Mohammed Nabbous and International Citizen Journalism in Libya
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Vlogging from the War Zone: Mohammed Nabbous and International Citizen Journalism in Libya by Amanda Alexis Lindsey Beckett B.A., The University of British Columbia, 2009 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (Science and Technology Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) August 2013 © Amanda Alexis Lindsey Beckett, 2013 Abstract This thesis focuses on Mohammed Nabbous, a Libyan citizen who produced widely circulated reports during the first month of the revolution which overthrew Muammar Gaddafi, after his over forty years in power. Nabbous’ work is a generative example of citizen journalism, and what Media Scholar Ethan Zuckerman terms bridge blogging. Nabbous was one of many contributors who overcame barriers to communication, including government blocks to Internet access to provide vital on-the-ground information to outside news agencies during the Libyan uprising. Though there are significant differences, what occurred in Libya can be situated and contextualized regionally as part of a series of revolutions in the Middle East in 2010-2011 – a period often referred to as “the Arab Spring.” Nabbous’ role as source and citizen journalist provides rich terrain in which to analyze emerging definitions of journalism and debates over the role of and need for foreign correspondents. Nabbous was killed while covering a firefight in Benghazi only one month into what became an eight month long civil war in Libya. In the week after his death, some of those who eulogized Nabbous on Twitter debated whether his contributions merited acknowledgement as works of journalism, and whether Nabbous had in fact been a journalist. This thesis analyzes 500 of the most widely distributed Twitter messages which eulogize Nabbous, and draws on the wider context of debates about professionalization, news media, changes to the news industry, and journalism ethics. ii Preface This dissertation is original, unpublished, independent work by the author, Amanda Alexis Lindsey Beckett. iii Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................... ii Preface ................................................................................................................................................ iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgments ..............................................................................................................................v Dedication .......................................................................................................................................... vi 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 The Arab Spring........................................................................................................................ 1 1.2 International Reporting is Dead ............................................................................................... 4 1.3 Long Live International Reporting........................................................................................... 8 1.4 Gatekeeping and Framing in the Network ............................................................................ 13 1.5 The New Non-Journalism ....................................................................................................... 17 1.6 Objectivity ............................................................................................................................... 20 1.7 Rethinking Objectivity ............................................................................................................ 23 1.8 The Network ............................................................................................................................ 27 1.9 BridgeBlogging and Networked Societies ............................................................................ 31 1.9 Wither Journalism Objectivity? ............................................................................................. 34 2. The Journalist in the Vlogger .................................................................................................. 37 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 37 2.2 Background ............................................................................................................................ 38 2.2 Tweets ..................................................................................................................................... 39 2.2.1 Content Categories .......................................................................................................... 40 2.2.2 Pointless Babble .............................................................................................................. 41 2.2.3 Journalist, Citizen, or Source? ........................................................................................ 42 2.2.4 The Martyr in the Journalist ............................................................................................ 44 2.3 Livestream .............................................................................................................................. 46 2.3.1 The International Reporter .............................................................................................. 48 2.4 Rethinking Journalism Objectivity ........................................................................................ 51 3. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 53 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................................... 55 iv Acknowledgments I offer endless gratitude to the faculty, staff and students of the department of Science and Technology Studies at UBC. I am grateful for support from the departments of Philosophy, History, and English, and the UBC Graduate School of Journalism. I owe particular thanks to Dr. Candis Callison and Dr. Taylor Owen for their direction and support throughout my degree and in writing this thesis. I would also like to thank Dr. John Beatty and Dr. Alan Richardson for their encouragement and advice, and for inspiring me in my study of science and technology. My gratitude also extends to Professor Alfred Hermida for always inspiring me to better writing and better reporting. Finally to my colleagues in the first year of Science and Technology Studies at UBC, thank you for being a strong and vibrant community; even if we were a community of five. v Dedication I dedicate this thesis to A. Patrick who kept me going through the thick and thin, through the days and nights of writing and research. Thank you. vi 1. Introduction 1.1 The Arab Spring After two-and-a-half weeks of protests in the heart of Cairo, Egypt, the world watched as president Hosni Mubarak relinquished control of the country on February 11, 2011. Not only was the world watching, but we were listening for the first time to the voices on the streets, thousands of miles away. The Egyptian people followed the path taken by Tunisians a month before, planning and organizing peaceful protests in an effort to oust their leader, all the while painting a digital picture that Facebook and Twitter users watched from a distance. The scene had been set by the Iranians two years earlier, in 2009, when Twitter was branded as an important factor in what would be months of protests following presidential elections which saw President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad re-elected. While the Iranian protests never amounted to an overthrow of government, the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings had once again inspired international pundits to proclaim a “Twitter Revolution” (Myers, 2011; Lister, 2011; Morozov, 2011). Social media seemed to be coming of age as the linchpin of free speech that had been hoped for (Morozov. 20011). These successful revolutions kindled hope among others in the region who longed for political change. Following Egypt and Tunisia, on January 27th protestors hit the streets in Yemen, on February 14th Bahrain, and on February 15th the fervor of potential revolution hit Libya. These revolutions, and the media enthusiasm that surrounded them, ignited what was quickly coined “the Arab Spring.” But while the protests in Tunisia and Egypt had been mostly peaceful and had led to revolution after a matter of weeks, Bahrain, Yemen, and Libya saw the Arab Spring wear on into a winter, and watched the weeks slip into months, and even years (Joffé, 2011A). Rebels and protestors took to Internet-based platforms, including blogs and in particular social media like Facebook and Twitter to tell their own stories. While it mustn't be forgotten that the revolutions of the Arab Spring were wholly orchestrated and 1 enacted by people who risked life as they knew it for the change they hoped for, social media served as a portal through which the outside world shared a cooled, telescopic experience of events on the streets. Among those voices reaching out to far-flung audiences from Libya was computer