SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE SOUTH CAUCASUS: SHAPING SOCIETY FROM THE BOTTOM-UP

PanARMENIAN.Net
April 15, 2010

When Karine Lazarian, 30, came up with an idea six months ago to bring
Armenia’s hidden problems to the surface, she placed her thoughts on
the backburner, thinking it could take years to realize her dream.

Ms. Lazarian, an NGO worker for more than 10 years, has felt
frustrated in what she sees as the government’s refusal to acknowledge
social problems such as domestic abuse, alcoholism, gender inequality
and extreme poverty. She wanted to create a three-country website where
people could anonymously submit reports, videos or photos of social
problems shared throughout the South Caucasus-the idea being to bring
light to these issues and remove the stigma of openly discussing them.

"This is the only way we can make a change," said Ms. Lazarian.

"Hiding these problems will not solve these problems." Then she
heard about Social Innovation Camp. Kicked off in 2008 and funded by
international organizations, the workshop is a two-day competition
that travels to different regions and helps participants implement
ideas-government accountability, environmental protection, consumer
rating-through social media tools and digital technologies. On April 8,
the camp came to the Caucasus, where participants from Armenia, Georgia
and Azerbaijan worked together in Tbilisi to design, code and develop
websites in less than 48 hours. Out of the dozens of ideas submitted
prior to the camp’s start, only six were chosen by the judges.

One of those ideas was Ms. Lazarian’s.

"I didn’t expect that I would be accepted. I was very excited when
I found out," she said, adding that this was just the motivation she
needed to get her project started.

Brave New (Digital) World

The camp in Tbilisi served as a practical workshop alongside "Social
Media for Social Change," a conference supported by a number of
international NGOs, including PH International and the Open Society
Georgia Foundation. Social media, also known as Web 2.0, has widely
gained notoriety over recent years with the growth of blogs and
popular networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Odnoklassniki.

But most recently, social media concepts have been used in spheres
other than simple communications and networking. With SMS technologies,
mapping applications, such as Google Maps, and open-source designs,
such as Wikipedia, users are creating innovative websites that not
only provide useful information and government accountability, but
save lives, as well.

Experts point to Ushahidi.com, a site built in 2008 during the violent
aftermath of Kenya’s disputed elections. The site made it possible
for Kenyans to report, via SMS messages, acts of violence that were
then pinpointed on a map for police, journalists or aid responders to
investigate. The Ushahidi precedent was again used in the earthquake
crisis in Haiti, where people reported urgent needs, such as serious
injuries or lack of water, using mobile devises. The problems were
then mapped and routed through to emergency response systems.

Other civic projects using Web 2.0 tools include sites in the United
States, like Bakersfield.com, where citizens can report and map the
location of potholes, bringing attention to city governments about
the need to repair bad roads. Hyperlocal websites are also becoming
popular, like EveryBlock.com, a project that aggregates news and
consumer ratings about stores, restaurants and organizations in city
neighborhoods.

For government accountability, traditional media outlets are
harnessing digital media tools to solicit help from readers to create
new databases, such as the recent example started by the UK-based
newspaper, The Guardian. After Parliament released thousands of
documents in the wake of the MPs’ expense scandal, The Guardian
uploaded nearly half a million pages of official documents to its
site for readers to review and earmark for further investigation. More
than 26,000 people have analyzed roughly 220,000 documents since the
effort launched in 2009.

Taking charge

Social Innovation Camp’s goal in the Caucasus, says its co-founder
Dan McQuillan, was to foster the creation of similar websites that
focus on specific needs in the region. One doesn’t have to complain
anymore if problems aren’t being recognized, he said. Social media
allows people to address these issues, themselves, without permission
from the government or grants from NGOs.

"It’s about taking the power of digital technologies and making
something happen," said Mr. McQuillan. "It’s a kind of activism,
but it’s not the normal kind of activism. It’s not confrontation;
it’s construction. It’s about building things to make a difference."

Douglas Arellanes, a facilitator at the camp, was a 2009 camp
participant in Bratislava, Slovakia and is a strong advocate for the
positive use of digital media. What the world is now experiencing,
he says, is yet another period of transition; every generation
goes through change, from the telegram, to the telephone, to the
television. But human needs, he says, have always stayed the same.

"What we’re doing right now is simply teaching our machines
something humans have known innately for generations. People are
social creatures and social networks have existed as long as people
have existed," Mr. Arellanes said. "There’s nothing new about social
networks. What’s new is that we’re using digital devises to mediate
that social interaction."

But ultimately, he says, it’s important to remember that social media
is simply a means to an end and not the solution for social change,
itself. "You have to be careful in promising too much in social media.

It is a great tool, but at the end of the day, it is just a tool.

What’s really important are the people behind it and the ideas
being good."

Recognizing the potential

At the camp, the six teams were divided among workstations cluttered
with laptops, wires, white boards and countless cups of coffee. Each
team, composed of members from at least two of the South Caucasus
countries, had only two days to design, program and present their
websites with business plans to the judges.

While Ms. Lazarian’s idea, "NoProblem," focused on raising awareness
about social issues in the South Caucasus, the other five teams
developed ideas around democratic, health and environmental issues.

The final projects, which aren’t fully functional yet, include a
multi-language website where users can rate public schools in the
region and a website that offers information about reproductive health
to Internet and mobile device users.

One of the projects, "GiveMeInfo," was designed to keep track of
Freedom of Information Requests denied by government ministries-an
attempt to put pressure on South Caucasus officials who illegally
refuse to release documents to the public.

For many in the Caucasus, the hope in digital technology can also be
found in its enabling of cross-border communication. Aliyev Reshad,
25, is an Azerbaijani student currently studying and working in
Tbilisi. When he heard about Ms. Lazarian’s idea, he jumped at the
chance to be on her team.

"I’m interested in regional projects, and I think this project will
help to break stereotypes and bring people together by their problems,"
Mr. Reshad said. "These issues make people from different countries
talk not about the problems that break us into two parts, but about
the problems we share."

The winning project, "SaveTheTress," was conceived by Mariam Sukhadyan,
an environmental activist from Yerevan. The website will allow users
to report, using photos, maps and SMS messages the illegal cutting
of tress, a problem that Ms. Sukhadyan says has drastically increased
over the last 20 years in Armenia. Her project was awarded $3,000 to
help support the website’s growth.

While the website isn’t fully complete, Ms. Sukhadyan says her team
will continue working on finalizing the details, translating the site
into Armenian and promoting it throughout the country. She hopes the
Ministry of Ecology and municipal departments will eventually joint
the project, as well.

Ms. Lazarian’s idea didn’t win, but she says she’s still passionate
about shedding light on social issues traditionally kept under wraps
in the Caucasus. She hopes to complete the website one day, saying
the camp helped her with strategies and ideas for the project’s future.

"For me the strongest part was to motivate people to talk about
problems, whatever they thought those problem were," she said. "The
main objective now is awareness, and eventually, we will see change."