Does #Iran Elections Plus Twitter Equal Democracy?

We Are the News

We are the news. We are the message. We are the messengers.
We are also the media makers.

In an interview this morning, I mentioned how the internet and specifically Twitter has changed the nature and the landscape for how we acquire information. In particular how we acquire and consume our “news.”

Traditional “broadcast media” like CNN or MSNBC must to evolve if they are to compete with the real time stream of first person accounts and observations streamed on Qik, posted YouTube, and tweeted live from all over the world.

With the media and Internet blackout imposed by Iran’s government after the 2009 national #Iran Elections, the daily events surrounding the public’s outrage and protests have been almost silenced.

News of the Iran Elections has shared public accounts thru the media blackout via cellular communications, twitter accounts, YouTube videos posted from Iranian cell users depict a disturbing story.

Media Blackout
The world media outlets would best be served streaming an aggregated, edited compilation of these user accounts “as the news.”

The Iran Elections is not the first, nor will it be the last time that real time information is broadcast and shared via the Internet.

It first made news when a California Berkeley student traveling in Egypt was arrested and sent the tweet heard round the world that led to his quick release.

In Moldova, Georgia April 2009, 10,000 protesters organized a march and take over the Presidential Palace. Organizers were expecting 1,000.

In Mumbai, India in the Fall of 2008 the public recorded and shared their observations as terrorist assaulted the GRAND HOTEL??? and other locations.

Transparency as Real Time Democracy
Now in an effort to ensure Democracy, the voices of those in Iran are relying on the Internet and cell phone to capture and share the tumultuous events following the Iran Elections.

News happens when we see it, when we make it, when we capture it.

The headline from The Economist says it all: “Twitter 1, CNN 0″.

Birth of the Netizens

The Internet is enabling a rapid change in what is now “citizen generated news:” or netizen. Hopefully commercial broadcast media will evolve fast enough to organize and report it back to us as “All the News That Fits to Twit.”

We are the news. Live it. Capture it. Share it. Remix it.

Related Links
#Iran Elections on Twitter Search: Here
#Iran Elections News from Google News: Click here
#Iran Elections on YouTube: Here

Mumbai Attacks See First Tweets on Tweetip.tumblr.com: Click Here
Mumbai Attacks on YouTube: Watch here

Moldova Protests Twitter on Mahalo: Learn here
Moldova Protests and Twitter on YouTube: Watch here
Moldova Protests and Twitter on New york Times NYT: Read here

Moldova Protests on Twitter: See here

Twitter’s effect on Foreign Policy (Moldova): Read here
Social Media’s effect on Foreign Policy: Search here

Amos White is an Internet Marketing Evangelist and public speaker.
Follow Amos on Twitter @Mos42 and on his blog http://amoswhite3.wordpress.com.

4G Wireless Evolution – Memo to the Press

“Yes, the Web has changed the economics of the newspaper business, but it doesn’t have to mean the end of newspapers — just the end of the business as it is currently conducted. Wireless can do for newspapers what it is in the process of doing for books.”

- Tom Wheeler, Managing Director – Core Capital Partners

Read the full post at  4G Wireless Evolution – Memo to the Press.

How to Save Newspapers (Or, Why the NYT Should Acquire Twitter) – Umair Haque – HarvardBusiness.org

Death of a newspaper is a frightening thought in a “free” society.

However, can newspapers evolve through the current crises plummeting readership and ad revenues?

Umair Haque posts on the HarvardBusiness.org an open challenge to the dying Fourth Estate.

How to Save Newspapers (Or, Why the NYT Should Acquire Twitter) – Umair Haque – HarvardBusiness.org.

The title says it all.