If you have no idea what has been happening in Iran, it is probably because you’ve been living under Iraq a rock. I’m going to try to stay out of the politics behind it, but Iran is the “religious democracy” with an Ayatollah as the head of government and an elected president who serves as the “faceman”. The recent Presidential election ended up in conspiracy as many of the citizens did not believe the outcome (who, why, what are irrelevant for the purpose of this article). As a result Iranians poured into the streets in protest of the election results. During the protests, violence broke out and the Iranian government banned foreign news reporters from the country.
Without adequate reporting how is the world keeping up with everything that is happening in Iran? How are Iranian citizens rallying people to their cause? Social media!
Twitter, YouTube, blogs, and facebook have been the main forms of reporting and the coverage has been much better than any major broadcasting network could ever fathom. Of course the quality of the media might be a little off, but the number of stories, conveyed emotions, and believability more than make up for cell phone pictures and hand-held video footage.
Ladies and gentlemen, whether you care about what happens in Iran or not, this event is going to go down in history as a major change in the way people communicate and how much power a single voice can have.
I have read stories by newspaper journalists stating that the state of accurate information is going to decline along with the decline of the newspaper. I have also heard people say that things like Watergate will never be exposed again because the professional journalist will not be around to snoop things out. These could be true; only time will tell. However, there is a trend of information sources moving to social media that has now been exposed by the conflicts in Iran.
Like you, I am getting tired of reading all the stuff about social media. I am not going to tell you this is a must and you’re going to go out of business if you don’t use it. I just wanted to point out a major event in our lifetime and maybe give you a little something extra to think about.
