After watching a video debate (which started off talking about cyber war, then ventured into broader discussions around the use and viability of social media during a political emergency), between Ethan Zuckerman and Evgeny Morozov, it made me think of the current book I’m reading (Wars, Guns & Votes by Paul Collier). In it Collier talks about the inverse relationship between democracy in the bottom billion and democracy in the developed world. Basically, democracy is counterproductive in most countries where people live on less than $7/day.

GDP and Government Media Censorship

This raise a question to me. Has anyone done qualitative research following the same lines of thinking within the blogging and social media space? Where they contrast the social media use, and results of that use, relative to the GDP of the country where the blogging is being done.

In particular, of course, this relates to when blogging and social media is used during an emergency where politics are at play.

The reason I ask is because of the comparisons that are brought up by Ethan and Evgeny, with Honduras, Iran, Xinjiang (China), Russian and South Ossetia parading through the conversation. It’s an interesting contrast listening to the takeaways by each of them, in relation to the outcomes (some of which are still unfolding). I wound up Wolfram Alpha to take a quick look at the GDP of these countries, knowing well and good that more sound research would have to be done to do this properly.

What other factors would seem to play an overly effective part in this space? The first ones that jumps out at me are:

• GDP
• Technology penetration
• Democracy rating
• Openness of society
• Government censorship (media/internet/mobile)

I’m guessing that GDP alone isn’t enough to make an educated prediction on the impact of the use of social media in politically charged societies. It probably has as much to do with the proclivity of government media censorship within a country as well. What is the past history of the government to censor media, and which channels do they block?

If you look at China (16), Iran (16), Russia (12), Georgia (8) and Honduras (6) – as compared in the CIRI Human Rights Database of Government Media Censorship 2000-2007, this is what you find. It seems that there might be some correlation in the numbers, but deeper research would have to be done to truly determine if that is true or not.

Searching for information

I’ve just begun exploring this question, so if someone has done any work in studying this area, please let me know. If not, I’d be interested in seeing some basic research into any of the sub-categories mentioned.

I’m quite interested in finding out what determines an effective (or failed) social media campaign during a period of political unrest.

In it Clay talks about the way that patterns for technology use are being transferred from places like Africa. He uses the example of FrontlineSMS being used by civilians to monitor elections in Nigeria, and how we finally see that same type of activity in the US. It’s transfer from the developing world to the developed world.

“These tools don’t get socially interesting until they get technologically boring”

My favorite part (around 6:00):

“Members of the former audience can now also be producers and not consumers. Every time a new consumer joins this new media landscape, a new producer joins as well, because the same equipment; phones, computers, lets you consume and produce. It’s as if when you bought a book they threw the printing press in for free. It’s as if you had a phone that could turn into a radio if you pressed the right buttons. That is a HUGE change in the media landscape.”

Convening and supporting groups

One of the major points that Clay makes is that this new medium is about convening and supporting groups, not controlling them. As we build Ushahidi we challenge ourselves with this same foundational principal.

How can we build a platform that has the lowest barrier to entry? One where it’s so basic that anyone can take part. One where it can grow beyond our vision?

What can we create that will allow this convening to happen in places where it hasn’t been possible to do it digitally before?