Call it the network’s CNN moment. Just as CNN’s coverage of the Gulf War of 1992 catapulted that network to Lady Gaga-like stardom, Al Jazeera is turning heads.
This isn’t lost on Al Jazeera English (AJE). Beside every piece of its top-shelf online coverage you’ll see an ad urging viewers to demand that the network be made available on U.S. airwaves. American cable companies have so far succeeded in blocking AJE across most of the U.S. (Toronto viewers can watch with Bell Express Vu channel 516 in the International News I package, and in some Rogers markets, in case you’re wondering.)
I would give a superfluous organ to get the Arab news network into John Q. Public’s living room, but thankfully, I won’t need to. CNN didn’t need a web campaign to elbow its way into the mainstream in 1992, and Al Jazeera doesn’t need one now.
Not only were AJE’s online viewers watching a political revolution unfold in Egypt, but they were themselves participating in another one in front of their monitors. And that alone will change television news forever.
But AJE is pushing the limits of web protest well beyond that. It is piggybacking its cause on Egypt’s historic regime change, drumming up public outrage at what is admittedly a hypocritical stranglehold on its availability in the U.S. Here’s how:
• Next to the video player showing Tahrir Square was a widget where U.S. viewers could enter a ZIP code under the words “Demand Al Jazeera in the USA.” It spits out a form letter that can be sent off to the local cable provider.
• According to Chartbeat, a real-time analytics service, a whopping 71 per cent of AJE traffic was coming from social networks. AJE capitalized with a Twitter #DemandAlJazeera hashtag.
• AJE created an embeddable banner that can appear on any site (see below) that I’ve only ever seen on articles about their broadcast campaign. It looks neat, though.
• The smartest tool Al Jazeera used to further its cause was MeetUp.com, an early Web 2.0 social organizing service. AJE organized hundreds of meetings around the world – a few in Toronto – to discuss getting better access to the station in those regions. MeetUp, lest we forget, was the site that briefly propelled small-state governor Howard Dean to first place in the 2004 Democratic primaries.
Under the circumstances, it all looks to be working. Al Jazeera is gaining support.
Techno-utopians already hold its campaign up as another triumph of the tweet – social media changing the world. But as with the Egyptian protests themselves, change isn’t growing out of social media, but out of people power. That is, the people in Tahrir Square overthrew the Egyptian government, not those of us who tweeted about it.
Granted, some online viewers found out through the web campaign that they couldn’t watch AJE on TV. But if AJE does eventually become more accessible, it’s because of what it does – its excellent programming – and people’s desire to see its coverage. The tweets about it are just a sidebar.
joshuae@nowtoronto.com
