The Role of the Media: Blogging from War Zones,

KVB Tharoor — Wed, 23 May 2007 16:14:54 +0100

The media is a constant concern and topic of debate, and the advent of the television followed by the internet add to its provocative power.

The New Media

The internet has gained great importance in modern media. Nearly every major news magazine, paper, and television station has a website covering their printed or aired content. It is also an equalizer between the powerless and the powerful, insofar as any person with access is able to publish his/her opinion. There are now multiple alternatives for information and a myriad of perspectives.
Blogging has become a medium of expression, and therapy, as well as a source for information. A blog is on online journal, a relatively new feature quickly gaining in popularity. Its bias is purposeful and compels a distinct curiosity and intimacy with its readers. Some of the more fascinating blogs offer insights not easily attainable. BBC Newsnight began a series by Salam Pax, the Baghdad Blogger who posts from inside the war torn state. He shares his opinion on the future of the country, the constitution, and elections. The most frightening and compelling is the segment titled â€˜Baghdad Blogger on Staying Alive in Iraq.â€™ Clips are available at BBC Newsnight.

IsraeliBunker.blogspot.com and Lebanonheartblogs.blogspot.com, similar to Baghdad Blogger, are controversially poignant as they represent two very subjective sides of the current crisis in Lebanon and Israel. They offer links and copy selcted news reports, either because they represent their views or are unforgivably contradictory to them. Lebanese Blogger warns that the American and Israeli media â€˜are misleading you.â€™ In the virtual diary, he/she recounts the dayâ€™s events, including a description of being awoken at dawn to the sound of a bombs dropping over head. There is original poetry, and an eerily calm copy of an online exchange with his/her father. A man who had jumped out of his flat window onto a moving car, caused no more than slight curiosity in Beirut where the people were too distraught to care,

â€˜Me: I think he chose a wrong time to commit suicide.

Dad: Yes I think so too.

Silence

Dad: So how is everything? Are you eating well?â€™

â€˜Live from an Israeli Bunkerâ€™ has been highlighted on CNN, BBC, NPR (National Public Radio â€“ U.S.) and other news outlets. He writes about his life, his vacations, his worries, the routine for life in the bunker and responding to sirens and calls to â€˜Get down!â€™ He adds his own perspective to the media, and holds that Hezbollah does not care about the Lebanese people, but use children as shields to wage a â€˜public relations campaign.â€™ Hence the photos of children killed by Israeli air strikes that fill the media are not so much evidence of casualities, but proof that Hezbollah does not intend to protect its people.

The sites give an informative angle to veuyorism, but so many blogs exist en masse without the provision of insight or information. As the internet gains in accessibility it loses some credibility. People are not as inclined to accept or conform to the information they read on the internet because it lacks exclusivity. So while the internet provides affordable alternatives to the costs and elitism of the mass media industry, it has some more catching up to do before we rely on it as a credible source.

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The Role of the Media: Blogging from War Zones,