CIMA Media Blog

Weekly highlights from the world of digital media. Sign up here for the full version of CIMA’s weekly Digital Media Mash Up for a comprehensive list of resources on digital media.

IRAQ: A Strange Animal
Deadlines and death threats. The U.S. troops are leaving, but the journalists are staying. In a short doc special for the Daily Beast, filmmaker Richard Pendry reveals the new techniques — more John LeCarre than J-school — reporters have devised to get the story in Iraq.

———————————————————————————————————————————————Google vs. Twitter

Google to Twitter: You Asked Us Not to Index Tweets
It wasn’t until late Tuesday night that Google responded to Twitter’s comments about the search engine’s announcement that it will start incorporating Google+ information into its search results. (Washington Post, 1/11)

Who Loses in the War between Google and Twitter? Users
In case you missed it, Google has been taking a beating in some quarters over the addition of Google+ content to search, something the search giant argues is beneficial for users, but critics say is an unfair use of the company’s market dominance. Twitter is one of those complaining that Google is promoting its own social network, but Google says it is just obeying Twitter’s request to not index its content, and that Twitter is the one who backed out of a deal between the two. The reality is that both sides are being disingenuous, and the real issue is about control over social content — and users of both services are the ones who wind up losing in the end. (GigaOM, 1/11)

Media Memo: Google Just Upped the Ante on Being Social
There are plenty of things to be concerned about when it comes to Google’s new “personalized search” features, including the risk that the search giant is waving a red flag in front of antitrust regulators by throwing its weight around. But for media companies, one of the key facts about this change is that it makes a social-media strategy even more imperative. In some ways, as Jeff Sonderman of the Poynter Institute points out in a blog post, Google has just made social connections and links the new search-engine optimization strategy, whether you like it or not. If you ignore that message, be prepared to see your content suffer. (GigaOM, 1/12)

———————————————————————————————————————————————Research

Wired for Repression
Bloomberg’s series “Wired for Repression” reveals how Western companies provide surveillance systems to authoritarian countries that claim some of the world’s worst human rights records including Iran, Syria, Bahrain and Tunisia. (Bloomberg)

Islamic Republic of Iran: Computer Crimes Law
The 2011 Computer Crimes Law of the Islamic Republic of Iran flagrantly violates international human rights law and is an affront to freedom of expression principles. Extensive legal reform, including the repeal of the Computer Crimes Law, is urgently required to protect the right to freedom of expression in Iran. (Article 19, December 2011)

Real Time Charitable Giving
Charitable donations from mobile phones have grown more common in recent years. Two thirds (64%) of American adults now use text messaging, and 9% have texted a charitable donation from their mobile phone. And these text donors are emerging as a new cohort of charitable givers. The first-ever, in-depth study on mobile donors—which analyzed the “Text to Haiti” campaign after the 2010 earthquake—finds that these contributions were often spur-of-the-moment decisions that spread virally through friend networks. (Pew Internet, January 2012)

GUINEA: Africa Media Barometer for Guinea
The first homegrown analysis of the media landscape in Africa series. (Fesmedia, December 2011)

———————————————————————————————————————————————Global Censorship Update – January 2012

View Global Censorship Update – January 2012 in a larger map