The social media are an important “instrument for democracy” but we need to be aware of the risks linked to the “magma” of the web. The point was underscored by Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi as he opened the seminar on “Digital media in War Zones” organised in collaboration with the “Wired Italia” magazine.
Connecting knowledge
Terzi described the role of channels such as Facebook and Twitter in the Arab Spring movements in “connecting knowledge, helping to organise the protests and telling the rest of the world what was happening during the revolutions. At a time when the conventional media were ‘blacked out’ by censorship”. In war scenarios, moreover, the digital media tell the “small” stories that the traditional media fail to cover. The images, stories and events narrated on blogs “remain with us as indelible testimony to events that is available simply by clicking in Google”, added the minister.
Risk of abuse
But a “risk of abuse” exists, as in the case of videos from war zones recorded by micro-cameras placed on the helmets of the military personnel taking part in the mission. These can turn war into “something bland, a video game”. Participants need to act with great professionalism when conveying such events.
The social media allow information to spread at an unprecedented speed. For example, the first tweet from Haiti was posted 7 minutes after the terrible earthquake of 12 January 2010, 24 hours before the first live TV coverage, noted Terzi. He added, however, that using the web as an information source increases the risk of “unfounded news stories” published, for example, by people using false identities. The web, Terzi concluded, is a “magma of communication mixed with propaganda”. If it is to be used as a useful source, we need “journalists who are both skilled and rigorous in checking their facts and who are able to filter, analyse and contextualise events”.
Live coverage
At the seminar, also attended by students, “digital strategy” experts are discussing the question of information in geographically distant regions. Regions which are, however, perceived by many Italians as being close to us, thanks to the documents and posts written by military personnel on mission there and by aid workers, journalists and bloggers. Today’s digital media make it possible to report events “live”, along with the stories of the people directly experiencing dramatic conflicts. The seminar aims to examine the role of the new media, which, unlike the traditional mass media, provide us with totally “unintermediated” information.
