I was thinking the other day about the rise of social media and its impact on the news reported. Of course we cannot ignore the influence twitter and facebook has had on organizing protests during the Arab spring, and after, and how these tools have made activism that much easier. Even looking at the protests currently happening in Sudan, information on which activists have been arrested, released etc. mainly happens through twitter and facebook (and another example is the case of Safia ElHag whom if she hadn’t been on youtube, might not have received as much support as she did and would probably still be in Sudan).
However, given all that, I find the current trend to take social media as a source of the news a bit restrictive. In my opinion it does provide first hand observation of events happening on the ground, which is very important in places where freedom of press is all but non-existent, is an excellent resource for activism/organization, and letting others know, but is not comprehensive.
This is especially true whenever I read stuff about South Sudan- and especially blogs- (unfortunately, this happens even in the mass media) inconsistencies drawn from a narrowed pool of ‘informants’ or narrowed point of view. Often it seems like the person who shouts (or blogs) the loudest is rewarded as the ‘expert’ or ‘spokesperson, suppressing any alternative viewpoint or in some cases, ‘truth’. Whereas so many events in South Sudan are nuanced- or tempered by what else is happening.
For example, we’ll never know why we went into Heglig, but anyone who’d been in Juba and experienced the euphoria after we turned off the oil (talk being ‘we survived without money during the war what’s to stop us now, no more exploitation, we will sacrifice, we have many friends…etc), would not at all have been that surprised that we would overplay our hand, at a time when we did not even have a diplomatic corps to manage the reaction. But, if you read the blogs…and the propaganda, what you get is everyone’s reinterpretation, which is why to-date we aren’t sure of whether we withdrew or were kicked out (where’s the reporting? I fear we are relying on a few spokespersons. Is it really that hard to determine something like this?) Anyway, Im digressing…
Where im I going with this? Not sure. I think im just ranting. I guess im also stating that this is not at all a ‘political blog’ because… we’ll we’d rather just shoot the shit and talk about everyday shit. Of course, in the Sudans every day shit almost always turns political, but I’d like to be very clear that for me, most of what I write is subjective and my opinion. I mainly hope to write about the things that happen to me on a regular basis that make me either laugh or think about how fcked up my country is. But its just that.
