite a Supreme Court decision to allow a limited number of reporters to enter the territory, according to Associated Press. So, if neither third party traditional journalists nor local citizen journalists are covering the conflict, one wonders where unbiased and balanced coverage of the conflict is coming from.

Katrin Verclas points to Al Jazeera’s mobile citizen journalism website that is based on Ushahidi and Souktel’s SMS gateway and allows users to report incidences of various kinds in Gaza via SMS and Twitter –

In this latest citizen journalism effort, Al Jazeera is both mapping reports from its own journalists and incidences reported by the public. So far, there are few citizens texting in, however; the majority of the content consists of Al Jazeera news reports for now.

Mobile technology is also being used by both Israel and Hamas as a weapon. Ali Waked in Israel News and The Guardian reports that (via textually)–

Israel and Hamas have mounted psychological warfare on each others’ civilian populations. Hamas says it is firing threatening text messages at Israeli mobile phones and jamming radio stations while Israel is bombarding Palestinians with menacing phone calls and leaflets.

The IDF has used messages to warn Palestinians to evacuate areas that are about to be attacked because they are being used for terrorist purposes.

The Hamas messages say that “the Palestinian resistance missiles will reach you wherever you are and your government won’t be able to protect you”.

War 2.0, propaganda 2.0, or public democracy 2.0: how would you describe the use of social media and mobile technologies in the 2008 Gaza bombings?

Update: Darren Krape’s Gaza Public Diplomacy wiki is a great resource on the use of social media tools in the Israel-Gaza conflict and I have updated the post with many sources pointed out by him.

Here’s a great video interview with Al Jajeera’s Riyaad Minty on how new media is playing a part in the Gaza war.

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Gaurav Mishra

Gaurav Mishra - who has written 726 posts on Gauravonomics Blog on Social Media and Social Change.

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dailytwitter

great post, in depth and covers a lot of bases.

your analogy between mumbai and gaza are somewhat different and you have recognised this - my fear here is that the israeli government are just using every means at their disposable to create a palatable excuse for a land invasion. using these social media tools to create a propaganda machine to extol a perfectly rational reason to invade Gaza.

i do agree that cease fire will help matters considerably, but feel strongly that yet again we see a major political force taking hold of a social media instrument to drive their view into a populous.

just out of interest, Israel are still banning any international journalists into Gaza to report - when i last read the BBC news, so where is the independent and unbiased reporting coming from now?

dt

Gaurav Mishra

@DailyTwitter: Al Jajeera seems to be one of the most active sources of balanced news on Gaza, apart from Global Voices.

Kevin Donovan

Great post, Gaurav. Really well done.

I recall reading a while back about an NGO providing Palestinians with cameras so they could video tape abuse by Israeli settlers. Perhaps a similar effort should be undertaken - for both people in Sderot and Gaza so that they can more accurately tell their stories.

Gaurav Mishra

@Kevin: It seems that the issue here is more basic: there is little electricity in Gaza for long periods, and, I'm sure, even less consistent internet connectivity. So, mobile phones become perhaps the only reliable source of first hand, on-ground news. But, even though Al Jajeera has started a mobile citizen reporting initiative, little reporting seems to be happening so far.

Darren

Gaurav, thanks for the great post. You've done a great job summarizing a number of the social media efforts being undertaken in relation to this conflict.

I work at the U.S. State Department on social media and public diplomacy and decided to try and map out the strategies and tools being employed: http://publicdiplomacy.pbwiki.com/Gaza

I've also added a press digest at the bottom of the page. I'll keep updating this (your post being the most recent addition).

There is a good deal yet to add, but what is there may be of interest. Anyone with a PBWiki account can make edits and contributions are welcome.

Wondering

Am I the only one that sees a clear contrast here?

"The IDF has used messages to warn Palestinians to evacuate areas that are about to be attacked because they are being used for terrorist purposes.

The Hamas messages say that 'the Palestinian resistance missiles will reach you wherever you are and your government won’t be able to protect you.' "

Seems like the IDF was using the technology in this instance to prevent civilian casualties and Hamas was just threatening.

Gaurav Mishra

@Darren: It's great that the U.S. State Department has somebody working on social media and public diplomacy. Thank you for compiling the great list at the wiki.

@Wondering: Yes, that's right. Irrespective of the other rights and wrongs of the situation, it is obvious that the IDF is able to target both their messages and missiles better than Hamas is.

Gaurav Mishra

@Darren: I also realized that we have a Georgetown connection. I'm teaching a course at Georgetown in CCT this semester.

Darren

@Gaurav Goodness it is a small world! What class are you teaching at CCT?

State actually has several people working on social media and public diplomacy with a number of others using it for other purposes (recruiting is a big area and we have a strong internal social networking program, from internal blogs to an internal wiki called Diplopedia).

Gaurav Mishra

@Darren: I'm teaching a course called “Social Media in Business, Development and Government”, so this stuff is right up my ally. If you are free, it will be great to have you in the class on social media in public diplomacy. :-)