Media Reporting on Media

Project X Haren explained by traditional media

Jolanda van Grunsven Tilburg University Culture studies Supervisor: Dr. P.K. Varis

Abstract The aim of this thesis is to investigate how traditional media (talkshow De wereld draait door and newspaper NRC Handelsblad) reported on Project X Haren in September 2012. Focus is on the way they handled material coming from new media. In the first part, a theoretical background is set, focusing on the definition of new media, also taking a closer look at Facebook and Twitter in particular as that is where a lot of the stories on Project X Haren have their origins. Because the thesis deals with different forms of media it is also important to look at the existence of media ideologies. Theories on recontextualisation and entextualisation are also set out. Next part of the thesis is the analysis in which two broadcasts of DWDD and two articles from NRC Handelsblad are examined. How do they incorporate online content in their reports? In conclusion, the thesis argues that there are noticeable differences in the ways in which the two different traditional media reported on the event: in DWDD online material is placed in another context and explained, thus creating a new context in which the matter can be understood. In DWDD the process of recontextualisation and entextualisation is completed. In NRC however, there is a context in which online material is placed. The material is not explained so there is no new context that is constructed. The material is part of the context that already existed. Another remarkable outcome is that content from new media seems to be deemed as an inappropriate source when the subject becomes more serious. When that happens journalists turn to traditional media for their information. This gives us an insight on the media ideologies of the media at play: online content is light and fun and shouldn‟t be put into a serious context.

Contents 1. Introduction ...... 3

2. Theoretical background ...... 5

2.1 Old media and new media ...... 5

2.1.1 Principles of new media ...... 5

2.1.2 Properties of networked publics ...... 9

2.1.3 Twitter ...... 11

2.1.3 Facebook ...... 12

2.1.4 Media ideologies ...... 12

2.1.5 Journalists and social media ...... 13

2.1.6 Media convergence...... 13

2.2 Discourse ...... 16

2.2.1 Recontextualisation ...... 16

2.2.2 Entextualisation and intertextuality ...... 17

3. Method and data ...... 19

4. Analysis ...... 21

4.1 De wereld draait door ...... 21

4.1.1 Broadcast of the 21st of September 2012 ...... 21

4.1.1 Broadcast of the 24th of September 2012 ...... 24

4.2 NRC Handelsblad ...... 27

4.2.1 Preview...... 27

4.2.2 The aftermath ...... 29

4.3 TV vs. newspaper ...... 31

5. Conclusion ...... 32

References ...... 33

Appendix 1 ...... 34

1. Introduction Turning sixteen can be a big deal for a girl. Little did Merthe from the small Dutch town Haren know her birthday would have as many people talking as it had. As many people do, she decided to invite her friends over to celebrate her birthday by creating an event on Facebook. Initially she invited 78 of her friends, and she made the invitation public because she was fine with her friends bringing along other people and she wanted to know how many people she could expect at her party. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary until a friend of a friend invited 500 people, leading to a snowball effect. She created the event on September 6 2012, and on the 7th of September as many as 16.000 people claimed they would attend the party. Merthe deleted the Facebook event. Sadly for Merthe, anyone can create a Facebook event so a new one was created by others with the intention of throwing a big party in the small Dutch town. The Facebook event was named “Project X Haren”, corresponding with the name of a then popular movie in which a party was crashed by a lot of people who tore down the house in which it was held. Even though the growth of the number of people claiming they would attend was a lot slower than in the original event, eventually 250.000 people were invited of which roughly 30.000 claimed they would attend. Strikingly enough most of this growth took place between the 19th and the 21st of September (Project X Haren, n.d.), the 21st being the date on which the party would take place and the 19th being the day traditional media (TV, newspapers, etc.) started reporting on the event. Because the event really took flight after traditional media had reported on it, a lot of people blame them for the eventual number of people that were in Haren on the 21st. According to these critics the event would have drawn in a lot less people than it did if the traditional media had not started reporting on it. The role of the traditional media in the events of Project X Haren has already been very heavily discussed, as has the role of social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.). In one of the broadcasts of Dutch talkshow De Wereld Draait Door for example, the host questions what their own role in the escalation of the events was, but he also points his finger towards social media. What is missing in insights on this subject is a direct link between the two forms of media. It has either been traditional media or new media that has been studied, but how these two interacted with each other has never been examined. That is why in this thesis the way the

3 traditional media handled the enormous stream of stories coming from social media will be investigated. First a theoretical background will be set, focusing on the definition of new media, also taking a closer look at Facebook and Twitter in particular as that is where a lot of the stories on Project X Haren have their origins. Theories on recontextualisation and entextualisation will also be set out. These theories will provide a good perspective on the next step for this research: analyzing how different media (the TV-program De Wereld Draait Door and newspaper NRC Handelsblad) processed material that they had selected from new media.

2. Theoretical background

2.1 Old media and new media

2.1.1 Principles of new media With the ongoing technological developments comes a variety of new ways to communicate with others. These new ways of communication are also defined as new media, which automatically puts the already existing media in the category of old media. There are however forms of media that are not that easily categorised. Just think about the medium television which is definitely a technological medium, but is it a new medium? Manovich (2001) came up with a set of principles to characterise new media. By using these principles we can rule out (or not) certain types of media and thereby categorise them as old or new media. It is also possible to make assumptions regarding what these principles mean for the practice of journalism. The first characteristic of new media according to Manovich, numerical representation, is a very technical one:

1. Numerical Representation All new media objects, whether they are created from scratch on computers or converted from analog media sources, are composed of digital code; they are numerical representations. (pp. 49)

This one has nothing to do with the contents, but it concerns the form of the medium. An important consequence that comes with this characteristic is that new media is programmable. It is possible to manipulate the message conveyed. An example of manipulation often used and debated is the use of Photoshop. We can for example take a picture of an average looking girl and make her look gorgeous, or more news-related: we can edit details in and out of news photos. It is not rare that gruesome images are edited to make them more „appropriate‟ to publish. The next principle also has to do with the structure of the material:

2. Modularity This principle can be called "fractal structure of new media.” Just as a fractal has the same structure on different scales, a new media object has the same modular structure throughout. Media elements, be it images, sounds, shapes, or behaviors, are represented as collections of discrete samples (pixels, polygons, voxels, characters, scripts). (pp. 51)

This principle is a principle we can also see in old media. Books for example consist of words, that combine to sentences, that combine to chapters, that combine to a book. What is new in new media is that these steps are easily tracked down. Files that are used in another program to make a new file are still stored in their original formats. Because of that the original file can be edited without changing the outcome of the bigger, put together file. But it is also possible to use the edited version of the original file so that there will be a different outcome. The first two principles of new media show us just how makeable our world has become. In journalism this means that there is a lot of control of how and what the audience is told. It has become easy to manipulate original data and therefore it has become easy to mislead the audience. It is considered important that journalists state the truth. This why journalists have to rely on their ethical principles and reframe from manipulating material. It does however also make it easier for journalists themselves to be misled. Because of the second principle of new media (modularity), journalists are able to get their information from all sorts of different sources. By combining information coming from these different sources, they are able to tell a story that they wouldn‟t have been able to tell when just relying on one source. Keeping in mind that the material that can be found in new media can be fairly easily manipulated, this poses the problem of trustworthiness. The journalist has the obligation to make sure that his or her sources are reliable. The following principle can be seen as a consequence of the two principles before:

3. Automation Numerical coding of media (principle 1) and modular structure of a media object (principle 2) allow to automate many operations involved in media creation, manipulation and access. Thus human intentionality can be removed from the creative process, at least in part. (pp. 52-53)

As the quote already says, the third principle would not exist without the presence of the first two. So because of the way that material exists in new media and the way in which it is built up it is possible for computers to predict outcomes of certain objects. The first news items composed by computers have already been published. Even though these news reports now only represent cold facts, for example a report of a football match, it may be possible that eventually computers will be able to put together more complicated stories. The next principle is also a consequence of the first to principles that were named:

4. Variability A new media object is not something fixed once and for all but can exist in different, potentially infinite, versions. This is another consequence of numerical coding of media (principle 1) and modular structure of a media object (principle 2). Other terms which are often used in relation to new media and which would be appropriate instead of “variable” is “mutable” and “liquid.” (pp. 55-56)

This fourth principle of new media is one of the most obvious principles. When something is put online it is out there for the entire world to access. The matter can be taken and people can add to it, extract from it, in principle do anything they want with it. If they desire, their version can be put online and the whole process can start again. For journalism this means that articles can be adjusted or commented on by others but it also leads to the phenomenon that is being looked into in this thesis: taking for instance a tweet and using it and/or making it into a news story. Again an important matter here is checking one‟s sources. Anyone can create a Twitter account and broadcast to the world. Anonymity is easily achieved on Twitter which makes checking sources more difficult, but more on that later. The following principle deals with the consequences of this principle:

5. Transcoding Beginning with the basic, “material” principles of new media — numeric coding and modular organization — we moved to more “deep” and far reaching ones — automation and variability. The last, fifth principle of cultural transcoding aims to describe what in my view is the most substantial consequence of media‟s computerization. As I have suggested, computerization turns media into computer data. While from one point of view computerized media still displays structural organization which makes sense to its human users — images feature recognizable objects; text files consist from grammatical sentences; virtual spaces are defined along the familiar Cartesian coordinate system; and so on — from another point of view, its structure now follows the established conventions of computer's organization of data. (pp. 63)

This fifth and last principle goes a step further than most people take time to think about. While the matter that is distributed through new media is often forms of media we were already familiar with (text, photo, video), the actual structure of the matter changes by distributing it through new media. By transferring these forms of media they too turn into zeros and ones. This principle is important in this case because it shows that even when we do not realize it, transferring matter between different media affects the structure of the matter. Recontextualisation, which will be defined below, plays a big part in this thesis and the principle of transcoding in new media shows us the most basal form of recontextualisation: taking a certain material and placing it into another context. All in all these five principles give us a good helping hand in dividing and categorizing different sorts of media as either old or new media. Looking back the medium TV was kind of difficult to place in one of the two categories. After looking at the principles of new media as written up by Manovich we can conclude that TV is an old medium. While TV is a technological invention, it is not as open to change as new media are. TV is a static medium, it is a one-way street: direct involvement of the audience is not possible. What came forward out of the principles of Manovich is that new media is very open to adjustments and manipulation, and as TV misses this element it can be categorised as an old medium.

2.1.2 Properties of networked publics Now that the foundation of what a new medium entails has been established, we can take a step to a more practical level. Boyd (2008) presents four properties of networked publics. Social media networks can be understood as networked publics, they are: “simultaneously (1) the space constructed through networked technologies and (2) the imagined community that emerges as a result of the intersection of people, technology, and practice.” (p. 1). In line with Manovich‟s (2001) principles of new media, Boyd (2008) presents us with four properties of networked publics. These properties characterize networked publics (and thus social media) in particular, where Manovich‟s (2001) principles characterize new media as a whole. The properties are the following:

 Persistence: online expressions are automatically recorded and archived.  Replicability: content made out of bits can be duplicated.  Scalability: the potential visibility of content in networked publics is great.  Searchability: content in networked publics can be accessed through search. (p. 27)

Boyd‟s (2008) properties are a follow-up of Manovich‟s (2001) principles. These principles make the properties possible. The principles of new media are the foundation for the properties of networked publics. New media is indeed a bigger concept in which networked publics (social media) exist. The properties show just how convenient using social media as a source for journalism is. Because of the property of persistence one can go back in time to see what was happening online at the time an event took place. One doesn‟t have to keep track of everything as it‟s happening. Material can be consulted later, when the relevance of an occurrence may be bigger than one would have suspected before. But this is just the first property that conveniences the work of the journalists. Next property, the property of replicability, conveniences the work of journalists by allowing them to take material and use it without really needing permission. Of course the ethical way of handling would involve contacting the original poster of the material, but when one posts something online for the entire world to see, one implicitly allows the material to be seen and

9 used by others. Because of this, journalists can work a lot faster because they can share information as they please. They don‟t have to go through a set of bureaucratic actions before sharing material. The first two properties we have seen mostly work in one way in journalism. The next property however works out in two ways. First of all the property of scalability conveniences the work of journalists it ensures that the big stories are easy to find. When more and more people share (or retweet) a certain story it will come up before other stories. So the material that people put online has already been filtered or categorized, making it easier for journalists to select their sources. The other way in which this property works is in the spreading of their own stories. It becomes easier for readers to find the stories of journalists. And because the networks are so open readers can participate in the discussion and maybe add information that the journalist hadn‟t found yet. Last property seems to help out journalists in the most obvious way. The property of searchability ensures that journalists can perform a targeted search on the subject they are working on. With this they can one again filter all the material. Because of all this filtering the most relevant or important material will rise out of the enormous pile of material. Once again the selection of material is made less complicated. Looking at all of the foregoing properties of structured networks it seems that social media definitely convenience the work of journalists. Not only do social media give journalists an enormous pile of information, it also hands tools to convenience the selection of material to be used. With the advent of social media journalists are now able to save a lot of time and thus delve deeper into a story than before.

2.1.3 Twitter It is important to define the two sorts of new media that have played a big part in Project X Haren; Twitter and Facebook, starting with Twitter. Twitter is a social medium that allows its users to broadcast short messages (with a maximum of 140 characters). It is also possible to add other media (for example photo or video) to these messages. The Netherlands, all be it small, is one of the leading countries in Twitter popularity. This shows in Figure 1:

Figure 1. Twitter usage relative to total Internet users (Neal, 2013)

Figure 1 shows the percentage of internet users that use Twitter (in 2013), where the Netherlands comes in seventh place, beating out the USA. So even though the Netherlands is not that big in size, it appears to be big in social media usage. A closer look at Twitter statistics for the Netherlands in 2012 (the year Project X Haren took place) reveals that 3,9 million Dutch people had a Twitter account and 1,5 million Dutch people used this account on a daily basis (Oosterveer, 2012).

2.1.3 Facebook Facebook was the biggest social medium in the Netherlands in 2012: 7,3 million Dutch people had an account and 4,3 million Dutch people used Facebook on a daily basis. In the age category of 15 to 20 year olds the percentage of Facebook users was 89% (Oosterveer, 2012), a good receptacle for a sweet sixteen party. Facebook allows users to do a bit more than Twitter does. First of all the maximum length of a Facebook message is 5000 words, as opposed to the 140 character limit that Twitter has. Just like on Twitter, it is possible to upload other media like photos and videos for example. On top of that Facebook also allows users to create and be a part of groups and (infamously) organize events.

2.1.4 Media ideologies A lot of different media exist next to another nowadays. There must be a reason why all of the current media are still relevant; there has to be a difference in the way they function. Gershon (2010) speaks of the existence of different media ideologies: “a set of beliefs about communicative technologies with which users and designers explain perceived media structure and meanings” (p. 3). In other words: how people think about a certain medium influences the way in which they use it. The definition of media ideologies already implies that these ideologies are not universal. The way people feel about a certain medium can differ greatly. Gershon (2010) gives the example of the medium e-mail. While her students feel like e-mail is a formal medium, Gershon (2010) herself does not feel this way at all. Her students compare writing an e-mail to writing a letter. In this comparison another aspect of media ideologies surfaces: “media ideologies about one medium are always affected by the media ideologies people have about other media” (p. 5). This aspect is linked to the idea of “remediation”, a term used to describe they ways in which people interlink different forms of media. People are very much aware of the media that are available and the options they have in using them. They choose the medium that will best convey the message they want to convey. Ones media ideologies, leading up to the choices one makes, do however also have their origins, they don‟t just fall into ones lap. Media ideologies stem from idioms of practice: “people figure out together how to use different media and often agree on the appropriate social uses of technology by asking advice and sharing stories with others” (p. 6). So there are many factors that play a part in the constructing of ones media ideologies. This is mainly the reason why ones media ideology can

12 differ so much from someone else‟s. It is important to keep the existence of these ideologies in mind when studying different forms of media as it greatly influences the way the media are used.

2.1.5 Journalists and social media Because social media are so popular in the Netherlands, it is assumable that if there is a big event worth reporting on there are a lot of people that will post about it on one or more social media platforms. This means that journalists are also able to follow certain events from the comfort of their own home. All they have to do is track Twitter to see what is going on. According to a survey that was held in 2012 (the year Project X Haren took place) journalists make frequent use of the possibilities that Twitter (and other social media) give them. The Netherlands is not represented in this survey. However, as we have seen above in Figure 1, the usage of social media in the Netherlands is comparable to the usage in the UK and the USA which have participated in the survey. Figure 2 shows that journalists in these countries use social media for about 4 hours per workday. That means that they use it for about half their workday. This implies that social media was a major source for journalists around the time Project X Haren took place.

Figure 2. Differences in Social Media Use for Work (hours per day per country), (Cision and Canterbury Christ Church University, 2012)

2.1.6 Media convergence Another theory that is important to take into consideration when looking at old media handling information coming from new media is Jenkins‟s (2006) theory on media convergence. With the on-going technological developments come new media platforms: it is not a seldom occurrence that a house has more than one “black box” (from dvd-players to televisions and laptops). Through these black boxes people often are able to access different forms of media. With cell

13 phones nowadays for example, we are able to make a phone call of course, but we can also play games, take pictures, go on the internet and so on. Jenkins (2006) explains:

Media convergence is more than simply a technological shift. Convergence alters the relationship between existing technologies, industries, markets, genres, and audiences. Convergence alters the logic by which media industries operate and by which media consumers process news and entertainment. Keep this in mind: convergence refers to a process, not an endpoint. There will be no single black box that controls the flow of media into our homes. Thanks to the proliferation of channels and the portability of new computing and telecommunications technologies, we are entering an era where media will be everywhere. (pp. 15-16)

Convergence culture deals with the way that information spreads throughout different platforms: media convergence influences the way we consume media, we are able to access so many different platforms, this also calls for a different way of producing media output. It is no longer evident that information is consumed from one place only. We used to get all our news from newspapers and later from radio and TV, but there are so many other platforms available now that it is important to decide how and on what platform(s) the information will be spread and adjust the structure of the information accordingly. An important notion in Jenkins‟ (2006) work is the idea that media convergence requires a participatory culture:

The term, participatory culture, contrasts with older notions of passive media spectatorship. Rather than talking about media producers and consumers as occupying separate roles, we might now see them as participants who interact with each other according to a new set of rules that none of us fully understands. Not all participants are created equal. Corporations—and even individuals within corporate media— still exert greater power than any individual consumer or even the aggregate of consumers. And some consumers have greater abilities to participate in this emerging culture than others. (p. 3)

Jenkins (2006) gives the examples of Star Wars fans making their own movie adaptations and Harry Potter fans protecting the books from being banned on religious grounds and the books

14 being in their view wrongfully adapted (by changing or leaving out certain scenes from the book, or adding new scenes) into a movie. Jenkins‟s Media convergence was written in 2006, the year Twitter was founded, so Twitter was not at the point it is today; it was nowhere near as big as it is now. Twitter, however, is a really good example of media convergence: it can be accessed from many different platforms (smartphones, laptops, smart-TVs) and can be used by many different people. A good example of how media convergence and the participatory culture that comes with it manifests on Twitter can be seen in the fans of the TV-show Community. Community is a show that was very popular on the internet, it was spoken about a lot, and the viewers mostly downloaded the show illegally when watching it, causing bad viewer ratings. Because of these bad ratings the show threatened to be cancelled. Fans took to Twitter and started a campaign to save their beloved show and succeeded. Community ran for a total of five seasons before it eventually got cancelled. This goes to show that Twitter has a great participatory culture and this is something to take into account when looking at tweets being taken over and reported on by old media.

2.2 Discourse Now that the nature of media has been examined it is time to look at the actual practices in and through different media. Recontextualisation is a word that has already been used in the foregoing part of the theory and now we will use theories by Blommaert (2005) to study the phenomenon of recontextualisation in transferring matter from new media to old media.

2.2.1 Recontextualisation Blommaert (2005) states that “the way in which language fits into context is what creates meaning, what makes it (mis)understandable to others” (p.40). The term recontextualisation implies that there is such a thing as contextualisation, and indeed there is. Blommaert (2005) refers to Gumperz‟s theory on contextualisation:

Gumperz developed the notion of contextualisation to account for the ways in which people „make sense‟ in interactions and, taking on board both broad ethnographic concerns as well as narrower conversation-analytic ones, he observed that people pick up quite a few „unsaid‟ meanings in such interaction. (p. 41)

These „unsaid‟ meanings are the connections between language forms and social and cultural patterns. They can also be understood as unwritten rules that we have to obey in order to understand each other. When these „unsaid‟ meanings are not known, or when the context changes (by someone walking in or out of a room for example) it can lead to misunderstandings. Blommaert (2005) goes on to say that context is the key to understanding: “we understand something because it makes sense in a particular context” (p.43). It is also important to note that “context and contextualisation are dialogical phenomena” (p.43). It is never just one person conveying a message, but to convey a message there has to be someone receiving that message. The person receiving the message is actually the one that decodes the message and with that has the biggest role in the process of contextualising the message. In this theory context should not be seen as solely a specific communicative event. It is important to keep in mind that there are different contexts that exist next to each other and throughout which matter can be transferred. By transferring the material, the material can (and mostly) will be adjusted to the new context it has to fit in to. This is the part where recontextualisation comes in:

A lot of what we perform in the way of meaning-attributing practices is the post-hoc recontextualisation of earlier bits of text that were produced, of course, in a different contextualisation process, at a different time, by different people, and for different purposes. (p. 46)

So unlike contextualisation, recontextualisation is not just about a certain subject in a certain frame, it is rather about taking a certain object out of its original frame and placing it in another frame. When reading a book for example we always bring in our own background. Chances are that the writer of the book and the reader of the book differ in their backgrounds thus having a different way of looking at things. Everyone looks at objects through their own set of glasses, so to say.

2.2.2 Entextualisation and intertextuality Blommaert (2005) also elaborates on the concept of entextualisation:

Entextualisation refers to the process by means of which discourses are successively or simultaneously decontextualised and metadiscursively recontextualised, so that they become a new discourse associated to a new context and accompanied by a particular metadiscourse which provides a sort of „preferred reading‟ for the discourse. (p. 47)

Entextualisation can be understood as taking an original piece of discourse and placing it in a different context (thus recontextualizing the material). However, instead of solely placing the material into a different context, more information is added to further explain the matter at hand, thus creating a new context in which the material can be understood. The pieces of discourse are, for example, quoted and used in a different discourse as an example. The quotes used in this thesis can be viewed as an example of entextualisation: quotes are used to bring a certain issue to light and are explained in the context of the subject of the thesis. Entextualisation has a close relationship with Bakhtin‟s intertextuality. Blommaert (2005) explains intertextuality as follows: “In its simplest form, intertextuality refers to the fact that whenever we speak, we produce the words of others, we constantly cite and re-cite expressions and recycle meanings that are already available.” (p.46). Intertextuality thus gives us a way to examine where „unsaid‟ meanings, as mentioned in the explanation of recontextualisation, come from. Some „unsaid‟ meanings can be imbedded so deeply into one‟s daily life that one isn't even

17 aware of the fact that one's actions have a certain origin. Of course this also goes for outsiders who have a distant perspective on what's happening in a specific context. By studying these origins one can come up with a better understanding of why one him- or herself, or another acts the way he or she does. This allows for a better understanding of each other‟s cultural context and thus for better grounds for communication. By combining entextualisation and intertextuality Blommaert (2005) believes “we have instruments that allow us to set unique communicative events within larger historical frames, both those of the text itself and of the interpretations given by the text.” (p. 48). With entextualisation it is possible to examine the micro-levels of a certain event. Intertextuality allows us to see the macro-patterns that have made it possible for the event to take place. This makes it possible to place certain events into a bigger frame and make them comprehensible within bigger, social, political and cultural contexts.

3. Method and data A lot of different media and news sources were involved in the reporting on Project X Haren. I have selected two: the talkshow De Wereld Draait Door (DWDD) and newspaper NRC Handelsblad. De Wereld Draait door (DWDD) is a Dutch weekdaily talk show that focusses on current affairs. Every day host Mathijs van Nieuwkerk and his sidekick (rotating from within a set group of well known Dutch people) welcome guests that have something to say about the news of the day. With around one million people watching the show every day (De Wereld Draait Door, n.d.), DWDD has earned its spot in the Dutch television landscape. News is not really news until it has been spoken about on DWDD. The program gave attention to Project X Haren in their broadcast of the 21st of September (so the day the event took place) and their broadcast of the 24th of September (their first broadcast after the event had taken place). The broadcasts can be found online (at http://dwdd.vara.nl). A transcript of these broadcasts (translated by me from Dutch to English) will be offered in Appendix 1. The first reason I chose to look at DWDD is its popularity. As said above, around one million people watch the show. This means that they have a big influence on how people view certain affairs. On top of that, their number of viewers and their stable place in the Dutch television landscape makes that they have a high prestige, so their broadcasts are taken seriously. The first broadcast (that of the 21st of September, 2012) is interesting because the 21st is the day of the event itself. In the broadcast they had a live connection with a reporter present in Haren and they had guests in the show with whom the event was pre-examined. In the second broadcast that will be discussed (that of the 24th) there are guests who comment on how the event actually took place. In the analysis of the broadcasts of DWDD we will look at how they incorporate matter coming from the internet (Facebook and Twitter in particular). But because we will look at two broadcasts it will also be interesting to see if there are any differences between the first and the second broadcast. Has the (negative) turn of events had any influence on the way the subject (and thus the matter coming from the internet) is treated on the same talk show?

Another traditional medium that covered the events of Project X Haren a lot was the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. What is interesting in their coverage of the event is that they use tweets as sources. This calls for a closer look at how the information given in the tweets was handled by the newspaper. In September 2012 52 reports (varying in size, some of them really short, others longer) on Project X were placed on the website of NRC Handelsblad. Even though the content is placed online it will be viewed as content from traditional media. This is because it is not just posted on, for example, a blog where everyone can post what they want. The content is moderated by the editorial of the newspaper and therefore it fits best within that context instead of that of a new medium. We will take a look at an article that was posted solely online and an article as it was to be read in the newspaper itself, to see if there are differences in how online content is handled. This way we will have a varied view on how NRC handles information coming from social media.

4. Analysis

4.1 De wereld draait door

4.1.1 Broadcast of the 21st of September 2012

The 21st of September was of course the day of Project X Haren. It seemed obvious that DWDD would at least hint at it, as the whole country was waiting to see what would happen in Haren. And so they did. The guest of the day was social media expert Tim Hofman, from the Dutch television network BNN. “Jakhals” (“de jakhalzen” is a group of recurring interviewers on the show) Jelte Sondij was at the scene in Haren and his sidekick was Ali B., a Dutch rapper of Moroccan origin. The show starts with Van Nieuwkerk introducing his guests, quickly talking through some news items and sitting down with his sidekick to talk about a topic of the sidekick‟s choice. After that the first topic discussed at the table is Project X. Not too far into the introduction of the item the first mention of a social medium comes along. Van Nieuwkerk mentions that the commotion around the sixteen year old‟s birthday party started because she invited everyone on her Facebook by accident. The first question posed for Hofman is how this could have escalated as much as it has. So the first role for him is that of an educator: he is there to look at the role of social media in the growth of the event. The explanation is “dry”, there is no usage of footage, and Hofman just explains how the event could have grown the way it did. He does this in a way even people who have never come in contact with Facebook or any other social medium can understand. He simply explains how an invitation like Merthe's can spread so fast through social media. The moment the item becomes interesting in the light of this thesis is when Van Nieuwkerk mentions the anticipatory fun that comes with the event. He mentions that there are a lot of people making jokes on the internet and introduces a clip found on YouTube and after that they show the movie clip just as it can be found on YouTube. The clip shows a big banner announcing Project X Haren being unveiled, this hasn‟t really happened; it is manipulated footage. After this some other manipulated images (road signs, “festival maps”) appear on the screen just the way they can be found on the internet (see Figure 3). In showing these images, no sources are given. Most likely this is because the images have been shared so many times on so many different platforms that it is almost impossible to find out who posted it online in the first place.

Figure 3. Thijs Hoffman showing images coming from the internet.

The fact that these images have been manipulated connects them with Manovich‟s (2001) theory on new media. His first characteristic of new media states that because of the fact that new media are composed of digital codes, this makes it possible to manipulate images. This could be dangerous for journalists as they have to determine whether or not the information they use is accurate. However in this case the images and the movie clip are obviously a joke and the guests in DWDD are in on it, so there is, in this sense, no harm in discussing these images as they are observed as jokes. Of course this can do harm as it may make the viewers feel that going to Haren (while the municipality asked people not to) is just a joke and can do no harm to the town. Of course the entire idea of discussing artefacts found on the internet in the programme can be seen as a result of one of the other principles of Manovich (2001). The principle of variability entails that when something is put online, in principle anyone with internet access can access it. It is not likely that the person that edited a picture of a street sign as a joke had expected that this image would end up in one of the biggest TV-shows of the Netherlands. What is also noticeable about the viewing of these images is that no credit is given to the makers of these images, the makers of the images are not named. They are just some images made by „some jokesters on the internet‟, who are not seen as individuals apparently. This can however, as said above, have to do with the difficulty of tracking down the original maker of the image. The images have, in line with the fifth principle of new media by Manovich (2001), been transcoded multiple times. First there was a picture of a street sign, this was put online and thus transcoded, then someone took it and manipulated it to fit the theme of Project X and put it back

22 online and thus transcoded it once again. To add to this the coding of the image was once again changed by taking the picture from the internet and showing it on television. This of course also is a form of recontextualisation; the material travels throughout different contexts. We think we just get to see an image on television and that‟s it, but in reality this image has come a long way and has gone through a lot of phases before we got to see it in De Wereld Draait Door. After looking at the images found online the conversation immediately moves on to what is happening on Twitter. Hofman starts off with showing a tweet by Yellow Claw, a popular Dutch music group. Before he shows the tweet, however, he explains who/what Yellow Claw is and just how popular they are; he starts to build a context, for viewers who do not know the group, to understand the tweet in. After that he just starts to read the tweet, which we can also see on the screen (Figure 4), out loud. With this Hofman makes himself to be a mediator between the tweet and the public.

Figure 4. A tweet shown in the broadcast

Looking at Hofman‟s role in this episode one could say that he plays a big part in the recontextualisation of the subject. Hofman gives the audience the context in which the tweets can be understood. As we have seen earlier, Blommaert (2005) has stated that the context is key to understanding. Hofman‟s explanation of how the invitation could have spread ensures that even people who do not actually use social media themselves are able to understand the mechanics of the platforms. In the example we see a screenshot of the tweet on screen and Tim Hofman reads it out loud. So the issue is brought to light, and displayed in its original form, and Hofman provides the

23 audience with the needed explanation. So Hofman takes certain material, takes it from one context (social media) to the other (television) thus recontextualising it. But he doesn‟t leave it at that, by explaining the „unsaid‟ meanings (or rules) of social media, he creates a context in which the material can be understood. So he completes the entire process of recontextualisation and entextualisation. All in all, in this episode at least, DWDD seems to take on the role of the mediator. The editorial staff of the program has picked up on what was happening on social media and saw an interesting item for their broadcast of that day. DWDD has a very varied audience, people of all ages tune in to watch the program every day. This means that not every viewer has the same knowledge of how the internet works. Showing matters coming from the internet can be a tricky thing because one does not want to bore the youngsters with too much explanation, but one also does not want to confuse one‟s older viewers either. That is where Hofman comes in to give some background. The focus in this broadcast seems to be more on the fun of it and not so much on the actual dynamics of social media and how they work. By doing this Hofman doesn‟t have to explain all too much and the show can be kept light and fun by just looking and laughing at what‟s going on. By treating it this way, they may have encouraged more people to go to Haren. While not intentional, as no one had foreseen the eventual outcome of the event, they may have added fuel to the fire with this broadcast.

4.1.1 Broadcast of the 24th of September 2012 This broadcast is the first time the show is on air since the happenings in Haren on the 21st of September (the previous episode was on Friday, this one was on the Monday following that Friday). At this time we all know what took place in Haren (riots and a lot of damage in the village) and we all realise it is no longer just fun and games. The question that has arisen after the event is who is to be blamed, as said in the broadcast of the 24th a lot of fingers point toward social media. But the ways traditional media and the municipality of Haren have handled the situation are also under fire at this point. For the September 24 broadcast DWDD has invited internet entrepreneur Danny Mekic‟ and their recurring guest when it comes to new media and/or technological developments, Alexander Klöpping. This is where a first resemblance with the other broadcast comes forward. The guests are two young men who are proclaimed social media experts, and in the previous episode we saw Tim Hofman, another young man who is a supposed social media expert. With

Mathijs asking for an explanation on how things work online we can see a link with the audience. Mathijs is the person with whom the audience can identify: when things are clarified for Mathijs, things are clarified for the viewers. What Mathijs (and thus the audience) wants to see clarified in this conversation is who is to blame for what happened in Haren. Everyone is shocked at how things have gotten out of hand and wants to know how it could have gotten as far as it has. We can definitely see a shift in the tone of the broadcast: in the broadcast of the 21st there was a certain anticipation to be felt as no one knew how the event would turn out (but with examples of similar events, riots were in the back of our heads) but also a lot of banter and the idea that it would all blow over seemed to reign. Now that we have seen how it has all played out the tone has gotten a lot more serious in comparison with the broadcast of the 21st. People are in need of an explanation. Because of the more serious tone of the broadcast of the 24th a first thing that is noticeable is that the amount of matter coming straight from the internet has decreased drastically. The amount of images in general has decreased. And where the first episode started with stating that Project X is a Facebook phenomenon, the second episode starts with showing the front page of a newspaper (NRC Handelsblad, a reputable newspaper, two articles of this newspaper will be analyzed later) where we see a report on the event. It seems as if with this newspaper Mathijs wants to show that things have really become serious now, because it is on the front page of a newspaper. Furthermore we saw images, tweets and a YouTube clip in the first broadcast. In the second broadcast we are shown a chart (Figure 5) that Mekic‟ has made to show the amount of activity concerning Project X on social media, also making mention of the day traditional media started reporting on the event. The audience is also shown a reel in which we see different news programs (from reputable programs like NOS news and RTL news, to gossip programs like RTL boulevard and Shownieuws, so all layers of journalism are represented in this reel) reporting on the subject. There is a definite shift noticeable in the way the programme reports on the event. When it‟s all still fun and games we look at what is happening online, but when it turns out to be more serious we shift to what traditional media have to say about the subject.

Figure 5. Chart showing mentions on social media Mekic' and Klöpping were invited to shed light on the happenings in Haren. However instead of giving their objective opinions on what happened they seem to have turned into lawyers of the internet. Mathijs and Jan are acting like the „fossils‟ (older people that are fast to blame social media for the happenings in Haren) that Alexander Klöpping mentions in his argumentation against simply blocking the internet in these kinds of events and he and Mekic‟ are fighting to get the other two on another track of thought. They are trying to make them see that the blame can't just simply be put solely on the social media/internet but that there is a whole web of different circumstances (the actions of the municipality and reports of traditional media included) that have led to the eventual size of the event. Also in this case DWDD takes on the role of the mediator. Even though there seems to be more of a debate going on between the guests and the presenter and sidekick (due to different contextualisation universes), the main point of the item is to explain to people what might have gone wrong and thus how things could have gotten out of hand. Again we see the two young men creating a context in which the material that is shown can be understood. They are trying to make the two older men (Mathijs and Jan) part of this contextualisation universe. In this broadcast we can see a clash of contextualization universes. Mathijs and Jan are in their little universe (in which the media is the main institution to blame in the case of Haren) and Meckic' and Klöpping are in another universe in which there are many more factors that have contributed to the chaos in Haren. This is what troubles the discussion at the table, while both of

26 the parties stay in their own universe and because of that there is no mutual understanding of who or what is to blame.

4.2 NRC Handelsblad

4.2.1 Preview The title of the first article we are going to take a closer look at is: Haren neemt voorzorgsmaatregelen wegens Project X-feest (Haren takes precautions because of Project X- party). It was posted on the day of the event (the 21st of September 2012) in the national news section of their website. The article isn't very long; it contains just a little under 400 words. The first thing that catches one‟s eye when looking at the article is the amount of pictorial material. Let's have a look at the contents of this article. The article informs the readers on the precautions that have been taken by the municipality of Haren to prevent escalations. Again the fact that all of the commotion started because of a fault in Facebook settings is mentioned. Once this fact has been mentioned again, the author follows with a list naming all of the precautions that have been taken that day (the removal of street signs, closing down the street, police deployment, a ban on alcohol in the area). No pictorial material is used to support these facts. According to the article Merthe has left the location of the supposed party while on social media people are still replying that they will be attending that evening. The author even says that on Twitter there's talks of renting out touring cars that will take groups of youngsters from Groningen to Haren. He does not support this statement with evidence. He could have easily directed readers to the messages (or even the accounts) of people claiming they will be doing this. The author does however include a tweet from a well-known Dutch DJ (Yellowclaw) (Figure 6). He seems to have no trouble naming (and in hindsight maybe even shaming) this person.

Figure 6. Part of the article with embedded tweet.

So although the people who had posted messages on the event on social media had left them out for the whole world to see (how else would the author of this article been able to access this kind of information), the author has chosen to keep their identity secret. Yet the author does not feel obliged to protect well-known people: this shows in him taking a tweet from Yellow Claw and using it in his article. There are different contextualization universes; there are different rules in handling content from unknown people and handling content from well-known people. While both parties' content is used to illustrate the happenings in Haren, there is a big difference in how the content is adjusted to fit into the article. Next there is mention of foreign media reporting on the events in the small town, links to the articles are embedded (the first link to the Malaysian website is dead, this probably was not the case in 2012). Nothing more is done with this information, it's used to illustrate that the matter is drawing international attention. Then it's mentioned that the event's name stems from an American movie. The trailer of this movie is embedded (from YouTube) at the bottom of the page. Again, the material is not elaborated on, it is solely placed in the context of the article. The way in which online material is used by NRC seems quite dry. While the newspaper does use online material, not much is done with it. It is used, but not explained. The matter has been recontextualized but it does not seem that a new context has been created. It seems as if

28 there already was a context (the story they want to convey) and that the online material was placed in this context without further explaining the material, so without completing the process by entextualizing the material.

4.2.2 The aftermath The other article discussed here was placed in the newspaper a couple of days after the event. People have had time to think about the situation and Haren is slowly getting back on its feet. The title of the article is Politie surveilleert op Twitter (Police supervises on Twitter). It was placed in the newspaper of the 25th of September 2012 in the national news pages of the newspaper. It is now available online for a one-time payment of 29 cents. At around 700 words this article is a bit longer than the previously seen article.

Figure 7. Article including tweet from police officer

The article starts off by quoting a tweet from a police officer from the Dutch Town Almere (Figure 7). Apparently he has heard talks of a possible Project X in Almere (following the example of the previous 'edition' of Project X in Haren) and he wants to warn his followers to not go through with it. Following this tweet there is a lot of speculation about whether or not police officers could have picked up on the buzz of Project X Haren before the event took place. There is little context provided for the tweet other than who has sent it and why. It seems to be that the

29 tweet is used to set an example. The police could have seen what was happening online leading up to the events in Haren and should have acted like this police officer has in this case. In the rest of the article there seems to be mostly talks about social media. Not so much social media itself but how the police handles social media. In 2011 the research institute TNO set out a survey throughout 18 of 25 security organizations in the Netherlands. The main question in this survey was how these organizations handle social media such as Facebook and Twitter (Kas, 2012). The author of this article has taken the tweet as an example of how she thinks police should operate on social media. The tweet is shown in context of the research done on this subject so it has been recontextualized; it has been taken out of its original context (Twitter) and observed in the light of research. Again however, the usage of online material is very dry. And however there does seem to be a lot of talk on social media in the article, only one tweet is shown. It seems as if NRC doesn‟t really dare to use online material. There are many examples of Dutch policemen on Twitter to be found, however NRC chooses to only use one example. Had they had used more examples the article would have had a stronger foundation and the point of the author would have come across stronger. What we also see again in this article is that the context in which the online material is placed already existed. The author already has a center for his story (the TNO research) and the tweet is placed into this story to give an example. The online content is never put in the center of the story, it is put in the margins as an addition to the story. This is far different from what we saw in the broadcasts of DWDD.

4.3 TV vs. newspaper After analyzing the two different media (DWDD and NRC) we can see a definite difference between the two. DWDD saw something happening online and implemented this in their program while NRC heard talks from 'official institutions' and uses online content to illustrate their stories. So in the first case (in DWDD) online content is the core of the story and in the second case (in NRC) there is a certain core (for example the research on usage of Twitter by the Police) and the online content is used to liven up the story or give an example. In other words: it in DWDD material is taken out of its original context and put into the other and an explanation is added, thus creating a new context in which the material can be understood. In NRC there is already a context and the online material is chosen to fit into the already existing context. Both media invest their fair share in building the context of the story. In one medium the context is built around the internet phenomenon and in the other medium the internet phenomenon part of a context around another phenomenon. There really is no wrong or right here, both media explain the matter at hand, however one could say that the approach of DWDD is a more bottom-up approach than the approach of NRC; DWDD uses input from regular people to build a story around. It seems as if NRC attaches more importance to the reputation of their sources and is afraid of using online content as a foundation for a story. In the differences in using online material between the two media, there is a parallel to be seen with the difference between the two broadcasts of DWDD. The first broadcast was very light and Project X was still considered to be harmless. In this first broadcast a lot of online content was shown and there was a lot of banter at the table. In the second broadcast, when all the banter was gone because of the escalations in Haren, the usage of online content had shrunk immensely. This gives us a good idea of the media ideology DWDD has in terms of online content. Online content is fun and light and thus is no longer deemed appropriate when the subject takes a more serious turn.

5. Conclusion There are a lot of different ways in which content can be transmitted between different platforms. Project X Haren was very much discussed, not only in the Netherlands but also in other countries the media kept an eye on what was going on in Haren. In this research we have seen two different media that both took a different approach to using content from the internet. In the items in De wereld draait door we saw a good example of entextualisation. The content from the internet was shown and this content was provided with a certain background so that the content could be understood by a lay public. In the broadcast of the 21st of September (the day of Project X Haren) the mood was very light and we saw a lot of content from the internet. At the time the next episode was broadcast we all knew what had happened and that it was not only fun and games. In this episode the content that was shown came out of the traditional media. When it was still all fun and games the content coming from the internet was considered to meet the quality standards but when it turned out to be more serious than most had thought initially, DWDD turned to traditional media. This gives us an insight in the media ideologies of DWDD: online content is fun and light, so it‟s not appropriate to use this content in more serious cases. NRC Handelsblad takes a different approach than DWDD. NRC does use content from the internet but instead of building a context around this content it is part of the context for the story. DWDD uses a more bottom-up approach. The content is not only used to liven up a story or to provide an example, it is taken more seriously, it is seen as something that needs to be understood and thus provided with an explanation. It is not the case that one of the two approaches is better. And it may not only be interlinked with the media ideologies of the parties involved. It may also be something that is interlinked with the medium in which it is presented. Television simply has more room to show images and video clips than a newspaper and on top of that provide context. One can talk while an image is on screen, it does not take up time. In a written medium an image takes space, that space is lost, one can not use this space to write what one wants to say anymore. The media are a very dynamic area and this will not be the last insight on how to handle content from social media, but it has definitely opened my eyes to the struggle of the traditional media with new media.

References Blommaert, J. (2005). Discourse (1st ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Boyd, D. (2008). Taken Out of Context (Graduate). University of California, Berkeley.

Cision and Canterbury Christ Church University,. (2012). Journalists Views and Usage of Social Media. Cision.

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Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture (1st ed.). New York: New York University Press.

Julen, J. (2012). Haren neemt voorzorgsmaatregelen wegens Project X-feest. nrc.nl. Retrieved 1 June 2014, from http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2012/09/21/gemeente-haren-neemt- voorzorgsmaatregelen-wegens-project-x-feest/

Kas, A. (2012). Politie surveilleert op Twitter. nrc.nl. Retrieved 1 June 2014, from http://www.nrc.nl/handelsblad/van/2012/september/25/politie-surveilleert-op-Twitter

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Wikipedia, Project X Haren. Retrieved 12 July 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_X_Haren

Appendix 1 Broadcast 21-09-2012 (the day of Project X - Haren) (Note: this transcription contains only the item on Project X) Mathijs: It is getting completely out of hand, for the time being we say merrily out of hand. Almost 30.000 people indicated that they are going to party in the small town Haren in Groningen. This all because the birthday girl Merthe not only sent the invitation to her friends but to everyone on her facebook by accident. And apparently thousands of people now are excited to celebrate Merthe‟s 16th birthday. Merthe herself is hidden since today. Authorities are concerned for Project X Haren, as it‟s called, and even CNN reported on the possible massive facebookparty. At the table: Tim Hofman, BNN‟s social media expert. Tim: Hello Mathijs: Eh, for the people who, yes you can‟t hear about it for the first time because it is printed in all the newspapers but, Tim: That‟s what I wanted to say, yes. Mathijs: The people who are thinking, maybe the somewhat older people, how could this have happened, what exactly happened here, you invite people via facebook, that apparently goes, a wrong button, and then the entire world is attending. How does that work? Tim: You said it, a wrong button. It‟s a fifteen year old girl Merthe, she thinks: “sweet sixteen, I‟m going to invite my friends”, and what she doesn‟t do is tick the box that it has to be private. So it was visible to her friends and the friends of her friends. What you then get is that there are people that think: “oh, fun, free party”, so I‟m going to go there. That become 50, that become 150 people, people think “oh, this is funny”, that become 1000 people and after that of course, there are a lot of “beerbellies” that think “well, causing chaos (clicks a button on his computer and shrugs)”. And then it becomes 30.000 people, which of course is the case now. Mathijs: And there is a lot of anticipatory pleasure, there are many inventive people on the internet. Making jokes, a youtube clip has been made that announces it, let‟s watch that briefly, it‟s a fun joke. (Clip rolls, a big banner announcing the party is supposedly revealed, followed by loud electronic music) Mathijs: (laughing) It‟s a decent street in Haren right? Tim: Yes.

Mathijs: It‟s some sort of district with mansions, a lovely young girl… Tim: Nothing happens in Haren Mathijs: No I don‟t think… Tim: But the mayor hasn‟t slept for a week because of… Mathijs: The man has been on the radio all day to tame everything, if that will work. Later we will check in with “Jakhals” Jelte, he is in Haren but first some more anticipatory pleasure, road signs have been made, show us some.. Tim: You have the road signs but I can go on Twitter, Yellow Claw, for example (road signs appear on screens in studio, people start laughing), well yes, alright, this is what you get, this is good (pointing at picture of road signs). And now you know it‟s popular, right? (more laughing). Mathijs: (laughing) Alright, what‟s on Twitter? Tim: Well on Twitter, see, something like, I‟m gonna say it, 30.000 people are saying “we are going to that party”, the media takes it on and it becomes an interplay, more and more people are going, more and more media are writing about it and more and more mayors who lay awake at night. But what you are also going to get are artists like Yellow Claw, very well known, they have millions of views on (pointing to Ali B.), you probably know it Ali B.: (singing) Jouw bil is een krokodil, haphap met je krokodil. (looking at Mathijs) You don‟t know it? (audience starts laughing) Tim: There are four million girls and boys who like that and those guys have said: “if we have 10.000 followers by tomorrow, (I shall so it on the screen quickly), we will play at Project X at 21.00”. Whether they do it or not, it doesn‟t matter but if there are 300 adolescents who think “that‟s fun, we are going to go there”, then you already have 300 adolescents in a street in Haren where the occasional livestock and chicken comes by, they will be standing there. Well-known people from the Netherlands join in, Domien Verschuuren writes that he has been there for three quartes and when does it begin. And then you know now it‟s serious, you know. Mathijs: Alright, may I interrupt you for a second Tim? Because we have a reporter, we never have, we aren‟t a programme like that but now, accidentally, it‟s happening as we speak in Haren. “Jakhals” Jelte is there, whether it‟s in that street or where he is, I actually have no idea. Jelte, are you there?

Jelte: Yes I‟m certainly here, I‟m not in the street itself, that is closed down completely, it has become a sort of Downing street, big fence in front of it, policemen, so I‟m in the street that is parallel to it. You can see hundreds, I think about 1000 people, that are, well, here to party. Mathijs: Yes and are there, you say 1000, the newspapers were speaking of 24.000, so let‟s take half and say 12.000, is it going in that direction? Or do you say, well, 2000 maximum? Jelte: Yes it‟s hard to assess, you can see that there are more and more people coming and that there are also, surprisingly enough, people from all over the country, you see people from Drenthe, I also have some girls behind me from.. (moving toward the girls behind him) where have you come from? (Assen, the girl answers), well all the way from Assen have they come to here, we have seen Hilversum (people behind him start cheering), well as you can hear, a very enthusiastic atmosphere here, but the birthday girl isn‟t even here. But the overall mood here is good. Mathijs: Ok, Jelte we will come back to you later on, I‟m going to talk some more with Tim because the source of this fun, till thus far it‟s fun, luckily. There is also a movie Project X, to be seen in cinema‟s not so long ago, and that‟s the same idea? Tim: Yes, just last year, it‟s the same idea indeed. And that was in it‟s turn based on a story like this. It was Corey Delaney, a sixteen year old Australian boy, we know him from the yellow sunglasses. And he once, it wasn‟t via facebook but he once said “party at my place” and then a couple of hundred people showed up, leading to demolished cars and more like that and then filmmakers thought “we have to make a movie” and I hope for the mayor of Haren and everyone who lives in the province of Groningen that it doesn‟t become the real Project X. Mathijs: Let‟s at least look at how it went in the movie. (trailer of the movie Project X rolls) Tim: Yes, when you see this it‟s almost a shame that we are here, right? Mathijs: Well, Ali, this is social media, if you are talking about the “Televizierring” (Dutch award for television), you could also use that. Look at the consequences. Ali B.: I‟ve been busy for two days already, man. We were worldwide trending for nine minutes yesterday. I was getting tweets from all these people, from “Ookitookie” (fictional place), what is “ABOVT”, you know? But this is indeed, we got all rappers and professional footballers together and started campaigning and you notice that a movement ensues, you can really get things moving, it‟s really bizarre.

Tim: What we see now is actually some sort of “Arabic spring” without moral and a lot of beer. (A “festival map” of Haren appears on screen) Mathijs: This is also a joke, as if it‟s some sort of Lowlands festival, we see the mainstage. Tim: (laughing) Yes, parking places, this is good. Mathijs: All to oppose the mayor. Tim: This is really good. Mathijs: Briefly, we have seen such a party in Germany… Tim: Yes, we have known multiple. In Germany they‟ve had this in Hamburg, also a fifteen or sixteen year old girl that had 15.000 people supposedly attending, ten percent of that amount showed up, about 1500 people, that became chaotic. And it has happened via social media before, in England in 2007. And then, via MySpace, that was cool before Hyves so that‟s a really long time ago. And there, there was 20.000 pounds in damage in the streets. Mathijs: Look at that. But briefly, from Germany there is footage, this is what could happen, or not, I don‟t know, in Haren tonight. (footage from Hamburg rolls) Mathijs: Oh well, there were 1600 people in Germany, let‟s go back to Jelte, he is in Haren, 3 minutes have passed since we‟ve spoken to him, so we are curious to see if a lot more people have come. Jelte, how is it now? Jelte: Yes, a few people have joined, of course we all know the expression “Nights in Groningen are long”, so yes, what way it will go, you don‟t know. In the meantime there is also more police astir, there is also a bar on alcohol here. But I have the impression that most people aren‟t going to follow this rule, I have already spotted some crates here and there. And here behind me more people (moves to a group of boys standing behind him. I have to wonder, why did you come here? You know the birthday girl is not even at home. Boy: Yes, but we are here, a party is a party, right? We were invited on facebook so then I think you are obliged to be there. (laughter ensues in studio) Jelte: And now the mayor has said it can‟t go through tonight, we are not having a party here but you say, I‟m still coming. Boy: Well the mayor didn‟t invite us so, it was Merthe who wanted to give a party so now we are here and she isn‟t here.

Jelte: Well, as you can hear, there are a lot of people that have come here especially for her, but question remains which way it will go tonight, and if it will get even busier, I don‟t dare to say it right now. I have heard that more trains are on their way from Assen, so we shall see. Mathijs: Yes thank you Jelte and have a nice evening there. To conclude, this of course is now national news, we are talking about it, all the big newspapers are talking about it. Will this be, now a lot of people will have fun with this kind of mischief. Tim: Yes, I have too. Ali B.: That has always been the case but now it is in relation to social media, discotheques have been suffering for a long time, with these sorts of self organised parties, it happens in barns, and I haven‟t been performing in discotheques for a while now but I know it has really gone downhill because people just organise parties in barns with beer for one euro and when you combine that with social media, so people can reach each other, I think it will go on for a while. Tim: You will need a big barn then, nice though. Mathijs: We will wait and see, thanks man. Tim: No problem.

Broadcast 24-09-2012 (the day of Project X - Haren) (Note: this transcription contains only the item on Project X) Mathijs: Yes the question now is, this is the front of NRC Handelsblad, frontpage. How can it have escalated like it has? We are talking about Haren of course. Last friday night, 16 year old Merthe‟s party, it started off peacefully, giggly and so mainly jokingly. Until about 9 p.m. when the fat was in the fire. Destruction, fire, wounded. Where did it go wrong? Who are to blame? For starters, the rioting youth of course, but besides that the municipality of Haren, the police, the social media and the traditional media were named. At the table: internet expert Danny Mekic and our own Alexander Klöpping. Last news, hot of the press, Job Cohen will be leading a four-headed team that will examine this misery, until they get to the bottom. Danny: Lead or compose? Mathijs: Lead. Danny: Lead? Ok, that will be exciting.

Mathijs: And maybe he will do a bit of composing, I don‟t know. Danny, you are an internet entrepreneur, you often work for the police, they hire you or your agency because they maybe just know too little about social media and how to handle it. Danny: Yes and of course it is important that you involve the entire community in what you do but that is definitely true. And what has happened in Haren now is of course in one word very sad. And question that has now risen is „how can it have happened?‟. Well, Facebook is named everytime, it were „Facebookriots‟, a „Facebookparty‟. But to be fair, I am starting to believe in it less and less that Facebook had a really big part in this. I think, to be honest, that firstly the municipality, the mayor, have to question what does boys and girls came there for. If there is no party, what were those trains doing there that dropped all those people off? Why were there even people there? Why weren‟t they sent away? Why weren‟t they arrested? And why was there a football field reserved for them if there was no party? You don‟t need a football field if there is no party. Yes and surrounding that you could see a lot of coverage. To name one example, the mayor of Haren had removed the street signs because, I thought it would be to prevent destruction but no, it was so that youngsters wouldn‟t know where they were in the village. Because youngsters of course look at street signs to find out where they are, they don‟t have smartphones or a tablet they can‟t use those to find out where they are. Of course it is complete nonsense that they do this and the only effect of it was that again there was a lot of coverage „street signs removed‟. So it became very exciting and if you, on the day itself, when you want everyone to stay away from your village, add that there is a football field reserved you shouldn‟t be surprised that people will turn up in your village. Mathijs: In short you say, the wandering policy, well policy may not be the best term, the wandering behaviour of the mayor, who at first said we will organise a party and later on said we are organising nothing, there is no party, but then there was a football field for if people would show up, that hasn‟t contributed to a clear vision on what could happen. Danny: No, and we should of course talk about what was the case, the problem then. Then Facebook gets involved every time, just like the minister in Germany that blames Facebook. What I did was, together with Thomas Boeschoten, looked at what exactly happened on those social media the days before and on the day of the riots? And what we see then is that in the days before the riot there is hardly any talks about the party or about Haren. Merthe is the least mentioned, I think she will be glad with that, because she can‟t be happy right now I think. But

39 what has happened is the two days before it happened the bombshell was dropped, then there was a lot of attention and I sincerely think that that was the moment that a lot of youngsters thought „Ok, now I‟m going to go there‟ and is that because of Facebook? No. Is it because of traditional media? No. It is because of all of us. But it‟s certainly not because of that Facebookevent that two weeks ago was placed online. Jan: Well, well, it is because of all of us? I have done nothing wrong there. The people that were there because of whatever letter or medium, they don‟t have to destroy mailboxes, do they? It is because of those people who are there, am I right? Danny: But where were the parents of the people who were there? Jan: Yes but at a certain time you are 15, 16, 14, they don‟t have any power anymore. It is their own responsibility, what is it called... Danny: When you‟re 16 already? Jan: ...Personal fault! Alexander: But of course it is true that, we are evaluating now of course, because this is, I don‟t know if anyone has declared it a hype already but let‟s just do that then, it‟s a hype, right? It‟s a hype. Mathijs: It‟s a hype. Alexander: It‟s definitely a hype. Mathijs: It‟s a hype, go on. Alexander: If you have watched the news a bit, how many times have you heard the word Facebook in it, it is unbelievable. Mathijs: Are you talking about after the riots or the the build up to it? Alexander: All of it. Mathijs: Because Danny says that there was actually, I believe that on monday before the friday the first message was in the paper, then not much had happened on Facebook, not until thursday and friday it cut loose. That may be in relation with, that is something we have to look at, that the traditional media, the tv-shows, the newspapers, not one excluded, reports on it. There is a new phenomenon in the air, there is a sort of party going on, it is like that isn‟t it? Danny: Yes but the phenomenon had been released a bit, but then it was about that mayor and the emergency decree, but the emergency decree was not active immediately, it was held back

40 and the street singns were removed. And there was a lot to report on, I get that media get into that very well. Mathijs: In other words: again, Haren itself, because of coming up with new ideas constantly, yes a football field, no football field, removing street signs, constantly generated little messages. Danny: Yes and I thought that there was some sort of strategy behind it but I believe friday or saturday he was at Nieuwsuur, and he was asked what tips would you give to other mayors in other cities where there are also these kinds of parties planned? And then he said as tip, as experience expert, „Have yourself well informed‟. Mathijs: Yes, Oskar Dros, corps chief of region police Groningen in NRC Handelsblad tonight: „We are dealing with a relatively new phenomenon here, the mobilising power of Facebook and Twitter, eh, the mobilising power of Facebook and Twitter, to the police it is still searching how to handle that‟. Alexander: This is unbelievable, right? This is, look, with every new medium that comes, this is the reaction. When the radio was introduced the problem was that people wouldn‟t go to concerts anymore, when the book was introduced, people wouldn‟t get outside anymore because they would be gulped down into the book. This is, I remember a NRC Handelsblad comment that football riots would be because of mobile phones, hooligans can organise via mobile phone. Yes, that is true, that is what internet does, people organise and it is so cool that is is out there. At the same time of course there are disadvantages that come with it. But, the sort of basic reaction from this sort of fossils, to say „yes, this is because of, this is because of the internet and we don‟t really know how to handle that‟, it is such a superseded idea. And if the next step is we have to block the internet because that is then... Mathijs: In Germany but also in the Netherlands there is talks about that. Alexander: But that is, it‟s sort of textbook, this is what happens, every time it‟s the same thing. It are people for whom it all goes too fast and they have the idea, we have to do something about it. And what is the sort of wince they give in to? Let‟s just block the internet then. Mathijs: Alright, but we are left with the pieces of last friday and that those fossils, your words, they still run the show in Haren, they weren‟t washed up to that new medium and the dynamics of it. Alexander: Yes but it‟s not the new medium, it is, that people organise, that was, before the social media, people already organised too. It‟s not new that there are riots, people will find a

41 way to arrange things. The hype that it has become surrounding that internet has something to do with it. To me that completely misses the mark because it has, in that way, it has very little to do with Facebook. It may be on Facebook but it also could have been someone who had posted notes in all Albert Heijns in the Netherlands saying „we are going rioting in Haren‟. Jan: Indeed, Alexander, the Facebook beginning has been enormously encouraged by old media, I mean if you want to blame anyone, but of course they aren‟t to blame either. Alexander: Indeed but of course we like doing this, it‟s „Twitter riots‟ and „Facebook this‟ and it are „Blackberry riots‟... Mathijs: But the old media reported a new, you named the word hype, that it was, so something new rises and we think „darn, how funny, how does that actually work?‟. Alexander: It‟s not new. Danny: Just one more example, Mathijs. There are also people who say that Whatsapp and Ping, with which you can communicate on your mobile phone, should be blocked during those kinds of riots. Those people have not looked at the situation in depth at all because your mobile phone didn‟t have reception in Haren at the time of the riots, you couldn‟t access the internet. So those people don‟t think, they propose something that, in this case, wouldn‟t have had an effect, and with that they can walk away and they don‟t have to take a very close look into what has happened. Mathijs: Let‟s take a look at the traditional media Jan spoke about (clip rolls in which we see different traditional media reporting on Project X) Mathijs: Yes how you feel about this is obvious but as I have said before, we are left with the pieces. And this is De Parool of tonight: „Plan Project X party on canals‟, has been announced already, they are mushrooming everyone wants a party like it. Don‟t ask me why. Alexander: Yes but now it seems as if, I am really getting angry with this, it really seems as if De Parool now thinks, they are just browsing reactions on the internet, but if you look at reactions on the internet, there are a lot of crazies there, that‟s just the truth. You can blow it up to a heading on the frontpage of a newspaper but then you‟re just, kind of, picking needles from a haystack and making it news. Maybe it will go wrong, that‟s a certain possibility but in the article they give the floor to these crazies who say „yes, we will just destroy some things on the canals‟, who is that guy?! Why is he on the frontpage? Jan: Yes but Alexander, you want to silence all those crazies?

Alexander: No. I don‟t think they belong on the frontpage. Jan: But how should one dived then? Mathijs: Those crazies have also made it so that in Haren things got on fire? Alexander: Yes, yes, yes, ok, ok but to draw the conclusion that everyone who says something about this on Twitter, we will put him on the frontpage of the newspaper, this is a hype, this is what a hype is. Mathijs: Ok, good, now this is done, underline it. How will we resolve this? How will we make sure that this can‟t happen again? The mayor, Danny you say, didn‟t really know. This Oskar Dros doesn‟t really know either. It is fair to say that Job Cohen will work with four men and women to see how we can resolve this. What is the solution? Danny: Well, in the first place I wouldn‟t place Job Cohen there because he doesn‟t seem like the person who has a lot of knowledge about this. We have some very good internet entrepreneurs in the Netherlands, I myself am not available because it wouldn‟t be sympathetic if I would say this… Mathijs: How are we going to solve this, Mekic? Danny: Well, get knowledge in. Make sure that you have an Alexander Klöpping there, and he.. Mathijs: And what will Alexander do then? Danny: Alexander will firstly explain what a Facebookevent is, because Michael Jackson‟s funeral had 20 million „attendees‟, people who would be there, well there were a lot but not 20 million. So firstly you will have to look at the actual value of a Facebookevent before we make news of it. Secondly you have to look at the similarities with football riots that are announced beforehand and the strategies that are implied there. There the train will be stopped, they won‟t let you get out at Haren. Jan: Would you be able to assess, in the first skirmishes on Facebook and Twitter, if something is seriously to be judged or ignored? Can you find a sort of system in that? Danny: To be honest, I can‟t. But what the police does do and can is if something is happening, if there are a lot of people somewhere who fart around, then they can look on the internet to see if anything is happening there, they get there information from there. another reason you shouldn‟t block it because it is of use if they say „all of us are going left now‟ for example. No you can never say with 100% certainty how and what but the goal here should have been not making up all sorts of stories on Facebook but to make sure that those crazies stayed out of that

43 village, they have no reason to be there, emergency decree, ban on alcohol, ban on meetings, get out of there, you have no reason to be there on friday night there is no party but there was an entire football field prepared, that shouldn‟t have happened. They have to look, in every step of the way, in this story, what effect, and on the media, but maybe mostly on those boys and girls that went there. Jan: Sorry but when you surround and shield that entire village, they will move on to the next village, won‟t they? Danny: I don‟t know. Jan: It‟s hard though. Danny: I would just drive on, don‟t let the trains stop and then you will end up in the big city Jan: In Delftzijl you can destroy whatever you want. Danny: Yes or take the hooligan approach. I believe with hooligans they put them in the woods, they should have used shuttle buses, get in, we will drop you of there and you can walk 20 kilometers. Mathijs: Last contribution, Alexander Klöpping. Alexander: Yes I think that eventually there are three things. On one side you always need some influencers who talk about this, that could be media, that could also be very popular Twitter followers, that is condition number one for such a thing. Condition number two is that it is sexy, this is sexy because there was a movie about it and everyone is a bit like „oh, just like in the movie, that is fun‟. Condition number three is that all sorts of traditional media build context around it, so both De wereld draait door and Pownews, all of them have given context and that is the last push, that is all you need. And you only need a few people at the wrong places and something like that can get completely out of hand. And that can go wrong but I also think like at the Tahir square people have organised and that‟s something we are very happy with. It has both good and bad sides. Mathijs: That‟s all, thank you.