An online revolution in the making?

Internet penetration remains low in regions such as the South Caucasus.
However, as costs come down and connection speeds increase, there is no
doubt that online and mobile communication will become important tools
in the hands of civil society and political activists alike

08.05.2009 scrive Onnik Krikorian

The Moldovan `Twitter Revolution,’ much reported on by the international
media at the beginning of April, might have been somewhat of an
exaggeration, but even if the short 140 character long messages sent to
cell phones weren’t the only tool used to mobilize protesters, they were
at least indicative of how something so simple, but nonetheless so
effective, could enable activists.

Of course, other precedents had already been set in the post-Soviet
world. Following the 20-day state of emergency declared after last
year’s 1 March post-election unrest in Armenia, for example, online
tools and social networking sites moved in quickly to fill the gap left
by a temporarily gagged if polarized media. They also satisfied the
public’s demand for information during a period of significant political
upheaval and chaos.

True, Internet penetration remains low in regions such as the South
Caucasus, with statistics for 2007-8 putting it at just 5.8 percent in
Armenia, 18.3 percent in Azerbaijan and 7.8 percent in Georgia. However,
as costs come down and connection speeds increase, there is no doubt
that online and mobile communication will become important tools in the
hands of civil society and political activists alike.

Since last year’s presidential election in Armenia, for example, the
number of blogs in Armenia has skyrocketed, with estimates from new
media analysts putting them in their hundreds. The same trend is also
evident in Azerbaijan, and not least since the ban on foreign radio
broadcasts by the BBC and Voice of America was introduced at the
beginning of the year.

Indeed, with many political opponents of the Aliyev regime now forced
online, Radio Free Europe’s Azeri service has even started quoting their
blog posts on its web site. It has also introduced podcasting – streamed
audio on demand over the Internet – in lieu of the radio broadcasts the
station once transmitted by more traditional means.

Yet, even if the media is perhaps too obsessed with Twitter to the
detriment of other online tools, governments in the region are also
starting to sit up and take notice.

Fearful that the opposition might use such tools during its current
campaign of street protests in Tbilisi, for example, the Georgian
government was quick to start its own Twitter channel, expanding on the
slick and media-savvy approach which a European PR consultancy firm
helped them develop during the August 2008 war with Russia.

Moreover, while blogs and other online tools might have been overlooked
by many critics of the Georgian president so far, their potential had
not been lost on others.

Human rights activist and former president of the Georgian Young Lawyers
Association, Anna Dolidze, for example, was quick to establish her own
blog, Resistance Georgia, following the November 2007 clashes with riot
police in Tbilisi. Although it went silent in the immediate aftermath of
the Russia-Georgia war, Dolidze resumed blogging last month.

`Blogs reach a specific audience not otherwise accessible for
independent activists who lack resources, let alone support from the
government,’ she told Osservatorio. `Their impact in providing
alternative information is immense, and so I think that in countries
where government controls influential media, like TV and radio, this is
a very cost-effective and useful tool to spread information.’

Nevertheless, tools are just tools, and following the example of the
Georgian government, pro-establishment bloggers and activists have also
gone online. In Azerbaijan, for example, Elnur Aslanov, head of the
Presidential Department of Political Analysis and Information Provision,
recently started his own blog, as did the Armenian president-elect last
year although many suspect it was ghost-written.

Since then, fearful of the power such tools offer, government supporters
have become organized and coordinated in efforts to combat sites set up
by opposition or other alternative voices. The same tools have even been
used to organize counter actions in the offline world. In December 2007,
for example, pro-government bloggers protested an event promoting peace
with Azerbaijan at a Yerevan school.

Receiving much media attention, they followed up in February by helping
organize protests outside the Georgian Embassy in support of nationalist
claims on the region of Samtskhe-Javakheti. And in March, they used
blogs and forums to coordinate another counter action to infiltrate and
disrupt a rally to promote gender rights in the country held in Yerevan
on International Women’s Day.

Some new media experts in the country also claim that these bloggers not
only monitor blogging activity for the Armenian National Security
Service (NSS), but even allege that many are paid for their services.
The bloggers themselves deny the accusations. Nevertheless, the NSS
announced this week that it plans to install monitoring devices at
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Armenia as part of its new National
Concept on Information Security.

Meanwhile, even international organizations have gotten in on the act
with many introducing blogging training programs for opposition
activists and independent journalists alike. In short, with a broadcast
media still firmly controlled by governments, the online world
represents the only alternative. As further sign of that, A1 Plus, a
pro-opposition TV station yanked off the air in 2002, this week launched
the first ever mobile video news service in Armenia.

Costing less than a dollar, mobile phone subscribers can now download
video headline news after sending an SMS to a static four-digit number.
Moreover, with the recent introduction of 3G services on cellular phone
networks, as well as Wimax and ADSL connections now available at
relatively low cost to PC users, online activity looks set to increase.

What remains to be seen, however, is how quickly governments in the
region will continue to respond to the new wave of alternative
information networks now emerging online. And such concerns will be well
placed if the number of readers, viewers and subscribers for alternative
news and information gets even moderately close to rivaling that of the
pro-government media monopoly in place.

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