Videosequences from the Bambuser
Over the last few months, live video social media apps has been used to broadcast live from public protests, demonstrations and riots. What will this mean for the future protest practice. Does this mean that a mobile phone will become equally important as burning trashcans and flying stones. We are not there yet but there seems to be a trend to cover protests and demonstrations using cheap and simple social media apps. A quick browse through the one such social media site´s archieves resulted in a set of short live video sequences from protests in Norway, Sweden and Georgia (!!).
In a the fieldstudy, done by myself and my colleague Fredrik Bergstrand, of the protests at the Sweden-Israel tennis-game in Malmö this winter, we observed how a minute-by-minute live text-feed was used by both the protesters and government agencies to follow the events. Now when mobile live video broadcasting has started to become more and more used, will such videos in a similar way. One thing is for sure, the use of social media apps as part of public protests has changed the power dynamics between the protestors and governement agencies. Just look how Twitter was and is used as part of the public protests in Iran. Have a look how Facebook is used to broadcast from the protests.
Katrin Verclas, founder of MobileActive.org is using Twitter to broadcast and re-cast info about the latest developments in Iran.