/Running bullshit like a matador
One of the most interesting (at least, on the domestic side) by products of the civil unrest in Iran has been, of course, the way mainstream media outlets like CNN and BBC have responded to and reported on it -- that is to say, with varying levels of success.
BoingBoing's Xeni Jardin seems to think that we're getting the short end of some sort of journalistic stick, explaining that "[...] cable news networks seem to be having a grand time pointing to random Facebook and MySpace status updates, for lack of better understanding of Iranian online culture," before linking people to a reading list compiled by Iranian-American journalist Cyrus Farivar.
Farivar's list is fine, and includes some of the sites I've been using to keep up ... except that it contains several links to Twitter feeds, Time, Wired, and HuffingtonPost. The very types of sites Jardin was railing on in her previous post.
So, because Facebook and MySpace are the laughing stocks of web-savy e-hipsters, Twitter, Flickr, and tumblr blogs represent a "better understanding of Iranian online culture?" I hate to break it to you, Xeni, but Facebook status updates are every bit as valid as Twitter feeds (because they're the same goddamned thing), and making some arbitrary distinction -- because one is cool and the other isn't -- isn't fair or even logical. Either there's a social media revolution going on or there isn't -- I think there is, and it certainly isn't confined to @persiankiwi.
My larger point, however, is that mainstream media's appropriation and utilization of Facebook and MySpace is a positive thing. In an industry that so often thumbs its nose (as Jardin does towards Facebook) at any non-traditional news source -- and even, according to Anil Dash, people who don't speak Standard English -- media's willingness to take social media into account is a step forward.
[image via Boston.com; pithy title courtesy of Cadence Weapon]
