Streets to screens: conflict, social media and the news

Abstract

In November 2014, the conference ‘Streets to Screens: Mediating conflict through digital networks’ brought together Malachy Browne, news editor at Storyful, Liam Stack, reporter at The New York Times, and Mohammed Ziyadah, social media editor at BBC Arabic to discuss the ways in which social media content is shaping conflict coverage today. With the proliferation of networked digital devices, the zone of conflict is now more visible than ever before. Eyewitnesses, activists, armed-groups and governments are producing content every day in order to organise, document and communicate events happening on the ground to audiences both near and far. This surge of online voices creates new opportunities and challenges for news media. This discussion explores journalists' everyday practices working with social media, from following events from around the world, to locating sources and amplifying stories. It provides insights into the relationship between journalists and those producing content from within conflict zones, the difficulties of navigating the political agendas of different groups, and the importance of bringing these voices into the news.

Keywords:

• conflict
• war
• social media
• journalism
• news

Notes on contributors

Malachy Browne is Managing Editor and Europe Anchor of Reported.ly. Based in Ireland, Malachy works with the European team to report on international stories emerging through online communities. Malachy has reported on the Arab Spring, conflicts in Ivory Coast, Yemen, Syria and Ukraine, humanitarian crises from Somalia's famine to Typhoon Haiyan, and social and civil rights movements. He has written about eyewitness media and citizen networks for Al Jazeera, Open Democracy and the European Journalism Centre. Malachy previously worked as News Editor with Storyful, the first social news agency. He tweets at @malachybrowne. [email: [email protected]]

Liam Stack is a New York Times reporter and the editor of Watching Syria's War, a Webby and Online Media Award nominated multimedia project that tracks the conflict in Syria through citizen video and social media. He was a reporter in the New York Times Cairo bureau for two years, covering the Egyptian revolution and its aftermath as well as the uprisings in Libya and Syria. He tweets at @liamstack. [email: [email protected]]

Mohammad Ziyadah is the Social Media Editor for BBC Arabic. His experience in online journalism spans 15 years across international media (Reuters then the BBC). He worked in online, video, training, digital, and social. He assumed his current rule in July 2013. He tweets at @iMAQpro. [email: [email protected]]

Notes

1. Available here: ‘PM Netanyahu's Statement Prior to Meeting with US Sec of State John Kerry – 8/11/2013’, 8 November 2013. Retrieved January 6, 2015, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TMN4bXFoMY.

2. More information available here: Retrieved January 6, 2015, from http://www.cartercenter.org/peace/conflict_resolution/syria-conflict-mapping.html.

3. More information available here: Retrieved January 6, 2015, from https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2014/11/08/origin-of-the-separatists-buk-a-bellingcat-investigation/.

4. Available here: Retrieved January 12, 2015, from http://projects.nytimes.com/watching-syrias-war.