The social media are an important \u201cinstrument for democracy\u201d but we need to be aware of the risks linked to the \u201cmagma\u201d of the web. The point was underscored by Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi as he opened the seminar on \u201cDigital media in War Zones\u201d organised in collaboration with the \u201cWired Italia\u201d magazine.<\/P>
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Connecting knowledge<\/STRONG><\/P> Terzi described the role of channels such as Facebook and Twitter in the Arab Spring movements in \u201cconnecting 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 \u2018blacked out\u2019 by censorship\u201d. In war scenarios, moreover, the digital media tell the \u201csmall\u201d stories that the traditional media fail to cover. The images, stories and events narrated on blogs \u201cremain with us as indelible testimony to events that is available simply by clicking in Google\u201d, added the minister. <\/P> Risk of abuse<\/STRONG><\/P> But a \u201crisk of abuse\u201d 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 \u201csomething bland, a video game\u201d. Participants need to act with great professionalism when conveying such events.<\/P> 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 \u201cunfounded news stories\u201d published, for example, by people using false identities. The web, Terzi concluded, is a \u201cmagma of communication mixed with propaganda\u201d. If it is to be used as a useful source, we need \u201cjournalists who are both skilled and rigorous in checking their facts and who are able to filter, analyse and contextualise events\u201d. <\/P> Live coverage<\/STRONG><\/P> At the seminar, also attended by students, \u201cdigital strategy\u201d 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\u2019s digital media make it possible to report events \u201clive\u201d, 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 \u201cunintermediated\u201d information.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The social media are an important \u201cinstrument for democracy\u201d but we need to be aware of the risks linked to the \u201cmagma\u201d of the web. The point was underscored by Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi as he opened the seminar on \u201cDigital media in War Zones\u201d organised in collaboration with the \u201cWired Italia\u201d magazine. Connecting knowledge […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[31,43,6,76],"class_list":["post-17533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-approfondimenti","tag-africa","tag-diritti-umani","tag-mediterraneo-e-medio-oriente","tag-ministri-precedenti"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17533"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131836,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17533\/revisions\/131836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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