The revolution will be Twittered: tools to monitor events in Iran

We don't know what to call the events occurring in Iran -- an election? a coup? a revolution? an uprising?

It's being called The Twitter Revolution and some are saying the formula is: Tiananmen + Twitter = Tehran.

Whatever you want to call it, it's an amazing event, full of chaos and hope -- and it's all happening before our eyes, history in the making. But instead of hearing about it later or watching it from afar on TV, now you can even participate, thanks to social media.

When Iran erupted over the weekend in the aftermath of what was widely perceived as a fraudulent election, the mainstream media was caught several hours behind the curve. On Twitter, the tag #IranElection quickly ascended to the top spot, while conventional media sources had little in the way of updates. The situation was summed up perfectly in a post on the blog ReadWriteWeb acerbically titled, "Dear CNN, Please Check Twitter for News on Iran." Even the New York Times reported on the mounting frustration online over the slow uptake on cable news and other media outlets, comparing CNN's sparse coverage of the uprising in Tehran with its earlier coverage of Tiananmen Square. MSNBC and Fox News Channel also came in for their share of criticism. The BBC's coverage was generally better regarded, as were contributions from ABC's Tehran-based Jim Sciutto.

But the real story was developing on Twitter. A contributor to the political blog Daily Kos wrote:

The saying popping up over the last several hours has already become cliche: the revolution will not be televised, it will be Twittered. Stripping away the hyperbole of that statement and we are left with the very real and grounded fact that the way citizens across the world organize, react, and participate has forever been altered by the cornucopia of 21st century mediums, each of which presents a new platform for how citizens interact with and even select their government.

Here in America, the Obama's campaign brilliant use of social networking to fuel grassroots support is well known. In Iran we are witnessing how citizens use these tools to organize protests, and, most importantly, to bypass state clampdowns on media (for those who have not heard, the Iranian government has apparently jammed signals so that foreign press cannot broadcast the protests). Against the backdrop of the media blackout, information leaked online by protesters and citizen journalists shines, like this video of protesters coming to aid of police or this photostream from Tehran.

We won't go into the full implications of this merging of social media and democratic revolution because no one knows what they are or could be. But we here at Social Studies are keen on making it easy for you to watch the protests in real-time and even participate if you feel so compelled.

News and updates from noteworthy non-mainstream sources

Bloggers across the political spectrum were caught up in the drama in Tehran, and several stepped in to try to make sense of the images, videos and reports coming out of Iran, particularly from supporters of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the former prime minister and challenger to current president Ahmadinejad, who now leads the uprising. They function, as bloggers frequently do, in multiple roles - as combination news aggregators, political analysts and cheering sections. Some are Western, others Iranian.

• Andrew Sullivan -- Near continuous updates on his Daily Dish blog at TheAtlantic.com.
  
• Michael J. Totten, guest blogging for Commentary Magazine -- Ongoing updates and analysis from an independent reader-supported citizen journalist who has lived in the middle east and blogs on the Muslim world (currently stateside).
  
• HuffingtonPost blogger Nico Pitney -- Liveblogging the uprising for several days now.
• NewsNow -- Aggregator of Iran news stories.
• TehranBureau - Widely linked source of news on Iran and the Iranian diaspora.
  
• Tehran24 -- Daily photos and updates from Tehran.
  
• Where is my vote? -- All contributors are Iranian, many from within the country.

Twitter tools

• TwitterFall -- Check the "#IranElection" box on the left side and set your update speed on the right side. Then watch the news flow! Hover over a tweet to pause.
• Twendz -- Allows you to explore Twitter conversations with added displays to gauge sentiment.
  
• Twitter's own Trending Topics -- Like TwitterFall but you have to refresh manually
• A list of English-language Twitterers in Iran -- Listed by city
• Mousavi Campaign's Official Twitter account -- English and Farsi
• Iran Election Word Cloud -- interactive visualization of the most common words in tweets with the hashtag #iranelection
• Green Your Icon -- Show your support by automatically turning your existing Twitter icon green with this service.
  

Mousavi's social media presence

Iran's former prime minister has proved to be quite adept at building a following on social media:

• Mousavi's Facebook page -- 55,000 fans. It links to the Daily Show!
  
• Mousavi's Flickr page -- tons of photos
  
• Mousavi's Tumblr page -- links and news (mostly in Farsi)

Watch Iran State TV in Windows Media Player (via HuffPo)

How to watch Iran state media. Reader a.m. offers some helpful directions (this also works in Quicktime if you have Flip4Mac):

1. Go into windows media player

2. Select file, then open URL

3. Type this in mms://wms.edgecastcdn.net/200216/ipresstv

that allows you to watch Press TV, the english language state media. They do a news update every 30 minutes and they've been reporting on the demonstration. but they haven't been covering it round the clock.

The Online activist John Gilmore once famously observed, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." This is certainly the case for Iran, whose government is unable to completely isolate the Twitter Revolution from its legions of supporters online. This story is far from over. Check back for updates!