Diplomacy, Journalism, and the New Media

The immediacy, interactivity, and accessibility of new technologies have changed the rules of the game.

Much of what is new in contemporary diplomacy may one way or another be attributed to the emergence of the internet. Over the space of about 20 years, it has displaced other venues as the principal medium for global information exchange and interaction. As more and more people look to the web as a primary source of information and communication (via email, social networking, video conferencing, telephony, etc.), and as higher transmission speeds and greater bandwidth expand audio and visual streaming possibilities, communications media are converging. In recent years, the internet has edged out newspapers, TV, radio, and conventional telephones as the primary communications medium. Current Web 2.0 applications, featuring an emphasis on networks, wikis, interactivity, file sharing, and downloadable “podcasts” – in marked contrast to the simple Web 1.0 presentation of static information – promise to further accelerate this trend.

The power and pervasiveness of the new media can be striking. There are believed to be some five billion cellphones registered globally, and an increasing number of those are “smart” miniature computers with full online functionality. It is estimated that 30.2 per cent of the world’s population now has internet access, and that figure is growing especially quickly in Asia, Latin America, and Africa – regions that still lag significantly behind North America (78.3 per cent) and Europe (58.3 per cent).

A new report targets the likes of Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft, Skype, and Cisco for their role in aiding China's "Great Firewall" of internet censorship. Learn more here.

To offer just a sampling of the implications: Beginning in the second half of the 1990s, campaigns on the web played a critical role in publicizing and catalyzing the anti-globalization movement, they stopped the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, they have changed the outcome of elections, and they have provided unprecedented profile to consular cases. It has also been widely reported – if somewhat contested – that cellphones, text messages, Blackberries, and social-networking sites played a significant role in mobilizing the forces behind the “Arab Spring” uprisings in the Middle East earlier this year. Furthermore, given the much higher rates of usage in the U.K., these technologies almost certainly played an even larger role in facilitating the planning and execution of the summer 2011 riots in that region.

Today, anyone with a mobile phone or digital camera and the ability to upload content can become a reporter. Think of the first images we saw of 9/11 in 2001, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, the 2007 pro-democracy uprising in Burma, the 2008 anti-Chinese rioting in Llahsa, Tibet, suicide bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the unrest throughout the Greater Middle East in 2011. Almost none of that initial visual content was provided by journalists employed by large corporate news organizations such as the BBC, CNN, or Al Jazeera. Most of it was unmediated. And almost none of it could be effectively suppressed by local authorities.