In the past few years, the Arab world has witnessed a Web 2.0 boom. This PICNIC '09 session looks at how social media is being used in the Arab world to mobilize people around a variety of pursuits including journalism, marketing, politics, innovation and creativity.
The speakers include Donatella Della Ratta from Creative Commons, Mohamad Najem from Social Media Exchange and Moeed Ahmad from Al Jazeera Network.
Bio
Moeed Ahmad
Moeed Ahmad is based in Doha, Qatar and is the Head of New Media for the Al Jazeera network. In this role he is responsible for utilizing new media to broaden audience use, distribution and engagement with Al Jazeera content.
He was born in Pakistan and moved to Canada in his teens. He graduated from the University of Toronto in 2003.
Mohamad Najem
Mohamad Najem is cofounder, along with his wife, of Social Media Exchange, in Beirut, which trains NGOs and civil society groups in the strategic use of the Internet for social change in English and Arabic.
Donatella Della Ratta
Donatella has a background of ten year's experience in Arab media research. In 2000 she wrote her first book on Arab satellite channels, Media Oriente, followed in 2005 by a monography on Al Jazeera. She was advisor of Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona for the art exhibition Occidente desde Oriente in 2005 and she created West by the Arab media, a two day festival of screenings and debates on how Arab TV channels picture the West, launched in 2008 in Rome and to be held in 2009 in Brussels.
She has lectured on Arab media in many events held, among the others, in MIP TV Cannes Market, Brussels' EU Parliament, Linz Ars Electronica, Aula 06. She loves Arabic language and goes crazy for musalsalat, especially those dubbed in Syrian dialect. She lives somewhere between Rome and the Arab world.
Moeed Ahmad, Head of New Media for the Al Jazeera Network, discusses the importance of Twitter and other social media coverage during the Gaza War, which he calls "War 2.0."
Thank you for a thoughtful and informative report on developments in journalism and free speech wich are centered in or related to Gaza and twitter diplomacy.
That said I find room to fear one should be careful about taking for granted corrupted politicians will shy away from using violence and makin deals under the table beause of the presence of twitter journalism. Undoubtably some or perhaps even most politicians will change behavior somewhat in responce to this new development in journalism, in my experiance in short term at least journalists should value their safety above their right to free speech.
Kindest regards and best wishes
VĂ¥len