Trending War, Post Submission edits

Trending: War
The Effects of Digital Media on Conflict Journalism
Honours thesis submitted in partial fulfilment
of the requirements for the award of the degree
BACHELOR OF ARTS (HONOURS)
from
UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG
by
Douglas Simkin, Bachelor of Communication and Media Studies
School of Communication and Media Studies
2014

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Synopsis
The ways in which conflict is reported has changed throughout the course of
history. In an age of seemingly unlimited information, the practice of conflict
journalism has changed dramatically. Due to networking tools such as the
Internet, the job of producing information regarding war is not left to a small
minority of journalists but is open to every individual within the network.
The purpose of this thesis is to explore new and interesting ways in which
information is coming out of areas of conflict. It also aims to highlight a growing
disconnect between traditional, mainstream media sources and new media.
Online content such as videos, twitter posts, live video streams, blog posts,
comments on blog posts and photographs were all used as sources of primary
data. The importance of this data was then conceptualised within the framework
of a variety of key theories that help to explain the relationship between users
and content in this new information age.
The result of this research indicated that information regarding conflict is no
longer a static entity but a malleable object that can be pulled apart by users
online in near real-time. However, just as the process of this interaction is a
constantly developing practice, the research surrounding the topic must also
evolve, in order to keep up-to-date with current trends.

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Declaration
I certify that this thesis is entirely my own work except where I have given full
documented references to the work of others, and that the material contained in
this thesis has not been submitted for formal assessment in any formal course
and the word length is 15,085.
_____________________________ ____/____/________

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Table of Contents
SYNOPSIS...............................................................................................................................................................2
DECLARATION....................................................................................................................................................3
LIST OF FIGURES...............................................................................................................................................6
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.................................................................................................................................7
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................................8
CHAPTER 1 - BACK TOTHE FUTURE..................................................................................................11
SECTION 1:A BRIEF HISTORY.........................................................................................................................11
CONFLICT JOURNALISM ........................................................................................................................................11
IN THE BEGINNING ................................................................................................................................................13
GLASS WARRIORS..................................................................................................................................................15
SECTION 2:THE ‘MODERN’ CONFLICT JOURNALIST..................................................................................17
WORLD WAR TWO, VIETNAM AND BEYOND...................................................................................................17
24 HOURS OF HORROR IN THE GULF.................................................................................................................18
THE EMBEDDED JOURNALIST..............................................................................................................................20
SECTION 3:ACOMPARISON BETWEEN TWO MODERN EXAMPLES........................................................22
VICE NEWS............................................................................................................................................................22
ANNANEWS ............................................................................................................................................................23
CHAPTER 2 – THE HERE AND NOW.....................................................................................................26
SECTION 1:THE BIRTH OF A NEW PARADIGM............................................................................................26
A WORLD IN CRISIS...............................................................................................................................................26
MEDIA AS A PRODUCT...........................................................................................................................................28
THE DECLINE OF INDUSTRIAL MEDIA...............................................................................................................30
SECTION 2:THE INDUSTRIAL COUNTER-REVOLUTION............................................................................33
THE AGE OF PARTICIPATION...............................................................................................................................33
ONLINE CENSORSHIP ............................................................................................................................................36
THE GOOGLE DOCTRINE.......................................................................................................................................38
SECTION 3:THE ‘LONG TAIL’ OF CONFLICT JOURNALISM........................................................................41
INTRODUCING THE LONG TAIL............................................................................................................................41
THE LONG TAIL OF CONFLICT JOURNALISM.....................................................................................................43
CHAPTER 3 – NETWORKSUPREMACY..............................................................................................46
SECTION 1: NETWAR/4TH GENERATION WARFARE..................................................................................46

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THE POWER OFOODALOOPS............................................................................................................................46
NETWAR AND NETWORKS ...................................................................................................................................48
SECTION 2:COGNITIVE SURPLUS....................................................................................................................50
@WARFARESTUDIES............................................................................................................................................50
COGNITIVE SURPLUS .............................................................................................................................................53
SECTION 3: USER CURATED CONTENT..........................................................................................................56
LIFECYCLE OF ONLINE CONTENT .......................................................................................................................56
AGGREGATION ........................................................................................................................................................58
CURATION ...............................................................................................................................................................62
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................................................65
REFERENCES.....................................................................................................................................................68

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List of Figures
Figure 1: A screenshot of the discussion thread on Reddit ...............................................27
Figure 2: TweetDeck, a platform used to track multiple hashtags ...............................33
Figure 3: The live stream provided by Jehad Saftawi ...........................................................34
Figure 4: One of the tweets posted by the author ...................................................................35
Figure 5: The top news story from the New York Times .....................................................39
Figure 6: The preview for LiveLeak as viewed on Google .................................................40
Figure 7: A simple illustration of the long tail ...........................................................................42
Figure 8: The long tail of conflict journalism..............................................................................43
Figure 9: An illustration providing a visual depiction of the OODA loop...................46
Figure 10: Global operations, 18-24 August ...............................................................................50
Figure 11: An example of Kot-Ivanov’s “Map of Military Operations”..........................53
Figure 12: Lifecycle of online content ............................................................................................56
Figure 13: The process in which content is brought to the surface..............................58
Figure 14: Syria channel statistics on LiveLeak .......................................................................59
Figure 15: A screen grab from YouTube highlighting the total number of views
for the highest ranked regarding Syrian War footage ..........................................................60
Figure 16: The link based feed ............................................................................................................61
Figure 17: The final destination .........................................................................................................61
Figure 18: Examples of curated content with regards to Syrian War footage ......63

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Acknowledgements
This thesis is the culmination of a myriad of theories and ideas. Combining these
into the finished product was both a rewarding and challenging experience that
would not have been possible without the help of a few key individuals.
Thanks Dad, for introducing me to the work of Robert Capa and providing the
spark of inspiration that underpins this work, Mum for always being at the end
of the phone for me to rant to when the going got tough, and Anna, for
supporting me in every possible way no matter the hour of day or night.
Finally, this thesis would not have been possible without the help of Ted Mitew,
possibly the greatest supervisor ever to live. Thank you for pretending not to be
stressed even when things got a bit tight, and also for being a walking
encyclopaedia. Your wealth of knowledge on every topic conceivable is second to
none.

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Introduction
On 29 July 2014, Israeli forces, in a continuation of an already escalating conflict,
fired a series of rockets into the Gaza Strip, targeting a variety of key locations
including the Gaza Seaport. The attack took place throughout the early morning
and stopped at sunrise. Little coverage of these strikes was provided through
legacy media sources, however, throughout the period of the strikes the online
social networking platform Twitter was sent into overdrive, as a wealth of
information was beginning to build surrounding the strikes. Due to the absence
of mainstream media coverage, Twitter and other online sites such as UStream
provided a window into a world that the mass audience would previously have
never known to exist. A single civilian by the name of Jehad Saftawi had the
presence of mind to turn his simple web cam facing outside, providing a live
stream of the attacks from his balcony.
Over the course of the strikes the viewership for this stream increased, as did the
tweets surrounding it as a source of content on Twitter. The raw, unedited
footage presented by Saftawi provided no story in the traditional sense of the
term, it was simply a live stream of content coming directly from the warzone to
the computer screens of thousands of individuals worldwide. No content was
edited out and the only commentary provided to those watching were a few
sentences here and there, as Saftawi attempted to discern which targets had
been hit.
In a process that Anderson (2008) describes as “the democratisation of the tools
of production”, the Internet has radically redefined what it means to be a conflict
journalist. The live stream provided by Saftawi of the attack on Gaza’s Seaport
completely circumvented all mainstream media channels, as online users
demonstrated they now have the power both the create and share content. While
the face value of an individual tweet or comment made by a single user may
appear to barely contribute to the greater discussion, when one takes the

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hundreds of thousands of tweets, images, photographs, blog posts and comments
into account, they come face-to-face with a wealth of information previously
unimaginable in regard to the way information is disseminated in mainstream
media channels.
With the introduction of new technology, a new modality of operation takes
place regarding the content and method of reporting engaged with by legacy
media. The idea that the journalistic process is in lockstep with the technology of
the time is not far fetched. The electric telegraph for example, drastically
shortened the time required for information to be transported from one place to
another, allowing for an unprecedented immediacy of reporting. Compare this
with the invention of satellite communications and the rise of the 24 hour news
and the results are the same: a drastic reduction in the time taken for content to
travel from one place to another. The Internet has been a turning point in this
modus operandi, as now it is possible for individuals to publish and broadcast
content themselves. Due to the intrinsic ability of the Internet to allow users to
share content, the Internet has the real-time properties found in the previous
medium, but also adds a new element allowing user participation and
interaction. This user participation is key to this evolving paradigm.
It is important to keep in mind that in the context of this thesis, conflict
journalism refers to the emerging information flows that are coming out of areas
of conflict in new and interesting ways. The examples discussed in Chapter One
are given so that a historical background of the topic may be attained, giving
context to the concepts provided later as well as highlighting some of the issues
currently faced by the mainstream, legacy media. This thesis also had a limited
scope with which to work. Ideally, a concise history of conflict journalism would
be provided before exploring the current situation, however due to the
restrictions of time, resources and word limit, the provided summary of chapter
one aims to highlight some key turning points that have influenced the practice
of conflict journalism up to its current stage.

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Chapter Two of the thesis takes a snapshot of where we are now, by analysing
online content posted regarding conflict, and how the end user now has more
power than ever before with regards to choosing which content they wish to
view and which content they want to dispose. The key focus of Chapter Two is
that we are currently in the middle of a paradigm shift regarding the flow of
information and how we can both receive and create it. It is argued that this
paradigm shift is resulting in the slow death of mainstream ‘legacy’ media, a
format that cannot keep up with two way information channels provided by the
new medium.
Chapter Three then discusses these new information flows on a deeper, more
abstract level, by analysing how networks shape and change the way information
flows between users. The collective mass has an almost unfathomable power,
particularly with regards to the use of what Clay Shirky (2010) calls “Cognitive
Surplus”. In a world that contains unlimited amounts of content, the real power
of the network stems from this combined cognitive surplus, as users aggregate
and curate content in a never ending cycle, constantly updating information and
providing an ever clearer picture on the events taking place.

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Chapter 1 - Back to the Future
Section 1: A Brief History
Conflict Journalism
On 1 February 1968 whilst working for the Associated Press, a photographer
named Eddie Adams took an iconic photograph showing the execution of a
handcuffed Viet Cong prisoner on the streets of Saigon. This graphic image
depicted the brutality of war to many in the United States (US) and arguably
changed the way civilians viewed the war in Vietnam (Haggerty 2009). Adams
covered thirteen separate wars including Vietnam and the Gulf War and won 500
awards for his work, including the Pulitzer Prize1 (Times, 21 September 2004, p.
31). It could be argued that Adams embodied the traditional notion of the
conflict journalist through his powerful images and high standing within the
profession. The professional conflict journalist has changed little since Adams
took the notorious image on the streets of Saigon in 1968. Instead of wearing
fatigues, the modern perception is of a reporter, wearing a blue bulletproof vest
with the emboldened word ‘PRESS’ splashed in white across the front and back.
Some reporters may choose to wear a helmet for extra protection, while others
may not. They may be carrying a camera themselves, or in most cases, can be
seen through the lens, holding the microphone in front of the destruction taking
place around them. This reporter is the embodiment of the traditional2 way of
reporting on conflict. They are the first step in the logistical practice of creating a
story, the process of which up until now has been hidden from the audience. In
this media model, the audience are the information consumers.
The traditional definition of conflict journalism can be broken down into two
parts. According to The Oxford Dictionary (2014) the term conflict refers to “a
prolonged armed struggle”. This definition sets the parameters of the thesis, in
1 The Pulitzer Prize a US award considered to be the highest national honour in print journalism,
literary achievements and musical composition (Columbia Journalism School 2014).
2 The word ‘legacy’ will be used throughout this thesis to describe the mainstream, traditional
format of information dissemination.

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that all events discussed and examples used are considered to be within the
realm of conflict. An example discussed later in this thesis will examine the
execution of James Foley. While this act itself is not strictly a “prolonged armed
struggle”, the fact that it takes place within the greater context of such a struggle
is testament to its relevance.
The traditional definition of what constitutes journalism is described by The
Oxford Dictionary (2014) as “the activity or profession of writing for newspapers
or magazines or of broadcasting news on radio or television”. Shapiro (2014, p.
555) however, notes “to define journalism might be seen as a hegemonic foray
by one discipline against another”. This hegemonic foray stems from the
difficulty of defining journalism in today’s world. Due to the democratisation of
the tools of production, consumers who once only had the role of being an
audience are now able to assume the role of a producer, critic and consumer all
at once (Anderson 2008).
The integration of these facets into one single entity challenges the previous
conceptions of what it means to be a journalist. The traditional process of news
creates a dichotomous relationship between the media and the public3. The new
media paradigm, however, gives users access to a wealth of information as well
as the ability to create individual content and share it with the world. Taking
these changes currently shaping media in to account, Shapiro creates a new
definition of journalism that is more relevant and applicable to the less
traditional practices discussed in this thesis. Shapiro (2014, p. 561) defines
journalism as follows:
Journalism comprises the activities involved in an independent pursuit of accurate
information about current or recent events and its original presentation for public
edification.
3 This dichotomous relationship is expanded upon By Axel Bruns (2003, p. 31), who describes
the process as “gatekeeping”, a practice in which content undergoes an evaluation of its
newsworthiness before publication.

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The key aspect of this new definition is that it includes “activities involved in an
independent pursuit of accurate information about current or recent events”. It
is this pursuit of accurate information that has created an online community
focused on tearing content apart piece by piece, slowly building a picture of the
events taking place in close to real time. Journalism is no longer a practice
exclusive to the elite of the literary world. It is a process in which individuals can
now take part, evaluating raw data and information according to their own
personal ideals and experiences.
In the Beginning
An examination of the current state of conflict journalism is not complete
without first exploring the origins of the field. This will demonstrate that as new
forms of technology were created and introduced to the public, the methods of
information dissemination changed and adapted to suit those new media. Careful
consideration was taken in choosing where to begin in the history of conflict
journalism and war correspondence. Ever since there have been the implements
of recording news, albeit through media of art, words, song and so on, there have
been epic tales of wars and conflicts. While these battles have indeed been
documented, they were not reported on by journalists per se.
Artworks such as the Bayeux Tapestry4 are among some of the first visual
depictions of battles as we know them today and in most cases artists who were
not even present at the events created these visual depictions some time after
the events in question. In the context of history itself, even the Bayeux Tapestry is
a contemporary example of conflict journalism. Composed before 700BC,
Homer’s Iliad is essentially a poetic and mythological transcription of a conflict,
as it tells the story of the siege of Troy during the final years of the Trojan Wars.
Nearly two thousand years later in the fourteenth century, Jean Froissart’s
Chronicles are a series of manuscripts produced by hand that tell the story of the
Hundred Years War (Croenen 2002). Whether through mythology, tapestries or
manuscripts, the methods by which conflict is narrated has changed over time.
4 Depicting the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

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One of the first examples of the ‘modern’ conflict journalist can be found in
Henry Crabb Robinson, a British diarist and member of the literary elite who
operated in the early nineteenth century. Between 1807 and 1809, Robinson
worked for The Times (Roth 1997), an English publication that still exists today.
The key mode of Robinson’s reporting was the dispatch, in which his description
of the war and any battles contained therein would be sent back to The Times to
be published (Roth 1997). The delay in publication for this medium of
communication was immense, as the report of the battle could only be printed
once the dispatch was received back at the news outlets headquarters.
Depending on the origin of such a dispatch, this delay could be days or even
weeks. For example, the Battle of Waterloo took place on the 18 June 1815, just
south of the Belgian capital, Brussels. Wellington’s dispatch of the battle was not
received in London until four days later, when it was published in the London
Gazette on 22 June (Wellington 1815).
The medium of the dispatch was limited to the speed at which the physical
document could be transported from one location to another. Due to the
constraints of technology, the dispatch remained the only form of
communication enabling publication until the introduction of the electric
telegraph in the middle of the nineteenth century. The first communication via
telegraph was sent by Samuel Morse in 1844, and it was only twenty-two years
later that the first transatlantic telegraph cable between the United States and
Europe was laid, dramatically reducing the amount of time it took to
communicate between the two continents (Schwartz & Hayes 2008). According
to Menke (2013, p. 67):
The great marvel of the electric telegraph was that it once and for all decoupled data
transmission from physical transportation, relieving the circulation of messages from the
constraints of geography or movement.
The introduction of the electric telegraph made it clear that quick
communication over long distances was possible. However, the power to publish

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the information sent via this new channel of communication still resided within
the big news networks. In this regard, nothing had changed.
Glass Warriors
In 1826, after years of experimentation, Joseph Niepce created the first ever
photograph after he coated an 8” x 6-1/2” pewter plate with asphalt varnish
(Karwatka 2007). The image is less than rudimentary by the standards of today;
however, in the early nineteenth century it was an incredible feat. The
development of photography as a medium added a whole new element to the
reporting of conflict as images were now able to sit alongside the text-based
stories reported in the newspaper. The first known photographs of conflict were
taken by an Englishman named Roger Fenton during the Crimean War. These
images were “displayed at photographic exhibitions throughout Britain, and
available as postcards and stereoscope5 images” (Anderson 2005, p. 14). The
popularity of Fenton’s images highlighted the appeal of this new technology as a
way to spread information in a format never encountered before.
Photographers during the American Civil War ran into a variety of problems in
their attempts to cover the conflict. According to Anderson (2005, p. 28)
“Southern photographers quickly ran short of photographic materials, none of
which were produced in the confederacy”. This predicament highlighted the
issues with the medium, particularly in its infancy when equipment was
expensive, resources scarce and the production of the images themselves
generally expensive. The invention of the Kodak ‘Box Brownie’ camera in 1900
was a significant development that effectively democratised the tools of
production (Anderson 2008) by diminishing barriers to photography and
making it cheaper and more accessible for the whole population. According to
Kodak (2014):
5 A stereoscope allows the viewer to look at two separate images simultaneously, giving the
appearance of a three dimensional object.

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It sold for $1 and used film that sold for 15 cents a roll. For the first time, the hobby of
photography was within the financial reach of virtually everyone.
The wealth of photographs that exist from the First World War is a testament to
the ease of access created by Kodak upon releasing the Box Brownie. In an age
where there were simply too few professional photographers to cover every
aspect of the conflict, Anderson (2005, p. 90) notes:
Tens of thousands of soldiers, at least in the western theatre, took their own cameras on to
the battlefield…In Britain publications like the Illustrated War News, the Daily Mirror, the
Sphere, and War Illustrated urged soldiers to send in their pictures, and offered prizes for
the best shots in a variety of categories.
Improvements in technology often lead to an increase in user accessibility. The
invention of the Leica A in 1925 for example far surpassed any previously mass
produced camera, as it was both portable and produced images of a high quality.
The smaller size of this camera allowed the photographer to get far closer to the
action. It was the Hungarian photojournalist Robert Capa6 who said, “if your
shots are no good then you aren’t close enough”. While these improvements in
technology vastly increased the ability for individuals to record and capture
content, the creators of such content still lacked the power to publish their own
material. The images submitted to major news publications still went through a
closed editorial pipeline before they were published and disseminated to the
public. While the means of creating and recording content became more
democratised, the means of publishing this content still remained highly
concentrated.
6 Capa is famed for his image titled “The Falling Soldier”, which depicts a Loyalist Militiaman at
the moment of death during the Spanish Civil War of 1936.

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Section 2: The ‘Modern’ Conflict Journalist
World War Two, Vietnam and Beyond
True to form, the developing technologies throughout the early part of the
twentieth century played a vital role in shaping the media that became the main
source of information dissemination. While the medium of print and the static
image of photography was the main form throughout the period of the First
World War, by the middle of the twentieth century this format had changed
(Anderson 2005). McEwen and Fisken (2012, p. 3) note:
With the development of radio and film after 1918, the prominence of print journalism in
the dissemination of information diminished in the Second World War. The distribution of
new by various media was a potent force in shaping national morale.
The rise of the radio as a medium throughout the golden age of the 1930’s and
1940’s marked the real beginning of broadcast media, a tool that challenged
existing communication paradigms but this “was not immediately obvious at the
time” (Chapman & Kinsey 2009, p. 9). It is the challenging of existing forms of
media that marks the beginning of a paradigm shift7 in the media landscape.
Hadlow (2014, p. 78) discusses how the introduction of the moving image led the
Australian Army to create training and documentary films described as forms of
“visual education” that would be shown in cinemas throughout the country.
Keeping in mind that these cinematic documentaries were produced by the
Australian Imperial Force (Hadlow 2014), it is fair to assume that a reasonable
amount of bias would underpin the content contained within them.
The Vietnam War provided another challenge, not only to the medium through
which content was disseminated but also through the kinds of journalistic
practice used to gather information (Page 1988). In his book Page After Page,
Tim Page (1988, p. 8) states that “it [Vietnam] was a war covered by civilians
rather than civilians in uniform enlisted to distort the news”. Drawing on the
experiences of Page and other journalists who reported on the war, it is clear
7 The concept of a paradigm shift will be discussed in greater depth in Chapter 2, Section 1.

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that the coverage of Vietnam had a different dynamic not previously seen in
conflict journalism. According to Landers (2004, p. 74) the weekly publication
schedule of newsmagazines “enabled correspondents to search for combat,
travel to the scene, interview participants, and return to write dramatic
descriptions of the battlefield”. The ability for journalists to travel without
restriction and freely search for battles and engagements was a major shift from
the parameters placed on the media, particularly in Britain, during the Second
World War. In the previous context, the British press was reported as being
frustrated by the lack of information disseminated by the Ministry of
Information, a government body designed to “prevent panics, allay
apprehensions, remove misconception and generally keep up public moral”
(McEwen & Fisken 2012, p. 4). The results of allowing journalists such freedom
can be seen in the powerful images and footage that was collected when
journalists were able to report from the frontline and immerse themselves in the
midst of the action.
24 Hours of Horror in the Gulf
During the first Gulf War between 1990 and 1991, United States broadcaster
CNN began transmitting footage for twenty-four hours a day. For the first time, a
news organisation was providing a continuous stream of content, running
uninterrupted newscasts. According to Zelizer (1992, p. 71):
CNN possessed the ability to present, transmit, arid distribute news 24 hours a day,
making it the sole news organization capable of “keeping up” with satellite -fed
communication.
Satellite communications vastly improved the time taken to relay video footage
from one place to another, so long as a satellite was in range of the both the
sender and the receiver (Beakley 1980). Live streaming of content from the
battlefield was now possible. In some respects, satellite communication was the
electric telegraph of the twentieth century in terms of the improvement to
communication speed. A combination of this new technology coupled with the

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foresight of CNN’s newsgathering team allowed the world to watch the beginning
of a war in real time (Gutstadt 1993).
The 24-hour news coverage of the Gulf War is not without criticisms. Payson
(1991, p. 40) argues that despite the constant stream of coverage, the Gulf War
was in reality, a highly sanitised affair and even the “near-instantaneous media
coverage… has done little to expand the breadth of media coverage”. This lack of
breadth is partly due to the desire for the United States to avoid the kind of
publicity that gained notoriety during Vietnam (Sloyan 1992). By devising a war
where “no one dies; where no one is killed; where there are no bodies; where
there is no blood” (Sloyan 1992, p. 650) the United States was able to keep public
opinion on their side. Payson (1991) describes a particular news report in which
the anchorman describes the current situation as quiet, with only one Scud
missile landing on Tel Aviv. According to Payson (1991 p. 40), this fabricated
reality could not have been further from the truth as:
US-led forces dramatically increased their bombing raids over Kuwait and Iraq, launching
some 2,000 missions in 24 hours. The bombing nearly equalled the total number of sorties
launched by Allied forces over Dresden, Germany, in 1945.
Despite having the capability to cover the war for twenty-four hours a day, the
quality of content produced suffered, due in part to the restrictions placed upon
how close the press were allowed to be to the frontlines. “Despite around the
clock media coverage, it [content] still lacked substance and came entirely from
the perspective of the military that controlled both the content and the context”
(Hutchinson 2008, p. 36). This control included placing the media in “press
pools” (Mould 2006, p. 136), a system through which all controlled information
travelled to the networks. These press pools resulted in networks broadcasting
the same content with a completely one-sided view of the war. DeGhett (2014)
argues that the Gulf War contained a particular aesthetic not dissimilar to that of
a video game, particularly as the conflict appears to be made more humane
through discourse surrounding precision bombing and visuals showing the scene
through the lens of night vision goggles.

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The Embedded Journalist
Just as Henry Crabb Robinson reported on conflict during the Napoleonic wars
through the use of the dispatch, correspondents have covered war through a
variety of mediums for generations. According to Casey (2014) the war
correspondent is society’s window onto the battlefield. While this view is at odds
with the paradigm shift8 currently taking place in the media landscape, it does
perhaps help us to understand the reasoning behind the introduction of the
embedded journalist. Journalists have in some respects always been embedded
within military units. Even William Howard Russell who is regarded by many as
the father of war reporting, was by no means separated from the soldiers as he
revealed the awful conditions suffered by British soldiers in Crimea in 1854
(Greenslade 2013).
According to Mosdell (2008) the 2003 Iraq War transformed the scale and
manner of media operations on the battlefield. Mosdell (2008) also notes that of
the thousands of journalists present during the Iraq conflict between 600 and
700 of these were embedded with coalition troops9. The phrase ‘embedded
journalist’ became something of a sound bite during the Iraq War, as news
networks jostled to be competitive in a global news market. As discussed
previously, CNN was the only 24-hour news channel to cover the first Gulf War,
however, by 2003 there were a myriad of international players involved in
covering the conflict.
It was not long, however, before the process of embedding was called into
question. Cockburn (2010) frames this elegantly when arguing that:
8 More on this in Chapter 2, Section 1.
9 There were only a very small number of journalists embedded with the insurgent forces. One
such crew was from the international news network Reuters. Wikileaks has released footage of
US airstrikes killingtwo of Reuters’ embedded journalists in 2007, as they targeted suspected
insurgents that the group was covering.

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The embedded journalist is a grisly throwback to First World War-style reporting, when
appalling butchery in the trenches was presented as a series of judiciously planned
advances by British generals.
Ignatius (2010) expands on this opinion by observing that the process of
embedding comes at a price, as the information broadcast to the public is from
one perspective only and does not provide a holistic view of the situation. By
adopting the perspective of the soldiers amongst whom the journalist is
embedded, the camera effectively inserts the audience within in this same point
of view. On the surface the process of embedding with troops allows a greater
media coverage of the events taking place. Cockburn (2010) argues that the most
damaging effect of embedding is that the process effectively softens the brutality
of any military occupation. Through the censorship and bias inherent to the
process of legacy media, any hostile response to such an occupation is
underplayed (Cockburn 2010). The main weakness of the embedded journalist
stems directly from its implied strength. The ability to view war from the
soldier’s perspective, an inherent quality given that journalists are placed in the
midst of such units, effectively gives journalists a one-sided bias to what they are
reporting. Embedding journalists with troops means that the ability of that
journalist to report on both sides of the conflict objectively is greatly diminished,
simply because they are viewing the conflict from a single perspective.
Broadcasters, no matter if it is CNN, BBC, or VICE News, all face this same
problem.

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Section 3: A Comparison between Two Modern Examples
VICE News
VICE News is a shining example of an outlet struggling to adapt to the new media
paradigm. VICE was created in 1994 as a Canadian magazine known as Voice of
Montreal (Griffith 2014). The media outlet in its current form has a presence
worldwide through online, print and television mediums. While there is no doubt
that VICE has a sure footing on the global media stage, there are a host of
examples that show why VICE is effectively no different from the more
traditional forms of legacy media than one would initially think.
VICE is attempting to, and succeeding at, creating a visual characteristic to their
footage similar to that of the amateur journalist. A simple analysis of the footage
they upload to both YouTube and their HBO channel is exactly the kind of
footage one would see produced by amateurs filming events with a handy cam.
This aesthetic is purely intentional, given the fact the company has a net worth of
approximately $2.5 billion and could easily afford to create the polished and
edited kind of content produced by other established media networks (Steel
2014). It could be argued that this amateur aesthetic is used in order to give an
extra sense of legitimacy to the content displayed within the story. Interestingly
enough VICE co-founder Shane Smith notes that young people “are angry,
disenfranchised, and they don't like or trust mainstream media outlets” (Swaine
2014). By broadcasting their content in a format that appears to be under-
produced and amateurish, VICE successfully manages to trick their audience into
believing that they are different from the more traditional, mainstream media
outlets. By producing content with an amateur aesthetic, VICE is presenting its
viewers with a Trojan Horse of sorts, one that contains a pre-packaged and
produced story that is no different from other mainstream media sources.
In an interview with The Telegraph Andy Capper, the head of the British division
of VICE said:

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We see ourselves as CNN for kids who can't be bothered to watch CNN… We feel there are
things people should know about. In a way, we try to educate people by tricking them into
being interested in stuff. 'Look - trainers!', and then you find the piece is about Liberia or
Sierra Leone” (Horan 2006).
He is not the only member of VICE to parallel the company with other
mainstream media firms. Co-founder Shane Smith is quoted as saying that VICE
is on a “relentless quest for total media domination” (Deans 2014). However, by
achieving “total media domination” as Shane Smith so desires, VICE is effectively
becoming its own worst enemy.
Even the production process of the content published by VICE remains the same.
While the footage may look somewhat amateur or under-produced, the viewer is
still only seeing what the editors want them to see. The whole editorial process
behind the creation of the story is hidden from the viewer10. While VICE may
appear to be a cutting edge news outlet that utilises all the tools of the new
paradigm, that is as far as the story goes. The reality is that VICE is no different
from other legacy media networks in that the method of production remains the
same, albeit with a style that attracts the attention of the younger generation
(Wilkinson 2008).
AnnaNews
The other end of the media spectrum is populated by the likes of networks such
as AnnaNews1112, a Russian-based news network that exists purely online
through their own website and through the immense number of videos uploaded
to video hosting sites such as YouTube and LiveLeak. Anna is an acronym for
Abkhazian Network News Agency. Abkhazia is a semi-autonomous region
bordering Georgia that is considered as such by neighbouring Russia, however,
10 This process will be discussed in greater depth in Chapter 2, Section 1.
11AnnaNews homepage, current as of 8 October 2014: <http://www.anna-news.info/>.
12 AnnaNews YouTube channel, current as of 8 October 2014:
<https://www.youtube.com/user/newsanna1945>.

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tensions between Abkhazia and Georgia have been ongoing since 1991
(Palmowski 2014).
The network’s tagline is “Truth Explaining Facts, Facts Supporting Truth”
(AnnaNews 2014). In order to support this, AnnaNews (2014) uses video hosting
sites to upload hundreds of hours of raw footage, shot from a variety of locations
including Syria, Libya and Ukraine. This is not to say the channel does not have
its critics, particularly as an article in The Moscow Times labelled the channel as
having “a forceful pro-Assad slant” (Nechepurenko 2013). On the other hand,
Marat Musin, founder of AnnaNews, claims that the channel aims to “counter the
advanced information technologies that are used by Al-Qaeda to make
insurgents in the Middle East look like freedom fighters” (Nechepurenko
2013)13. In some cases, the very sites through which AnnaNews post their
footage work against them. One such example is in the deletion of the network’s
YouTube channel by YouTube after AnnaNews uploaded a video showing
graphic footage of civilian casualties in Ukraine14. In a blog post on LiveLeak, the
administrative user LaGrandeBouffe (2014) describes this as “another shameful
zioncon war against ‘non-aligned’ journalism.” However, in proving the
survivability of the medium itself, AnnaNews immediately created another
channel on YouTube and began uploading fresh content. The channel is still
running, however, as they have no control over YouTube’s actions of censorship,
the question really remains for how long.
While the likes of VICE News use an amateur production aesthetic as a way to
appeal to a certain audience, the reason for this amateur look of the content
produced by AnnaNews is simply for the reason that the footage is actually shot
by amateurs. Sticking GoPro’s on tanks and recording hours of footage is not
uncommon, neither is sending a reporter straight into the middle of a fire-fight in
order to capture video of the conflict. A key argument throughout this thesis is
13 This concept described as “Netwar” will be discussed throughout the thesis, however
particular attention should be paid to Chapter 3, Section 1.
14 Interestingly, a VICE News YouTube video also reporting from Ukraine shows graphic imagery
of dead soldiers in a morgue, displaying them with a variety of injuries including loss of limbs
and grievous bullet wounds. Even under YouTube’s graphic content conditions, this footage has
not been removed.

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that the real value of the footage shot by organisations such as AnnaNews is that
it provides no story. There is no supposed truth that the viewer is told whilst
watching the video; the truth is left up to the viewer to ascertain through the act
of watching an accumulative amount of footage.

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Chapter 2 – The Here and Now
Section 1: The Birth of a New Paradigm
A World in Crisis
On 19 August 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) released a video
showing the execution of North American journalist James Wright Foley. Barely
two weeks later, another video was made public by ISIS, reportedly showing the
execution of another North American journalist named Steven Sotloff. Both of
these events have received high levels of publicity through a variety of
traditional and social media channels. The fact that the event received so much
publicity is not surprising, considering that a white, well-educated citizen of the
United States had been executed in a Middle Eastern hotspot. What is surprising,
however, is the response from numerous channels in the hours and days
following the event.
In less than twenty-four hours a thread titled ‘Possibly a fake? ISIS beheading
American journalist Foley (video)’ (Tacoram 2014) appeared on the popular
news/blogging/forum site Reddit (See Fig. 1). As the thread name suggests, the
user is calling into question the authenticity of the video released by ISIS,
speculating that the killing may be staged due to the lack of blood visible in the
initial scene.15 The thread contained 263 comments as of 14.08pm, 17
September 2014 and these comments include a wide range of input from various
users. By looking at the variety of input in the thread it is possible to decide for
oneself the correct story based on the evidence and opinions presented. The
collective aggregate of information surrounding the event now becomes a source
of debate.
15 The video contains two sections. The first consists of Foley’s last words, coupled with the
initial stages of his beheading, in which a militant appears to saw at his neck with a knife in an
attempt to decapitate the prisoner. After he has completed 7 cuts with the knife the video then
fades to another scene showing a deceased body lying on the ground with the head sitting on its
back.

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Figure 1: A screenshot of the discussion thread on Reddit
Contrast this with a headline from The Times (UK) on 25 August, six days after
the execution of James Foley. Titled ‘Foley video with Briton was staged, experts
say’, the article quotes forensic scientists in an attempt to convince the reader
that the truth is being reported and that the video was staged, as shown in the
quote below:
“I think it has been staged," said one expert in visual forensics, after he was commissioned
by The Times to examine the footage. "My feeling is that the execution may have happened
after the camera was stopped" (Haynes 2014).
Compare this with the community of contributors on Reddit and the viewer
comes face-to-face with a set of questions that old methods of information
dissemination cannot possibly answer. As this example shows, there is a clash
between two conceptually different ways of organising information. Discussion
now happens almost instantaneously rather than days or weeks later, as would
be the case in the legacy media format16. Arguably, this is a new paradigm, one in
which end-users can take the raw information and create their own narratives,
drawing on the aggregated content and taking part in the never-ending exchange
of information. The legacy media model, one that relies purely on the one-way
path from production to consumption is poorly equipped to deal with a new,
16 This almost instantaneous feedback is covered in greater depth in Chapter 3, Section 1.

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more fluid model that largely owes its success to the cognitive surplus17 of users
who are constantly aggregating and curating data (Shirky 2010).
In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn (1996)
introduces the idea of a ‘crisis’. Kuhn (1996, p. 91) describes it as “the
proliferation of competing articulations, the willingness to try anything, the
expression of explicit discontent, the recourse to philosophy and to debate over
fundamentals”. It is this crisis that marks the beginning of a paradigm shift.
According to Danesi (2009, p. 225) a paradigm is a “set of assumptions,
principles, or practices that are characteristic of a science or philosophical
system”. Arguably, media is currently in a state of paradigmatic transition. This
transition is occurring as users begin to migrate from old forms of media
consumption such as watching television, reading the newspaper and listening to
the radio, to a more participatory culture.
The difference between the old and new paradigms is no more prevalent than in
the example given at the beginning of this chapter. Kuhn (1996, p. 67) notes that
“failure of existing rules is the prelude to a search for new ones”. This could not
be more appropriate when discussing the dichotomy between old and new
media formats, as legacy media does not allow for substantial user participation
or interaction. Bruns (2008) describes this lack of user participation as the
response and notes that it takes place through the publication of letters of
feedback or calls made to a news network. The search for new rules has been led
by this desire for user participation.
Media as a Product
On 10 July 2014 a disastrous headline posted by the New York Times (Akram
2014) read “Missile at Beachside Gaza Cafe Finds Patrons Poised for World Cup”.
The headline caused uproar amongst Palestinians and media critics alike, as the
phrasing made the story sound completely harmless, and not the tragedy that it
17 This will be discussed in more depth in Chapter 3, Section 3.

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was. In reality, the rocket strike caused the death of eight people (Goodman
2014). The anti-Palestinian agenda shown by the New York Times was
highlighted by Ali Abunimah, co-founder of pro-Palestinian blogging site The
Electronic Intifida on Twitter not long after the original article was posted.
Tweeting @nytimes, Ali Abunimah (2014) said “Israeli missile stops by Gaza cafe
for a drink and dialogue with its Palestinian friends”. It was this tweet that drew
attention to the article and created a “social media firestorm” (Goodman 2014).
Interestingly enough, the New York Times responded to the criticism by changing
the headline to “In Rubble of Gaza Seaside Cafe, Hunt for Victims Who Had Come
for Soccer”. Legacy media outlets have the opportunity to frame stories in their
own best interests. The addition of online platforms such as Twitter gives users
the chance to publish their own content and provides a tool to question the
validity of such manufactured stories. This feedback loop18 is an inherent
advantage of the new media paradigm as the response time is dramatically
decreased in comparison to legacy media.
Axel Bruns (2008) describes the traditional news process as having an input, an
output and a response. He calls these the “three stages of gatekeeping” (Bruns
2008, p. 4). The input includes the gathering of news by staff dedicated to the job,
namely the journalist. The output then consists of a closed system, in which an
editorial hierarchy make decisions on the actual content that is edited and
disseminated through public channels (Bruns 2008). The third stage or the
‘response’ is often feeble, consisting of only a few letters (or calls depending on
the medium) made by the audience that are published (Bruns 2008). The end
product of this traditional news process is a heavily curated product, one that
has gone through many hands before it makes it to the viewers. The New York
Times article is a prime example of this. What the news outlet has published is a
packaged product, framed in such a way that it portrays the event as less serious.
It is clear that the old system contains a series of failures in regards to
information access, clarity, and user participation. As described by Kuhn (1996,
p. 67) “failure of existing rules is the prelude to a search for new ones”. In the
18 Feedback (or OODA) loops will be discussed in further detail in Chapter 3, Section 1.

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eyes of the new paradigm, the existing rules of legacy media contain an extensive
list of failures. In fairness to the existing legacy paradigm, these failures have
only become visible when there is a viable alternative that highlights the
ineffectiveness of certain parts of the system. The first stage of gatekeeping as
described by Bruns (2008), for example, fails to include the voice of anyone else
bar the minority of journalists. There are undoubtedly a myriad of other news
stories not being reported, simply because in the past, journalists could not be
available to report on every news story.
The new paradigm aims to rectify this failure by allowing the user to both create
and share their individual content, and the content of others. The second stage or
the output contains one of the most serious failures of the old media landscape
(Bruns 2008). It is the closed editorial hierarchy that has all the power when it
comes to deciding what is and is not published. As evidenced by the Gaza missile
example above, this enclosed system has the power to frame an issue in a
particular light. It is this lack of transparency within the legacy media paradigm
that creates the most cause for concern, as what is broadcast and published is
consumed with an implication of truth. The consumer of this pre-packaged story
is not able to decide the truth for themselves, as they only have access to a small
segment of the information originally collected.
The Decline of Industrial Media
The term ‘industrial media’ aptly refers to this existing process of media
production and dissemination, in which there is a media producer (the news
network) and a media consumer (anyone listening to the radio, watching the
news or reading the newspaper). Envisage an assembly line, in which the raw
information undergoes a long and involved process that moulds and shapes it
into a story. This story is the finished product, presented to the public as the
truth, when in reality it has been commodified and packaged on a news assembly
line.

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According to the official website of Fairfax (2014) the company owns some of
Australia’s largest news publications, including the Age, Australian Financial
Review, Sydney Morning Herald and Canberra Times. Meanwhile, according to
Flew and Goldsmith (2013) “News Corp Australia titles account for 59% of the
sales of all daily newspapers, with sales of 17.3 million papers a week, making it
Australia's most influential newspaper publisher by a considerable margin”.
Companies such as News Corporation and Fairfax Media exemplify the industrial
process, as they control a number of media outlets that all report the same story,
albeit with a different author.
An example of the decline of the industrial process occurred 23May 2014 which
marked the end of a series of programs on Channel Ten, including Wake Up, and
both the early morning and late news broadcasts. These cutbacks are estimated
to bring about the loss of nearly two hundred jobs from across the network (ABC
2014). Channel Ten is not the only news source that has been hit hard due to the
universality of these trends. Snyder (2014) notes the decline in ratings for three
of the United States largest media outlets including CNN, MSNBC and Fox News.
According to Snyder (2014), “more Americans than ever are loosing faith in the
establishment-controlled media and are seeking out alternative sources of
information”.
Similarly, data collected by Pew Research (2014) reaffirms this point and gives
an in-depth analysis of the current state of the media landscape in the United
States. While the research is restricted to news sources within the United States
alone, it nonetheless provides an insight into the trends of one of the biggest
media consumers in the world. According to Pew (2014), the prime time
audience for the three major news channels (CNN, Fox News and MSNBC)
dropped 11% to three million in 2013. However, this is not the biggest decline.
According to Snyder (2014) the drop in ratings for CNN and MSNBC, for the
demographic of 25-54 years of age has dropped by a staggering 59 and 52
percent respectively, demonstrating that the younger generation is looking
elsewhere for such information.

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The potential causes for this major decline in viewership can be found in a
partner piece of research also conducted by Pew in 2013. The study entitled
“News Uses across Social Media Platforms” highlights the current trends in the
way that news is accessed by adults in the United States (Pew 2013). According
to the study, Reddit, Twitter and Facebook top the list for social networking
news sources (Pew 2013). Furthermore, the study shows that 30 percent of all
adults in the United States get news from Facebook (Pew 2013). What the study
does not show is whether the users get their information primarily from
Facebook itself, or if it is simply a gateway that allows them to access other
online news sources through updates in their newsfeed from already established
publishers that already have a strong online presence. Only further research will
be able to discern whether or not this is actually the case, however, no matter the
outcome it is clear that there is a strong paradigmatic shift at work, with users
finding different, more suitable ways to gain their news.

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Section 2: The Industrial Counter-Revolution
The Age of Participation
On 29 July 2014 I partook in a piece of citizen journalism, covering a conflict
from the other side of the world. The end of July marked a dramatic increase in
tensions between Israel and Palestine, culminating in an Israeli invasion
alongside consistent airstrikes. Using a program called TweetDeck, I was able to
consistently track a variety of trending hashtags that were being used by both
‘viewers’ of the conflict, as well as those who were actually inside Gaza at the
time. TweetDeck (2014) is a program that allows the user to:
Create searches to track topics, events and hashtags. Refine the results with filters,
organize and build custom timelines, keep track of lists, searches, activity and more—all in
one interface.
It is the perfect tool for keeping a track of the content being posted in real time,
allowing for almost instantaneous interaction with content (Fig. 2).
Figure 2: TweetDeck, a platform used to track multiple hashtags simultaneously
The hashtags I tracked were ones that I had seen being used over the previous
few days by mostly pro-Palestinian sources, as I wanted to get information that

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attempted to tell a side of the story not covered by industrial media. These
included #Gaza, #GazaUnderAttack, #GazaUnderFire and #SkyBreaking.
Following these hashtags revealed a wealth of information, with both outsiders
posting their thoughts on the conflict, as well as actual reports from people
within the warzone.
One tweet that I found particularly interesting drew attention to a live stream of
the conflict that was being hosted on a Palestinian website. After looking into it,
the stream was overcrowded and did not load, so I went in search of others.
Eventually I found one hosted on a site called UStream (2014), (Fig. 3) a site that
claims to be “the easiest and most powerful way to stream live video”. The
streamer was a man named Jehad Saftawi, a local university student studying
journalism. The stream was of reasonable quality. From what I gathered there
were many people viewing (as evidenced by the number of interactions shown in
Fig. 3) on other social media sites (7.3K Facebook, 14.5K Twitter), and there was
a constant feed of comments displayed to the right of the video.
Figure 3: The live stream provided by Jehad Saftawi
The stream was simple. It could be easily achieved with equipment costing no
more than a few hundred US dollars ( including webcam, computer and internet

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connection) and it broadcast raw, unedited footage of the bombing of Gaza. The
footage did not go back to a newsroom to be cut and edited, instead that job was
left to the users watching the feed.
It was evident that many users did edit the content. At approximately 5.30am
Gaza time a series of explosions could be seen well into the distance on the
webcam Saftawi had covering the attacks. In the background it was possible to
hear his voice, noting in a mixture of English and Arabic that they had just hit
Gaza’s Seaport. Minutes later, posts using the hashtag #gazaseaport and
derivations thereof, were popping up claiming the seaport had been attacked. I
was one of these voices. After taking a screenshot of the video footage posted by
Saftawi I put up a series of tweets (Fig. 4) commenting on the fact that Gaza
Seaport had just been bombed. I had got my information solely from the live
video stream, and by curating the information I essentially took on the role of the
editors within the industrial news organisations mentioned earlier. My tweets
received two retweets and served to add to the wealth of information that was
gradually appearing as to the events of the previous night.
Figure 4: One of the tweets posted by the author
As the morning progressed to about 6.30am Gaza time, other residents of the
area also posted their images and gradually, after following the conversation
surrounding some key hashtags, it was possible to gain an accurate picture of the
night’s events. According to Bruns (2008):
Citizen journalism provides news-as-process: a continuing and necessarily unfinished
coverage of topics and events inviting user participation, aiming to achieve what can be
described as ‘deliberative journalism’.

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It is this continuing and unfinished process that gradually created a picture of
the events of the night. We are now entering an age where it possible for almost
anyone to report, not only on conflict, but on topics that interest them.
Technological advancement combined with the networking power of the
Internet has democratised the tools of production to such an extent that it is
possible for the everyday user to create content that would have once been left
in the realm of those with sufficient funds or authority to do so (Anderson 2008).
Online Censorship
As previously discussed, on 19 August 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
(ISIS) released a video reportedly19 showing the execution of North American
journalist James Wright Foley. The original video was posted to a variety of video
hosting sites including YouTube and LiveLeak. However, it was not long before
the video started to be removed by the various hosting sites through which it
was posted and shared. In a statement on their website, LiveLeak (2014a) said:
We cannot find any compelling reason to even be thought of as promoting the actions of
this group. We know they do not find support here on LL and that condemnation is
virtually universal but there is no reason at all to show more beheadings.
While the beheading of Foley and the other hostages since is a terrible event, it is
the aftermath of the executions that is particularly interesting from a media
perspective. LiveLeak and YouTube were not the only sites that took offence to
the execution videos. On 20 August, CEO of Twitter, Dick Costolo (2014) posted a
tweet saying, “We have been and are actively suspending accounts as we
discover them related to this graphic imagery. Thank you”. This was a historic
move. In an article posted in the Guardian Emily Bell (2014) notes:
For the first time, Twitter acknowledged it was a platform that exercises editorial
judgment. It was not controversial somehow for news organisations to censor the images.
19 As mentioned in Chapter 2, Section 1, there is speculation surrounding the authenticity of the
execution videos.

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Yet the debate raged for days about whether executives in software companies could
decide what we see.
This example of Twitter and other sites regulating the content shown is
essentially a step backwards, to the industrial model discussed at the beginning
of this chapter. By deleting the tweets and suspending the accounts of those who
posted the graphic content, Twitter was adhering to the output stage of
gatekeeping proposed by Bruns (2008). By deleting the posts containing the
graphic imagery Twitter was assuming an editorial role20.
It is not just the deletion of posts that is cause for concern in regards to the
content we see on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. The issue of
algorithmic filtering is increasingly becoming a hot topic as users debate both
the advantages and disadvantages to this method of content curation. Eli Pariser
(2011, p. 9) calls this the “filter bubble”, and says these bubbles “are prediction
engines, constantly creating and refining a theory of who you are and what you’ll
do and want next. Together, these engines create a unique universe of
information for each of us”. Engin Bozdag (2013, p. 211) states that:
When the user interacts with the system by consuming a set of information, the system
registers this user interaction history. Later, on the basis of this interaction history,
certain information is filtered out.
While this process is designed to find user relevant content, it is this very design
that is also its fatal flaw. The beauty of Twitter in particular comes from the
ability of the user’s network to discover topics that interest them. When Twitter
CFO, Anthony Noto, announced that Twitter was going to implement changes
from the reverse chronological order of tweets to a more algorithm-based
system (Koh 2014; Tufekci 2014a), Zeynep Tufekci (2014b), a prominent
contributor to medium.com and assistant professor at the University of North
Carolina tweeted “I'm not on Twitter just so people see my tweets but b/c my
20 In an interesting side note, Twitter did not delete the tweets of major news organisations who
had posted images or footage surrounding Foley’s death. The New York Post & the New York Daily
News did not have their tweets removed (Holmes 2014).

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network finds me stuff. Fascinating stuff. From people the algorithm will ignore”.
It is the networked human intelligence that powers Twitter (Tufekci 2014b) that
is one of the reasons it is such a powerful tool in terms of information
dissemination. It is the users that have the ability to decide what content will rise
and which will fall.
The Google Doctrine
If the execution of James Foley made at least one thing clear, it is that the
Internet is a tool that allows many sides to have a voice. Due to the ubiquitous
nature of the Internet, it is easily accessible by all sectors of the community. It is
common to hear this as an upside, that so many people have access to this new
tool of communication and organisation. However, as Evgeny Morozov (2011, p.
7) notes, the fact that “Al-Qaeda seemed to be as proficient in using the Internet
as its Western opponents did not chime well with a view that treated technology
as democracy’s best friend”. Arquilla and Ronfeldt (1996) discuss this idea at
depth in a variety of publications, including The Advent of Netwar. Terrorist
groups such as Al-Qaeda and others are using the information revolution to their
advantage and using the power of the online network in a way “that may have
overarching effects on society and security” (Arquilla & Ronfeldt 1996, p. 2). It is
these overarching effects that Morozov believes to be ignored by western media.
In his book The Net Delusion, Morozov (2011) introduces the concept of what he
calls the ‘Google Doctrine’. Morozov (2011, p. xiii) defines the ‘Google Doctrine’
as the “enthusiastic belief in the liberating power of technology accompanied by
the irresistible urge to enlist Silicon Valley start-ups in the global fight for
freedom”.
Subsequently, the Google Doctrine applies directly to the actions of social media
sites that removed the content depicting the murder of James Foley, as their
actions exemplify the desire for technology to aid the global fight for freedom
described by Morozov, not inhibit it. An article posted by the New York Times
shows the bodies of three dead children, all under the age of eight and killed by
an Israeli attack on Gaza on 17 July 2014 (Mackey 2014) (Fig. 5).

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Figure 5: The top news story from the New York Times, depicting three dead
Palestinian children in Israeli attacks
James Ball (2014) of the Guardian observes that:
Photos of groups of civilian men massacred by Isis across Iraq and Syria – widely shared
on social media and used by publications across the world – caused no outcry whatsoever.
This raises some serious questions about the legitimacy of certain hosting sites,
particularly Twitter and LiveLeak. For LiveLeak to refuse to host anymore of the
combat footage videos is a particularly worrying step, as they pride themselves
on hosting graphic content that is unavailable elsewhere. A simple Internet
search for the site leaves the viewer with no doubt of the kind of content
available if they choose to proceed (Fig. 6).

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Figure 6: The preview for LiveLeak as viewed on Google

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Section 3: The ‘Long Tail’ of Conflict Journalism
Introducing the Long Tail
The idea of the ‘long tail’ was first introduced into the wider public
consciousness21 in October 2004, through an article in popular technology and
culture magazine Wired. The long tail is an example of a powerlaw that “isn’t
cruelly cut off by bottlenecks in distribution such as limited shelf space and
available channels” (Anderson 2008, p. 126). A Dictionary of Media and
Communication (Chandler & Munday 2011) defines a powerlaw distribution as
“a mathematical relationship between the frequency and size of an event, where
the frequency increase is inversely proportional to its size increase”. Anderson
(2008) explains that it is this lack of constriction that gives the principle its
name, as a key feature of the powerlaw is that the amplitude of the curve
approaches but never reaches zero, providing us with a ‘long-tailed’ curve.
Anderson (2008, p. 132) argues that “in Long Tail markets, where the carrying
costs of inventory are low, the incentive is there to carry everything, regardless
of the volume of its sales”. It is this ability to carry more stock than what can
simply fit in a store that makes the long tail so powerful. If a book only sells two
copies every quarter when it is taking up shelf space then it is considered
unprofitable. If 10,000 books only sell 2 copies every quarter from an online site
that can carry a potentially unlimited catalogue, that is 20,000 sales that when
accumulated, has the potential to outstrip sales of the so-called bestsellers.
21 This is the most cited article ever published in Wired (Anderson 2008, p. 10).

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Figure 7: A simple illustration of the long tail (Anderson 2014)
The above graph (Fig. 7) (Anderson 2014) shows a simplified version of a
traditional powerlaw distribution. The red section represents inventory22 that is
‘mainstream’ or at least made available through older, more traditional forms of
distribution. The yellow section represents the other inventory accessible once
the bottlenecks23 of distribution have been removed. Anderson (2008, p. 6) notes
that:
The new niche market is not replacing the traditional market of hits, just sharing the stage
with it for the first time. For a century we have winnowed out all but the best-sellers to
make the most efficient use of costly shelf space, screens, channels, and attention. Now, in
a new era of networked consumers and digital everything, the economics of such
distribution are changing radically as the Internet absorbs each industry it touches,
becoming store, theatre [sic], and broadcaster at a fraction of the traditional cost.
22 The term ‘inventory’ is used as this depiction can apply to anything, from media content to
products that can be bought and sold.
23 An example of a bottleneck is the limited shelf space available in a physical store.

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It is the combination of potentially infinite niche markets that make up the long
tail. The Internet has provided a platform that allows niche market users to
access content, albeit through blog posts and hosting sites or Amazon’s seeming
unlimited catalogue of products that contains upwards of 270 million items24
(Amazon 2014), more than could ever be held in a physical store.
The Long Tail of Conflict Journalism
Figure 8: The long tail of conflict journalism (image by author)
The principle of the long tail does not only apply to the millions of items in the
catalogue of Amazon. Information on conflict and the means by which content is
both produced and disseminated has radically changed in the last decade. Figure
8 is a standard power law distribution graph, formatted to show how the long
tail has affected the niche market of conflict journalism. In much the same way
that the Internet allows sites such as Amazon to carry a seemingly unlimited
number of products, it also gives users access to a potentially unlimited amount
of information. The Internet provides a space in which all content can be both
stored and accessed by users at their leisure.
24 This number was gained by searching the term ‘-abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz’ under the ‘all
departments’ filter on the Amazon website. As of 19 September 2014, the total results for this
search term are 272,507,110. Searching for each letter of the alphabet draws together every
possible search result on the site, giving an overview of the number of items stocked.

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The graph presented in Figure 8 is split into three sections that display the
distinct types of content through which information regarding conflict is
distributed. The dotted line on the left of the graph shows the content available
via industrial media sources. The reason that the ‘head’ (refer to Fig. 7) of this
graph is so slim, is due to the fact that there is so much content available
regarding war, that subsequently what is posted by industrial media sources is
the equivalent of a drop in the ocean. While key events25 may be covered both
online and through more traditional means, due to the Internet’s inherent
capacity for content production the long tail axiomatically has a higher
aggregated number of views than the head. The second dotted line marks section
two of the graph; the raw data and content sourced by aggregators. This includes
hundreds of thousands of hours’ worth of video footage uploaded by civilians
and soldiers alike26, a constant update of tweets updating multiple times per
second27, photos posted through image hosting sites28, blog posts, comments on
blog posts, comments on videos, even comments on other peoples comments.
This raw data is then pulled apart by curators who can splice together different
videos to create their own story, use data to create accurate real-time mapping of
the conflict, as well as discussing inaccuracies in official sources. This process is
called content curation29. The Gaza Seaport example described previously30 is an
example of content curation at work. By assuming an editorial role I pulled
information from the live stream, combined that with a screenshot and created
my own piece of curated content, ready for Twitter. It is this content malleability
and the capacity to publish combined with the potentially infinite “carrying
capacity” (Anderson 2008, p. 128) inherent to the Internet that gives the long tail
of conflict journalism its length. This nature of content reproduction is
25 Battles, engagements.
26 Uploaded to sites such as YouTube, LiveLeak, RuTube (Video hosting site similar to YouTube,
targeted at Russians), Facebook.
27 A program such as TweetDeck (reference Fig. 2) can be used to track multiple tags
simultaneously.
28 These sites include Instagram, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter (to name a few).
29 Content curation will be discussed in depth in the following chapter. See Section 3 ‘User
Curated Content’.
30 See Figure 2, 3 & 4.

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reinforcing to the model itself, as each curated piece of content is essentially a
new piece in its own right31.
31 More on this in Chapter 3, Section 1.

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Chapter 3 – Network Supremacy
Section 1: Netwar/4th
Generation Warfare
The Power of OODA Loops
Figure 9: An illustration providing a visual depiction of the OODA loop (Porter
2008)
As previously discussed in Chapter Two, Section Two, the execution of James
Foley sparked what can only be described as a firestorm, through both industrial
and new media channels. Online forum Reddit, was quick off the mark to host a
thread titled ‘Possibly a fake? ISIS beheading American journalist Foley (video)’
(Tacoram 2014), which called into question the authenticity of the video. This
thread was posted at 11.20pm (UTC32 time) on 19 August, the day of Foley’s
alleged death. This was just hours after the video was first made public. The first
newspapers began publishing this story, only six days later. While this example
was previously used to highlight the paradigm shift taking place in the new
media landscape, it is also a fitting example to demonstrate the concept of the
OODA (observe, orientate, decide and act) loop.
The concept of the OODA loop is “the most readily associated concept of [John]
Boyd” (Hammond 2013, p. 601), an American ex-pilot and military strategist
32 Coordinated Universal Time (Timeanddate.com 2014).

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who was active in the second half of the twentieth century. Hammond (2013, p.
601) notes:
For Boyd, the OODA Loop contained a complex interrelationship of feed forward and
feedback along with implicit guidance and control. It was an ongoing, many-sided, implicit
cross-referencing process of projection, empathy, correlation, and rejection.
It is this four-step process that is known as the OODA loop which stands for
observe, orientate, decide and act (see Fig. 9). While a major application of the
OODA principle has been within the military33, it is the concept itself that is the
most significant as it applies with equal validity to the flow of information and
content within networks. Due to the Internet’s capacity to host a two-way
feedback system through the variety of previously discussed channels (video
hosting sites, blogs, social media; anywhere a user can comment, post and create
content), the time taken to complete the OODA loop becomes noticeably shorter.
This occurs due to the potential for almost instantaneous feedback on
information shared in the network. John Robb (2011), author of blogging site
Global Guerrillas notes that “the more connected a loop is, the better the decision
loop is”. Considering that connectivity is a fundamental characteristic of the
Internet and the way it is designed, it is no surprise that the OODA loop can be
adapted to such a medium.
Osinga (2005, p. 269) takes the concept a step further by describing the OODA
loop as a series of steps that all individuals take in their everyday lives. He says:
Without OODA loops … we will find it impossible to comprehend, shape, adapt to, and in
turn be shaped by an unfolding, evolving reality that is uncertain, everchanging,
unpredictable.
The OODA loop then, is a conceptual tool enabling both easier and more efficient
adaption to a constantly changing situation. The discussion surrounding the
death of James Foley immediately thrived in the two-way information channel
system of Reddit, in which users were able to discuss, argue and debate the
33 Such as organisation and movement of troops, communication relays.

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content with which they were engaged. The existence of the thread itself is an
example of users’ posting feedback on the original video, and due to the users’
ability to act (by posting the thread) as soon as they deemed necessary, the
OODA loop regarding this particular side to the James Foley event was shortened
by six days. This example demonstrates the power of an OODA loop with a high
level of connectivity, as multiple users engaged with the content only hours after
it was first posted online. Reddit is not the only site that has proven the strengths
of such a concept. In Chapter Two, Section One, the case study surrounding the
bombing of Gaza Seaport displays the news-as-process model proposed by Bruns
(2008). This news-as-process is at its most fundamental level, an OODA loop, as
information is continually sifted and sorted by a community of users who give
provide constant feedback34 on the event that is taking place in close to real time.
Netwar and Networks
The OODA loop is not the only theoretical concept aimed at highlighting the
strengths and weaknesses of network forms of organisation. Arquilla and
Rondfeldt (2001, loc. 627), two theorists from the RAND35 corporation are
credited with developing the idea of netwar, which is “an emerging mode of
conflict and crime at societal levels, involving measures short of traditional war
in which the protagonists are likely to consist of dispersed, small groups who
communicate, coordinate, and conduct their campaigns in an internetted
manner, without a precise central command”.
It is this lack of precise central command on the ground that is mimicked by the
media paradigm we are now entering. The very nature of the Internet allows for
a series of connected nodes, each with equal power to create content. The
34 This feedback takes place in both comments on content, or through providing completely fresh
content which then adds to the information surrounding such an event.
35 RAND is a “nonprofit research institution committed to exploring the most complex and
consequential problems facing our society” (RAND 2014). RAND corporation has incredibly close
ties to the US military. It was originally established with the aim of researching future weapons
development over the long term. Interestingly, Paul Baraon, a computer engineer who first
conceptualised the idea of the Internet as a distributed network, was working for RAND
Corporation at the time.

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Internet is designed to survive and it is this survival aspect of its architecture
that allows content to be reproduced and shared through a variety of sources.
The video of James Foley’s execution may have been removed from sites such as
Twitter and YouTube but that did not stop the perpetrators from finding other
mediums through which to host the content. The flexibility of content means that
its online journey is much more fluid, never being limited to just one site,
particularly when users can share, download and repost at will.
Netwar takes place because the Internet does not discriminate between who is
and is not allowed to use it. Morozov (2011, p. 7) touched on this in the previous
chapter with the example of Al-Qaeda being “as proficient in using the Internet
as its Western opponents”. Arquilla and Ronfeldt (1996, p. 2) note that “terrorist
and criminal organizations are increasingly taking advantage of new information
technologies to realize the full potential of highly decentralized, networked
designs”. Considering that efficient information dissemination is vital to the
effectiveness of these small, decentralised groups, it is no wonder that the
Internet is one of their primary tools.

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Section 2: Cognitive Surplus
@WarfareStudies
Throughout July and August 2014, a Twitter user with the handle 36
@WarfareStudies37 posted a series of highly detailed maps on both his Twitter
account, and Tumblr38 page. The maps (see Fig. 10) show complex troop
movements and battles with regards to the current conflict in Ukraine. The maps
vary in complexity, sometimes showing the troop movements within a small
region, and at other times showing the “global situation” (WarfareStudies
2014a).
Figure 10: Global operations, 18-24 August (WarfareStudies 2014a)
36 Username.
37 <https://twitter.com/WarfareStudies>.
38 Tumblr is “a free blogging site that makes it effortless not only to type in text, but to share
photos, links, music and videos” (Boutin 2009).

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Figure 10 is an example of a conflict map (dated 18-24 August) created by
WarfareStudies, showing a myriad of troop movements from all parties involved
in the conflict. According to the WarfareStudies Twitter account, “I create maps
confronting [gathering] reports from different Ukrainian and pro-Russian
sources. Sometimes they are contradictory” (WarfareStudies 2014b). The
gathering of content for a map of this detail takes place through a variety of
media. “Sometimes some online social network can put you on the track.
Pics/vids are not always available or verified” (WarfareStudies 2014c). The
authenticity of information displayed on these maps has been called into
question by others as evidenced by the feedback of other users in the comments.
WarfareStudies, however, is well aware of the potential bias surrounding the
content produced. Figure 10 was a particularly hard map to create as “24 August
situation was changing quickly” (WarfareStudies 2014d) and “there was [sic]
few Ukrainian info to contrast pro-Russian reports in some places so map was
more biased there” (WarfareStudies 2014e).
The accuracy of the maps created by the user is a contentious point39, however,
the strength of Twitter as a platform for this kind of information dissemination
allows for an almost instantaneous feedback loop from other users who provide
their own input on the content. It is this continuous process of updating and
sifting, providing feedback and updating again, that gives this new way of
reporting its real power. The fundamental characteristics of the OODA loop can
be seen at work here, as the feedback between WarfareStudies and the other
users who follow the account takes place in near real-time. Users now have the
ability to provide an active critique, highlighting inaccuracies and suggesting
changes to be made.
39 This is not to say the industrial media does not also get it wrong. A recent article posted by a
variety of Fairfax media outlets including the Canberra Times and the Age in an attempt to
publish an image of Abdul Numan Haider (earlier shot dead by police in Melbourne),
inadvertently ran a front page with an image of an unknown man who had nothing to do with the
story whatsoever (McKinnon 2014).

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This loop of consistent feedback and never-ending updating of content
exemplifies the news-as-process cycle as originally described by Bruns (2008) in
Chapter 2. By compiling data from potentially hundreds of sources, users such as
WarfareStudies can now create the sophisticated kinds of maps once reserved
only for those who had access to such sensitive information. Now, when there
are a large number of individuals posting content depicting the events taking
place on and around the battlefield (often in close to real-time), it is possible for
users such as WarfareStudies to collate this information and create the map
exhibited above.
WarfareStudies is not the only blogger who curates individual pieces of
information into maps. Popular blogger Kot-Ivanov40 produced a thorough
database of information regarding the movement of troops throughout the
conflict in Ukraine from the period of 22 July through to 11 September 2014.
Each of Kot-Ivanonv’s blog posts create a considerable amount of commentary in
which readers offer corrections for his maps, based on new information from the
front. Unfortunately, Kot-Ivanov has stopped posting content, however, in a move
that demonstrates the resilience of the paradigm shift currently taking place in
the media landscape, Kot-Ivanonv’s work (see fig. 11) has been carried on by an
unknown user who appears online under the pseudonym ‘dragon_first_1’. Kot-
Ivanonv’s (2014) livejournal account actually states “kot-ivanov is gone, but his
work continues. You will find the continuation in this blog”. Not only has this
user continued creating maps of the same quality as the original blogger, they
are now translated into English, thus opening up the content to an even wider
audience.
40 <http://kot-ivanov.livejournal.com/>.

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Figure 11: An example of Kot-Ivanov’s “Map of Military Operations” translated
into English by blogger dragon_first_1 (dragon_first_1 2014)
Cognitive Surplus
Online users such as WarfareStudies and Kot-Ivanov collate this information and
create the maps in their own time using what Clay Shirky (2010) calls “cognitive
surplus”. These users are amateurs who work solely on both their own cognitive
surplus time, as well as the cognitive surplus of the network of users who have
produced and aggregated the content required to create the maps in the first
place. Cognitive surplus is a key component that underpins the whole system of
peer-produced content. In his book Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in
a Connected Age, Shirky (2010) aims to identify the ways in which we spend our
free time online and the possible benefits this may have for humanity as a whole.
Shirky (2010, p. 10) observes that “we can now treat free time as a general social
asset that can be harnessed for large, communally created projects, rather than a

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set of individual minutes to be whiled away one person at a time”. The cognitive
surplus argument put forward by Shirky supports the change in the user-
producer relationship that is taking place at an ever-increasing rate. Social media
gives users the opportunity to interact with the media they are consuming, by
giving feedback, commenting and most importantly, producing content.
Cognitive surplus is a cornerstone essential to the success of the new media
paradigm due to the fact that it relies so heavily on the input of Internet users.
The masses of content aggregated on hosting sites such as YouTube would not
exist if it were not for the cognitive surplus of the one billion active users
(YouTube 2014) that not only upload content but take part in the discussion
surrounding it. YouTube (2014) estimates that one hundred hours of footage are
uploaded to the site every minute. The ease of publication that is an inherent
part of this new media model is a key factor in the rise of cognitive surplus. It is
Shirky (2010, p. 46) who notes:
Publicity, publicize, publish, publication, publicist, publisher. They are all centred on the
act of making something public, which has historically been difficult, complex, and
expensive. And now it is none of those things.
Fundamental to the power of our combined cognitive surplus is the environment
in which this accumulated free time takes place. While the means (and ease) of
production is vital, the network that connects users together is also of vital
importance. Just as the printing rooms of Gutenberg would harbour the means of
production, they would also act as a space for the carriers of information to come
together and share their own ideas. Now, as then, this same space still exists.
Jarvis (2012, loc. 237) suggests that “the internet…is not just a means of data
exchange but of cultural exchange. It is not, in my view, a medium but instead a
connection machine”. He echoes the words of David Weinberger (2012, p. xii)
who argues that:
The smartest person in the room isn’t the person standing at the front lecturing us, and
isn’t the collective wisdom of those in the room. The smartest person in the room is the

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room itself: the network that joins the people and ideas in the room, and connects to those
outside of it.
While it easy to agree with Shirky on the majority of points, there are certain
aspects to his theory of cognitive surplus that may be less obvious. A major
downside proposed by Shirky (2010, p. 47) is that “freedom and quality are
conflicting goals”. This means that there can only ever be quality or quantity, but
not both. Though, due to the nature of the Internet and its ability to encourage
people to share their ideas and creations (recalling that social media rewards
our intrinsic desires for membership and sharing), quantity is such that quality is
no longer an issue. The work of bloggers such as WarfareStudies and Kot-Ivanov
exemplify this process, as creating such maps is done so purely off their own
cognitive surplus time. There is so much information available now, that with the
correct knowledge and research skills anyone can find quality information on a
topic they desire. Gone are the days of having available information limited by
the resources at hand, now is a time when the wealth of the world’s information
is at our fingertips.

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Section 3: User Curated Content
Lifecycle of Online Content
The development that content undergoes within the online space is a continuous,
never ending process much like that of an ecosystem. The lifecycle of online
content is a complex process that involves masses of aggregated information and
the previously mentioned cognitive surplus of an active community of citizens
who engage with such content. This engagement itself is a lifecycle, as users are
constantly processing information, adding to it and subtracting misinformation,
all the while fostering an environment in which news-as-process can thrive. This
lifecycle is a coping mechanism that helps the network itself deal with the
masses of content available at our very fingertips. Figure 12 depicts a basic
outline of the lifecycle of online content. The lifecycle has three central stages of
content interaction: the distribution (or production) phase, the aggregation
phase and the curation phase. While each of these sections plays an equally
important role in the lifecycle of online content, it is the continuous sifting of
information that makes the model unique.
Figure 12: Lifecycle of online content (image by author)

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All content, whether new or curated, begins its online lifecycle in the distribution
(or production) phase. As demonstrated by the live stream covering the Israeli
attacks on Gaza Seaport, this process can now happen in very near real-time. The
production phase then leads to aggregation. The very act of publishing content to
a site, whether it be a blog, social network site or video hosting site is essentially
an act of aggregation, as it adds to and builds on the other content already
hosted. The third and final phase is that of content curation. The curation phase
is the most complex and takes place only with the collective input of those
individuals who take the time to filter the content. The curation phase inherently
removes the ‘bad’ content from the system, even if that is not what is originally
intended by the curators themselves. As Tufekci (2014b) noted in the previous
chapter, “I'm not on Twitter just so people see my tweets but b/c my network
finds me stuff. Fascinating stuff”. Due to the structure of the lifecycle, the
network itself is almost a self-curating entity.
Figure 13 depicts this process of self-curation. The content enters the system at
the bottom and as ‘good’ content is curated and re-curated, it begins to make its
way to the top of the cylinder. ‘Other’ content will never actually be removed
from the system unless deleted by the user or an administrator, however, if not
considered worthy of curation, it will sit at the bottom of the pile. The obvious
downside to this system is that amongst the ‘other’ pile, there is undoubtedly a
wealth of content missed or ignored by the curators. It is interesting to note here
that the process of curation itself is subject to the powerlaw distribution
discussed previously in Chapter Two. Even a system such as this is unable to
overcome the ‘long tail’ created by such a wealth of information. Despite this, the
amount of content curated in the first place however, means that the quantity of
content is such, that quality no longer becomes an issue. Blogging site Reddit is
an example of the content curation depicted in Figure 13. Popular posts and
comments can be upvoted by other users, and thus appear closer to the top of
the page. Displaying the versatility of the medium, the user still has the ability to
sort the comments on the page in a variety of ways, including ‘best’ and ‘top’ (in
which highest ranked comments are displayed first), ‘new’, ‘hot’, ‘controversial’

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and ‘old’. These customisation options allow for different user experiences
depending on what they want to see.
Figure 13: The process in which content is brought to the surface (image by
author)
Aggregation
On 30 April 2011, LiveLeak (2014b) created a channel on their site marked
“Syria”. This channel appears alongside other popular categories on the site, such
as “News & Politics”, “Entertainment” and “Ukraine”. As previously stated in
Chapter 2, (see Fig. 6) LiveLeak is a site that prides itself on hosting graphic
content. The Syria channel of LiveLeak (2014b) contains upwards of 34,000
videos and has a total number of 45,347,922 channel views (Fig. 14)

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Figure 14: Syria channel statistics on LiveLeak
As of 23 September 2014, a simple search on YouTube (2014a) for “Syrian War
Footage” provides the viewer with approximately 296,000 video results, with the
videos ranging in length from less than a minute to over an hour. These videos
also contain a large number of views. While YouTube (2014a) does not display
the number of views for a particular search term, when the videos are ranked
from most-to-least viewed, the first page of search results (20 videos) has a
number of views totalling 13,614,697 (2014b) (as shown in Fig. 15)41.
41 The black circles in fig. 14 highlight the total number of video views.

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