Anyone know what this is?
It is a “how to” video on non-violent protest from the increasingly popular “Howcast.com”:http://www.howcast.com/ website. But according to the “NY Times”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/business/12howcast.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all, this particular video was produced in conjunction with the State Department (as was another video on “How to Launch a Human Rights Blog”). Interestingly, I was unable to discern this fact from looking at the video on Howcast’s website. I am far from an investigative journalist, so I am eager for someone to prove me wrong on this, but neither the video itself nor the accompanying “wikiguide”:http://www.howcast.com/guides/2429-How-To-Protest-Without-Violence seems to mention the US government or the State Department anywhere. While I’m all for the government attempting to harness new media in an attempt to advance our nation’s foreign policy goals, I think this does raise some important questions:
Should the government (and its representatives) be required to identify itself (themselves) when posting video, blogging, commenting on blogs, tweeting, etc.? We don’t normally think of the State Department as running covert operations, but what counts as “covert” in the world of new media? Is it “covert” to post an unidentified video on organizing protests with such helpful tips as “Clothing can also convey symbolic meaning.”, which has clear echoes of recent protests in both Ukraine and Iran? Even if I missed something here and there is some identifying mark in this particular video, it still seems that this is an area requiring some thought as we move forward.
From a different perspective, how are we going to know if these programs are succeeding? The video I posted above is in English, and to me looks like it is aimed at an American domestic audience. But if the NY Times is correct and the video came out of a program where the US State Department is the client, then surely this must be aimed at aiding protesters abroad. (The alternative, that the State Department is attempting to encourage non-violent protest in the US seems too bizarre to even consider). So how will we know if such programs are succeeding? Is the State Department collecting data from Howcast.com about who watches these videos? If so, does that mean that someone in the government knows I just watched that video? And if not, how will we know if the program is effective? It seems that social scientists can play a role here in judging the effectiveness of such programs, but only if the appropriate data is both collected and made publicly available. [Does anyone have or know of current research related to this question?]
Finally, who gets to draw the line on where these how to guides stop? “How to Launch a Human Rights Blog” seems innocuous enough, but what happens if the next guide is “How to Tell if Your Classmates are Al Qeada Supporters” or “How to Recruit Police Informants for Your Protest Movement”? One other thought to consider in this regard: what happens when the first person goes on trial for sedition in a foreign country and the evidence that government presents is that s/he has been downloading propaganda from the US State Department on organizing protest movements?
To be clear, I am _not_ saying that the US government should eschew the use of new media in promoting US foreign policy interests. But I do think that things are happening very quickly in this regard – as is often the case with technological advancement – and we probably need to stop and give some thought about what we are doing, how we will know if it is working, and what the consequences of our actions may turn out to be.