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Digital Media Sparks Lebanon Reforms
FrontLines - December-January 2009-10
By Sven Lindholm
In the tightly controlled political
landscape of Lebanon, the
dominant factions provide few
opportunities for independent or
alternative voices. However, as
Internet use in Lebanon has skyrocketed
in the last decade, not
just in Beirut, but also in outlying
communities, social advocates
have begun applying this
technology as a forum for nonpartisan
dialogue.
USAID has been working
with the Social Media Exchange
(SMEx) to develop digital and
social media tools—such as
blogs, Facebook, and Twitter—
to help reduce conflict and
empower youth. These tools
allow users to create content and
interact in environments that are
harder for political forces to control
and thus allow for more open
expression. Based in Beirut,
SMEx provides media training
and consulting to civil society
and nonprofit organizations in
Lebanon and the Middle East.
“SMEx has helped bridge the digital divide by transforming social media into a tool that is more widely available and understood at a grassroots level,” said Katie Prud’homme, USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) country representative.
Over five months last year, SMEx brought together 25 youth as the core of a future digital and social media networking group. They were trained to assess and apply new media, and then to apply this media to transform volatile areas, using youth activism as a springboard to address tensions.
By the end of the training, several projects involving new media had emerged, including: Reforms by Youth, a place for youth to post problems and find the people and agencies to whom they can complain; Building a Culture of Peace, a multimedia training for university and younger students in Baalbeck focusing on conflict resolution; and Jeel Yusharek, an effort to inform and empower youth about their rights in schools by creating a social network linking teachers, students, and administrators.
Nada Akl, a budding journalist who completed the program, has begun giving training on social media at a youth center in Mount Lebanon.
“The training also enabled me to inform the redesign of our independent news site to make it more interactive,” said Akl. “We now have features that allow us to upload video and audio files, and soon, through our online forum, readers will be able to recommend stories be covered that are not in mainstream news.”
The project builds on a previous USAID/OTI grant to SMEx to hold social media workshops for over 300 activists. Trainees were struck by new media’s ability to link across physical, social, and virtual spaces. Two blogs have evolved from this activity—one by speech impaired youth to create a virtual community and another to provide information to migrant domestic workers.
★
FrontLines is published
by the Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs
U.S. Agency for International Development
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