Mass Communication
Political Activism and Social Media
Supervised by: Mohamed Ibahrine
Fall 2008
Table of Contents
· Introduction……………………………………………………………2
· The role of the media: the watchdog function and Citizen Journalism…………………………………………..…………………3
· Case Study: Social Network Websites “the case of facebook”…….…5
· The reaction of the Moroccan government to these
new ways of freedom of speech …………………………..……….…7
· Recommendations and Conclusion………………………….……….8
Introduction:
Morocco is one of the North African countries that were occupied by the French colony. After Morocco has gained its independence, the country was influenced by the political system of the colonial; in fact, the country remained adapting some legal and political French traits in controlling the country. The media is one of the areas that is most influenced by the regime and the political system of the country. The government interferes in most of the publications and in the dissemination of information around the country. Several newspapers are exactly following the politics of some parties that they are belonging to and TV is the greatest support for politicians to broadcast their programs. Morocco does follow the French regime in terms of freedom of press, however, there are some intrusions of the government when it comes to the publication of critics which is known as “the three no go area zones” that are the monarchy, the religion, and the territory.
Journalists are freer to publish everything that is spotlighting the country. Today, the development of the technologies in Morocco has allowed people to have access to information in a new way than the mainstream media used before. In fact, with the creation of the internet, new forms of social media have been developed. The domestication and the adoption of this new platform where ideas are exchanged have seen the development of news ways of disseminating information. People started to generate their own content through this new medium; new kinds of journalisms have appeared such as reporters without borders, and citizen journalism. Also, internet has become the open system to politics; political parties are capitalizing on this new electronic media because of its low barriers to entry. The Moroccan government does not necessarily accept this new way of freedom of speech and can sometimes take some initiatives and considerations each time a scoop is pointed out.
The role of the media
It is clear that media plays a central and important role in the development of democracy. According to Scammell and Semetko (2000) “a free and vigorous press is both a symbol and a guarantor of democracy; by contrast, increased control of the media and the muzzling of journalists accompany the coming to power of authoritarian regimes, as surely as night follows day. The converse, the emergence of a free and critical press is a key indicator of the transformation to democracy.” (xi)
Present Morocco is a country that sees more and more democracy in its governing sectors. People have easy access to internet, which helps them develop individual ideas on diverse issues. Thanks to the new information and communication technologies (ICTs), people have started to not rely on Gatekeepers anymore; they rather generate their own content from the internet. Those user generate content are primarily communicating information through its various forms such as videos, forums, images and so forth. “…via the world wide web (internet), citizen groups and social movements, like many other organizations and institutions, are likely to reach a new level in the way in which they mobilize, build coalitions, inform, lobby, communicates, and campaign. (Hajnal as cited in De Donk, Loader, Nixon, and Rucht 2004, p. 1) ICTs are used as a tool for politicians, governmental organizations and corporations to disseminate their information.
Mass media more specifically social media has become tremendously crucial for politics in general. In return, media has the choice to react or not to what is mentioned by political activism as De Donk et al. (2004) stated “the media, in turn, have different ways in dealing with social movements. They can ignore them or react to them only under particular circumstances; they can proactively contact movement activists and eagerly seek information; they may comment positively or negatively on movements’ goals and activities.”
One of the concepts that media links to democracy is the watchdog function against the state. This fourth estate is watching the misconduct of the government. People share their public opinion revolving on politics through the new ICTs. The commencement of this “fourth estate” idea has always been seen as a way to control the government. More recently, it is starting to take into account societal institutions directly connected to the public. (O’Donnell and Gerald, 1997) Democratization is closely linked to the watchdog role of the media since it is used for enlightening oppression of the state and protecting the rights of the citizens in countries where the rate of democracy is high enough, likewise in countries such as Morocco the “watchdog” role of media is not highlighted enough because of the current situation that imposes it. The media remains the fourth estate of the government and realizes its responsibilities to society.
According to the definition of Martin Hirst and John Harrison (2007), “a citizen journalist is a person who is not attached to a media organization, who witnesses an event, and then provides an account of that event, normally using traditional and new journalistic forms. This person is distinguished from an eyewitness by the nature and form(s) of their account.” (p. 240) So, in other terms citizen journalism can be described as amateur journalism that takes as a hobby looking for new information and publishing it in the web. Internet as network of networks with low barriers to entry and the new ICTs have contributed in the development of citizen journalism. Indeed, internet as a platform where information are shared through videos, pictures, blogs, forums, and so on is starting to be used by many people in order to witness an event. Wikis, blogs, and some media organizations are the receivers of such information. For example, the creation of the new party of Fouad Ali Al Hima the PAM in Morocco. It is today well known and published in the web by amateurs (citizen journalism) in blogs and new web pages uploaded specifically for that purpose. Similarly, Photographs are great support to some situations that happened in Morocco such as the incarceration of Ali Lmrabet because of its publication of articles and pictures criticizing and touching the name of the King. Here again, the freedom of press and media freedom is largely contributing. The arrival of this new ways of freedom of expression has allowed the audience to either generate its own content or to rely on the affirmation of what others have said about a specific issue. To what extent the government should then censure or allow the publication and the dissemination of such ideas?
Case Study: Social Network Websites “the case of facebook”
Morocco has seen the implementation of internet in 1995. The first organization that have adapted such technology is a university, Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane. This new medium at that time have seen great changes over time. It went from ADSL with slow broad band to a higher one with a higher speed and better connection. Wireless is another change that occurred recently regarding the internet. The number of users of the internet has remarkably increased in Morocco, according to ANRT (Agence National de la Réglementation des Telecoms) it went from 60812 users in December 2003 to 653591 users in June 2008. The charts below are retrieved from ANRT and show the increase of the users in Morocco since the implementation of the internet.
*retrieved from ANRT
*retrieved from ANRT
Since this new social medium has appeared in Morocco. Considerable improvements in terms of using have occurred at the same time. Moroccan people started to use internet as a platform and support to their ideas. In fact, internet in all its forms started to be a great support for political campaigns and people started to support some political parties and ideologies.
The reaction of the Moroccan government to these new ways of freedom of speech
Morocco has seen an important growth in terms of freedom of expression. The media freedom has created a huge expansion thanks to the media support either the traditional one or the new ICTs (social media). The creation of magazines is part of this growth especially the magazines that started publishing prohibited stories on Moroccan government and started to touch on the three no go area zones, the monarchy, the religion, and the territory. Today, those magazines have their own websites and sometimes forums where people can share and discuss their point of view on specific topics. Not only that, but also the online version of those magazines enable the publication and the spread of ideas more rapidly, widely, and continuously and sometimes can influence the audience. “Telquel”, “Nichane”, and “le Journal” are some of those magazines that have really illustrated themselves in this social phenomenon by breaking the limits and going beyond them. Generally, the court, if any law protestation is made against such magazines, directly assigned sanctions to the magazines. Moroccan authorities should allow the publication and the dissemination of ideas whatever the affiliation the magazine belongs to or whatever the critics can be; however, sanctions and penalties should be assigned in the case of the violation of the standards of the freedom of press as mentioned earlier (the famous three no go area zones).
Social Networks such as Facebook allow the publication and the diffusion of all kind of information. Blogs and such websites are considered as support to the diffusion of ideas. These social media are facing exactly the same problems as the print media. The creation of user generating content has enable the users of internet to freely and easily exploit this platform as a market place of exchanging the ideas with a total freedom; however, this freedom, in Morocco, is not completely rid of surprises. One best example that illustrates the authority of the Moroccan government toward such technologies is the incarceration of a young internet user that has created a profile on Facebook, the famous social network, in the name of the Prince of Morocco. According to Saiagh (2008) " facebook might be misused by some internet users; a concrete example was the attempt to get a fake identity, r to pretend to be someone else, and it is exactly what happened to a Moroccan person who registered himself under the identity of the prince of Morocco. "Reporters without borders" is another website that engages procedures to defend the freedom of press of Moroccan citizens and the blogger community of Morocco. An online article has been published by reporters without borders regarding this situation on March 2008 where it is claimed "This is the first time a Moroccan has been convicted for an online offence and Mourtada was the victim of a summary trial,” the press freedom organization said. “We are worried about the effect on freedom of expression on the Moroccan Internet as all of the country’s bloggers will feel targeted. This disproportionate sentence has shocked the Moroccan blogger community, which is one of the biggest in the region. A popular and well respected blogger already decided to stop blogging out of fear for his safety after what happened to Fuad Mourtada.” The Moroccan government is closely watching the happening on the net; however, they are not always taking the exact initiatives towards the causes.
Conclusion
To conclude, the Moroccan government interferes in most of the publication and in the diffusion of information all around the country whether it is print media, broadcast media, or the new social media. Blogs, Forums, and websites are contributing in the development of the media in Morocco; it is more and more used by citizens as a platform for their interests. Starting using and generating their own content contribute in the democratization and the freedom of the media of the country. Morocco does follow the French colonial in terms of freedom of press, still, the intrusion of the government is not to ignore. The domestication of the internet has helped in the dissemination ideas and in the freedom of expression of a wide range of people. This expansion is not always seen as beneficial for the government which rejects this new medium and way of information and sanction when it is needed. In turn, it accepts these new ICTs when it comes to spotlight ideas about the country.
Coming to the role of media, the most important highlighted in this paper is the watchdog function that it occupies. Representing the wide audience and keeping an eye on the misconduct of the government interferences regarding the public. Citizen journalism is also a great contributor in the development of this medium and in the freedom of press and expression of Morocco. The case study developed in this paper shows the good path towards which the country is driving itself in terms of the new technologies afforded to citizens. Finally, the government interference is not always the greteas support to those technologies when it comes to freedom of expression and the case of reporters without borders with the case of the incarceration of a Moroccan blogger shows the best example to such action.
Reference list
Axford B., Huggins R., 2001, New Media and Politics. Sage Publications, London
Hirst M., Harrison J., 2007, Communication and new media: from broadcast to
narrowcast.
Scammell M., Semetko H., 2000, The Media Journalism and Democracy, the
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Van De Donk W., Loader B. D., Nixon P., Rucht D., 2004, Cyberprotest : New
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Gerald C. Stone & Mary K. O’Donnell, “Public Perceptions of Newspaper’s
Watchdog Role”, Newspaper Research Journal, Vol. 18, N0. 1-2/1997
Facebook “the famous social network” retrieved 30 ocotober 2008 from:
http://masscommunicationoumnia.blogspot.com/
Reporters without borders, ed. "Royal pardon for Internet user, condemned to three
years of jail for creating spoof Facebook profile for prince." Reporters without
borders. 19 Mar. 2008, retrieved 30 Oct. 2008 from:
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=25900
http://www.anrt.ma/fr/admin/download/upload/file_eng1332
http://www.anrt.ma/fr/admin/download/upload/file_eng1538.pdf
http://www.anrt.ma/fr/admin/download/upload/file_fr1111.pdf
