Facebook, Gay Rights and the New Politics of Social Media

In case you needed further proof that Facebook truly is revolutionary, look no further. On Thursday, the social networking giant added two new options to its list of relationship status possibilities: "in a civil union" and "in a domestic partnership."

Wowza.

It's a small change, technically speaking, but one with enormous political significance. For those not in the know, Facebook allows you to indicate the status of your romantic attachments on your personal profile. Until now, those options included "single, in a relationship, married, engaged, it's complicated, in an open relationship, widowed, separated, and divorced."

But now that's all history. For while "in a relationship" does encompass any number of relationship types (including civil unions and domestic partnerships), couples -- particularly homosexual ones -- can now state the specific nature of their "relationship" for the record.

The new feature is being received with open arms by gay and lesbian advocacy groups, who view it as a sign of support for gay rights.

"When millions of Facebook users see these relationship status options, they gain a greater understanding of the legal inequalities faced by loving and committed same-sex couples in so many states today," said Jarrett Barrios, president the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, in statement e-mailed to The San Francisco Chronicle.

In short, Facebook just made a political statement.

Of course, the idea that Facebook and other social networking sites can have political salience shouldn't be news to anyone who's been following what's been going on in the Middle East over the past month. As my colleague Donna Trussell wrote in a recent post, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have been an integral part of political upheaval and change in the Middle East in countries ranging from Iran to Tunisia to Egypt and beyond.

Beyond the ease of use, there are other reasons that social media lend themselves to political participation. In a recent article for The International Herald Tribune, Chrystia Freeland describes recent research in economics which shows how social networking sites such as Facebook help to overcome barriers to political mobilization. In brief, by revealing that a sufficient number of people share their beliefs (for say, regime change), individuals are empowered to revolt in large numbers because they that know others will join them.

It's also the case that people in social networking sites tend to cluster in groups that are ideologically similar to them. Although the empirical research on this is still in preliminary stages, political Scientists Brian J. Gaines and Jeffrey J. Mondak have shown that online networking groups do share some features of more traditional "real world" networking groups, especially when it comes to politics.

But what interests me is how social networking sites such as Facebook aren't just serving as focal points for political organization, but emerging as political actors in their own right. Increasingly, we are seeing social media inserting themselves into political debates and trying to shape outcomes.

Take the case of Facebook and the civil partnership issue, for example. According to the Huffington Post's Bianca Bosker, who broke the Facebook story, the relationship status changes were made in consultation with Facebook's Network of Support, a group that includes LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] organizations such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, and the Human Rights Campaign.

So this was not the case of Facebook accidentally wading into the thicket of the gay marriage debate. Rather, the company was deliberately taking a stand on this thorny issue and coming down squarely on the side of gay rights.

Or take Google's actions in Egypt last month. At one point when the Mubarak government shut down Internet access, Google devised a special workaround with Twitter called Speak2Tweet.The service enabled users to dial a telephone number and leave a voice mail, which was automatically translated into an audio file message that was sent on Twitter with the hash tag #egypt.

A source familiar with the matter apparently said that Google was not taking sides in the crisis in Egypt, but simply supporting access to information. But under the circumstances, it's hard not to interpret those as one and the same.

In a speech earlier this week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton extolled the virtues of an open Internet as a central plank in the Obama administration's foreign policy vision. She mentioned the Civil Society 2.0 initiative -- which connects NGOs and advocates with technology and training -- as well as new Twitter feeds from the U.S. government in Arabic, Farsi, Chinese, Russian and Hindi.

In light of what's going on in the world, these initiatives sound both timely and appropriate. But Mrs. Clinton should also know that the world of social media is no longer just the medium. It's also now the message.

U.S. call for internet freedom two-faced: Dutch media

By Shailesh Shukla

19th Feb 2011

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent comments that the United States will stand up for uncensored, global access to the Internet have drawn some criticism in the Netherlands.

Clinton's "powerful words" on Tuesday, Radio Netherlands Worldwide said in a report published Thursday, "are in marked contract with U.S. reality."

Radio Netherlands Worldwide said in its report that there has been "fierce criticism" of American Internet policy, and the U.S. is itself working on a law to shut down the Internet.

"In the U.S., Wikileaks is regarded as a threat to national security," the report said. "Contrary to official policy, Washington in practice does very little to promote or guarantee internet freedom."

The report also mentioned that "the operation known as the "Internet kill switch" was a dream of former President George W. Bush.

The president was to be granted power to declare a "state of cyber emergency" in which all connections with the outside world would be cut.

The bill does not include shutting down the entire Internet, just the lines that are controlled by the private sector. The bill, which has the backing of both Republicans and Democrats, will be discussed again this year.

Media wars: Will state-run coverage change post-Mubarak Egypt?

By Shailesh Shukla

19th Feb. 2011

The Egyptian media landscape will begin to break political taboos in the aftermath of the revolution, but it will not succeed in breaking religious taboos, and doubts over radical changes in the media landscape are strong.

During the 18 days when millions of Egyptians took to the streets, eventually forcing political strongman Hosni Mubarak to leave office, a war of images was taking place in which the pro-Mubarak media went on the offensive.

State-owned media as well as some private satellite channels portrayed the hundreds of thousands of protesters as a minority and systematically attacked the protesters, accusing them of having external “agendas” and working for foreign parties.

Recently, rights group, journalists and political activists have created a number of online sources documenting what they see as the forces that supported the regime of the former president.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) launched a websitewith a blacklist of Egyptian journalists, artists and public figures who supported Mubarak and were against the popular revolution.

Meanwhile, one day after Mubarak’s resignation, state television issued a statement apologizing and backtracking from their pro-Mubarak coverage.

The statement congratulated “the Egyptian people for their pure, great revolution led by the best of the Egyptian youth."

“The mood of the television-watching Egyptian public veered from support of the protesters’ demands to a desire to return to normalcy to sympathy with the beleaguered president and back again,” wrote journalist Ursula Lindsey.

Within ten days, Egypt’s flagship paper Al-Ahram, which has the largest distribution in the nation, had changed its headline of “Millions are asking Mubarak to stay,” to "The people ousted the regime" on 12 February.

Political and religious taboos

Experts argue that the revolution will make it easier for the media to limit political taboos.

“Political red lines are decreasing because the forces that have been taking part in the revolution are imposing conditions and one of them was to force the state-run media to change its longstanding sympathy for Mubarak,” said Emad Mubarak, director of the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression.

However, due to the relative tolerance of Egypt’s new military rulers for the Muslim Brotherhood, Mubarak believes religious taboos will continue.

“In 18 days of revolution you can’t tell that a massive social change has been taking place. The main characteristics of the Egyptian society concerning the religious views are still the same,” argued Mohamed Badaway a literary critic and professor at Cairo University.

Following the decision of Egypt's Supreme Armed Forces Council to form a committee to amend specific articles of the 1971 constitution, various political and social forces declared their rejection of any amendment to the provision concerning Islamic law as Egypt's source of legislation.

“Islam is the Religion of the State. Arabic is its official language, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia)," Article 2 of the Constitution reads.

The article has been under fierce discussions and debate, especially given the 10 percent Christian minority in Egypt that has often been marginalized.

On Wednesday, Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb, the highest religious authority in the Sunni-Muslim world, said that Islamic law should remain the principle source of legislation in Egypt's post-Mubarak era.

On the same day, the Salafi movement in Egypt held its first public conference warning against any attempts to amend Article 2.

“There is consensus among a wide array of our contacts--politicians, academics, analysts, and "ordinary" Egyptians--that Salafism is on the rise, with some characterizing it as "a wave sweeping the country" and "nothing short of a major societal shift," according to a US diplomatic cable.

“These moves do tell you that religious conservatism is trying to dominate and the Egyptian masses that went to the street weren’t concerned with engaging critically with them,” argued Badaway. “The protesters were keen to show that religion can coexist with modern political demands and there were keen to keep a progressive image of religion.”

Changing the media landscape

Some experts believe that it’s too early to anticipate the implications of the revolution on the state-run media, especially during a transitional period that may not necessarily lead to true democratic changes.

“We are in an ambiguous situation where no radical changes are expected to be initiated by the military to change Egypt’s authoritative political system,” said Hassan Nafaa, professor of political science at Cairo University.

Nafaa suggested that Egypt is in need of another strategy based on a longer transitional period led by a civilian council headed by Defense Minister Mohamed Tantawi and a crisis coalition government.

Such strategy will lead all the components of civil society to negotiate for better political and economic benefits, according to Mubarak who went on to argue that “struggles with the state-run media are ongoing and we need time to see the outcomes of these struggles.”

Hundreds of Egyptian TV news desk employees and workers demonstrated for the first time against the flawed coverage of the revolution, forcing Egyptian Minister of Information Anas al-Feki to resign.

Journalists of the state-owned news agency (MENA) rallied against the pro-Mubarak editorial policy, accusing their editor-in-chief of corruption.

And employees at the Al-Gomhouriya daily and its evening paper Al-Masaa, as well as of the Rose al-Youssef newspaper, held a protest rally demanding changes in their editorial boards, new editors, and a revision of the publication policy to reflect the demands of the people.

Some 300 journalists from Al-Ahram sought to publish an apology to readers.

“They (pro-Mubarak editors) are in a deep crisis right now. They can’t get rid of their notorious stances against the revolution. Now because they are just hypocrites, they think that condemning Mubarak is enough for them to stay in their offices,” said Abdel Galil el-Sharnouby, editor-in-chief of the Muslim Brotherhood official website Islam Online.

However, state-run newspapers are not expected to face a radical change from within.

“Yes they (state-run media) are attacking Mubarak now, but this is because the whole atmosphere is against Mubarak,” said Badawy. “There is no real change. State media always function as a governmental body. This is part of the authoritative political system designed by the Egyptian Revolution of 1952.”

One of the characteristics of the Egyptian political system after 1952 is the various tactics used to dominate the media.

Prominent independent media figure Hamdy Kandil said the first step in achieving a free media environment is to abolish the Ministry of Information.

“The Radio and Television Union (RTU) is the ruling body in Egypt over the state-owned channels and experience tells us that having a minister of information forces the RTU to be a government body,” Kandil told Al-Masry Al-Youm.

Arab countries such as Qatar, UAE, Jordon, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco don’t have a ministry that controls the media.

“In both state-run TV and press, there is a need to restructure the whole landscape and this strategy is not applicable in this very moment,” said Mubarak.

“Only one condition could push the media freedoms forward, which is to have a battle of media workers seeking to transform the state-run media into a democratic platform that reflects a variety of ideas.”

Social media usage differs by gender

By Shailesh Shukla

Friday, 19 February 2011

A new survey reveals that men prefer instant messaging to communicate with colleagues and customers away from the workplace while women gravitate towards social media.

Business communications company Fonality has released its Working from Home report, which saw market research agency Pure Profile survey 1000 Australians aged 18 to 64 about their preferred work communication channels.

According to the survey 25% of men say they would use IM for work compared to 18% of women but 21% of women tend to use social media for work-related matters while only 16% of men do the same.

On average 15% of Australians use a mobile phone to access work emails with the younger generation more likely to do so than their older counterparts, 22% of Generations Y and X access work emails on their mobiles compared to 6% of baby boomers.

Members of Generation Y are the most avid users of IM and video conferencing, reporting figures of 46% and 15% respectively.

Generation X is most comfortable using social media such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook for work purposes.

The survey highlights a shift away from fixed line phone connections to mobile-only connections, a significant trend for home-based businesses.

A third of people aged 55 to 64 are most likely to use fixed lines for work-related phone calls from home and 74% of those aged 18 to 34 prefer to use mobiles.

According to Marc Englaro, managing director of Fonality Australia, the survey demonstrates the extent to which office communications have evolved beyond email and landline calls.

“There are clear generational and gender preferences businesses have to cater for if they want to maximise their workforce productivity,” Englaro says.

According to Englaro younger generations are typically more content to complete work after hours – using various communication channels – because they are more comfortable with technology generally.

“Small to medium sized businesses (can) benefit from a cost-effective solution that allows employees to use communication channels such as email, mobile, VoIP and instant messaging regardless of their location,” he says.

“With many young Australians going mobile-only support for smart phones also presents a way to attract and retain talent in today’s competitive labour market.”

Anglaro says start-ups are typically more aligned to communication technology because the business often consists of a small group of people working long hours and from different locations.

He believes start-ups have an opportunity to maintain a high level of communication after hours because there is no pre-existing model dictating when staff should and shouldn’t be contactable.

The Facebook revolution is changing how ordinary people relate to political activism

Waseem Wagdi, an Egyptian protester in London, tearfully described his feelings last month about the uprising in Egypt, saying: "It is something I had hoped against all hope to happen in my life time. I have hoped and I think with millions of people that our children will live in a more humane society...".

Wagdi's emotional statement would be echoed by Wael Ghonim, the former Google executive, who also broke into tears while describing his commitment to the Egyptian democracy movement in terms of liberty or death.

When Hosni Mubarak's resignation on Feb. 11 marked the birth of a new democracy, all of Egypt erupted into noise of cries and tears. These expressions of emotion, amplified by traditional as well as new media, will play a significant role in the making of new politics in the Middle East. From now on, any account of historical events without consideration of public display of emotions by ordinary people will be rendered incomplete.

In many ways, such expression of emotions in public places like Tahrir Square have shaped a new life in the virtual world, where emotional scenes of everyday people like Wagdi and Ghonim are quickly circulated and watched by millions around the world. The "Facebook Revolution" is the radical change in political activism. Social network websites like Facebook and Twitter are changing how people can relate to dramatic experiences with unprecedented influences across the globe, creating worldwide social solidarity in cyberspace.

While the future of Egyptian government is an open question, there is no doubt that passion echoed in satellite TVs and social media was the engine of the social uprising in Egypt. (Vice President Suleiman warned the protesters on Feb. 10 not to listen to satellite TV.)

Of course emotions did not run in a vacuum. As the image of Ghonim green wristband appeared on the TV and computer screens, the much repressed Green movement activists in Iran are bound to feel an upsurge of emotions that might instigate yet another collective protest against their own system of governance.

Society for New Communications Research Announces 2011 Fellows

Global nonprofit research and education foundation and think tank focused on the latest developments in media and communications welcomes sixth group of Fellows.

Shailesh Shukla

February 18, 2011

The Society for New Communications Research, a global, nonprofit think tank focused on the latest developments in media and communications, today announced its 2011-2012 Fellows (http://sncr.org/fellows/). These new Fellows join an impressive group of more than 100 Founding Fellows, Senior Fellows and alumni who are business leaders, scholars, professional communicators, members of the media, futurists and technologists from around the globe. The SNCR Fellows collaborate on research initiatives, educational offerings, and the establishment of standards and best practices focused on the advanced study of emerging trends and developments in media and communications, and their effect on business, media, culture and society.

The new class of SNCR Fellows includes: Jeffrey Edlund, CTO Communications and Media Solutions, HP; Jennifer Edwards, assistant professor of communication studies, Tarleton State University; Atanu Garai, consultant for India's Population Council; Egle Kvieskaite, EU project manager, Vilnius Pedagogical University and director of the Lithuanian College of Democracy; Alicia Nieva-Woodgate, managing director, ANW Networks, LLC; Ingrid Sturgis, assistant professor, Howard University; and Dan York, director of conversations, Voxeo Corporation.

In 2011, the Fellows will focus on a number of important issues through their projects, including: mobile payments, gaming technology in the classroom; social media and public policy, the use of social media to address health issues in developing countries, using social networks to help enterprises better understand the level of intimacy of their social relationships, millennial students' use of social media and their expectations for social media in the workplace; the effects of social media on Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD), the value of multi-channel communications, and changes in journalism and media.

"We are very pleased and honored to welcome our sixth group of Fellows," said Jen McClure, founder and president, SNCR. "They come from top companies, universities and organizations from around the world and bring an incredible depth and breadth of knowledge and expertise to our organization. We are looking forward to working with this group of Fellows to continue to produce valuable new research and educational offerings exploring the latest developments in communications and their impact on business, culture and society."

About the Society for New Communications Research

The Society for New Communications Research is a global nonprofit 501(c)(3) research and education foundation and think tank focused on the advanced study of the latest developments in new media and communications and their effect on business, culture and society. SNCR is dedicated to creating a bridge between the academic and theoretical pursuit of these topics and the pragmatic implementation of new media and communications tools and methodologies. For more information, visit http://sncr.org or call (408) 266-9658.