Al Jazeeraification

Al Jazeera is the unquestionable leader of news in the Arab world.  Thanks to the rise of the internet, more and more people have been given access to Al Jazeera's media coverage.  However, the news outlet is not without its critics, as many view Al Jazeera as an agent for disseminating pro terrorist/extremist propaganda.  Regardless of what one believes Al Jazeera to be, it is undeniable that they captivate their audience through the use of violent images of war.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/12/2011121512028408950.html

Yet, while their sometimes extremely violent pictures and videos leave audiences stunned and sometimes appalled, Al Jazeera also goes to extreme lengths to inform those who are watching their network or visiting their website.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2011/06/201162215293134264.html - Interactive Afghanistan War.  Death tolls by province, year, and line graph of troop levels.

http://www.aljazeera.com/video/middleeast/2011/12/20111215194513604821.html - Video providing Bush administration assertions Pre - invasion of Iraq and post invasion/occupation truths.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/spotlight/2011/10/201110771321874374.html - Interactive 10 years of war in Afghanistan timeline featuring analysis and images.

Still, many believe that Al Jazeera holds an inherent negative bias towards the United States, and it would be unfair to deny that such bias is non existent.  It must be remembered that Al Jazeera is, at its core, a business whose purpose is to make money.  Since the vast majority of their fan base resides in the Middle East, they would be poor businessmen to not provide the people of the Middle East with the slant that they want.  Having a certain "slant" or "bias" about a story may make being objectionable about a story more difficult, but it does not necessarily make it impossible.

The United States media has covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in a similar fashion to Al-Jazeera.  While the American media has unquestionably DISCUSSED and COVERED negative events surrounding American troops, such as the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib, or the more recent massacre of Afghan civilians allegedly at the hands of a lone Army Sargent, they have done so with a definite bias.  Furthermore, the news media failed to show images of American service members' coffins when they were brought back home to be buried.  This failure to show the negative effects of war from the American perspective was a clear evidence of bias, and an attempt by the news media to control the opinion of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What was all the talk about Kony 2012?

KONY 2012

In the past 10-20 years social media has become one of the most predominant sources for news. Anyone who has a Facebook knows that if any monumental event has happened you will find out on Facebook before you even watch the news. This is essential in realizing how significant Facebook, twitter and YouTube have become. After researching the anti- war Vietnam movement that took place during the 60s and early 70’s, I can’t help imagine that movement taking place during the social media era during the present time. The impact that social networking has on the nation could have potentially been the difference in the overthrow of the government. An example of just how fast and popular the social networking transcends on a topic is the KONY 2012 campaign. I, like many others, were not aware of the situations going on in Uganda. But on March 5^th 2012 when a 30-minute video went up on YouTube, made by the Invisible Children Organization, soon after it reached over 60 million viewers. The fact that the video went viral so fast intrigues many and signifies the extraordinary impact that social networking has and could potentially have on various issues.

KONY 2012 -1:45

 The video describes a story of Uganda’s notorious leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Joseph Kony, who is accused of kidnapping thousands of children and turning them into sex slaves and child soldiers. The main idea of the video is to encourage America to capture Kony. Although many have mixed feelings on the subject the idea that so many were intrigued by the video and ready to use action really foreshadows how movements are going to evolve in the next generations to come. It’s an impressive video and I’d encourage you to watch it if you haven’t yet already; just to see what all of the buzz was about.

According to a study by the Pew Research Center, social media played a critical role, especially for young adults under the age of 30.  The study shows how the “Kony 2012″ video and information about it reached so many Americans in a relatively short period of time.  A few key findings:

           - Nearly two-thirds of survey participants heard about the video from some online source.

           - 27% of adults under the age of 30 heard about the video social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

            -Nearly 5 million tweets about the video occurred in the week following its release on March 5, 2012.

Overall, the internet was more than three times as important as traditional media (i.e. television, newspaper, radio) in spreading the news about the video for adults.