(R)Evolution Process of Iran and Information Literacy

A few days ago, I read a tweet with a link to the following video clip from  Rachel Maddow‘s The Revolution will be Digitized. If I remember correctly, the original sender’s intention was for the clip to be shown to any reluctant educator who insists that there is no need for change in what and how we teach information literacy in schools.

My thoughts are not addressing or analyzing the political revolution that is taking place in Iran, but is trying to look at it from the perspective of what it means in terms of the (r) evolution process of receiving/obtaining/searching/ distributing/manipulating/ monopolizing/ censoring information.

The US State Department asked Twitter to delay taking their service off line for a scheduled maintenance, recognizing that it is a vital service to Iranians AND the world to find out WHAT is going on.

Iran would loose one of the important ways they have to communicate with each other and the outside world about what is going on in their country right now.

Traditional media, such as television and newspapers are restricted in what they are allowed to air or publish. Rachel Maddow says:

[...] Iranian government media restrictiosn mean that this revolution might not be televised, but it is definitely tweeted, blogged, youtubed and flickered. These sources, these means of posting citizen journalism online are collectively the most comprehensive, up to the minute way of following this huge news story.

[...] As traditional journalists are confined to their offices, prevented from filming on the streets and are blocked from the protests, what we are able to get to supplement their reporting is raw material, essentially from the participants in this uprising. We are 6000 miles away from where I sit right now, but we have never been closer.

My thoughts are coming together, as I am trying to wrap my brain around what all this means.Without citizens participating in social media such as twitter, youtube, blogs and flickr (the ones that Rachel mentions in the video clip), we (the international public) would be

• restricted to bias information from governments through censorship
• confined by traditional media to what they seem “newsworthy”
• completely left out of receiving information  when traditional media is not “allowed” to cover

What does this mean to the traditional way (television and newspaper (paper AND online) most people in the world (still) rely on as their primary means of receiving information? What does it mean, when we can’t rely on these traditional media anymore to receive the information we are looking for?

What if we will rely more and more on social media as the up to date, most authentic and reliable source of information?

What happens to the people who don’t know how to search, view, read, evaluate, connect and contribute to/with/from/for that kind of information? What if these people will be left out of “What is going on in the world, in their own country, in their own city and neighborhoods”?

Will they still be considered to be literate in today’s world?

Business Week’s article Iran’s Twitter Revolution? Maybe not yet cautions to attribute too much to Twitter’s role in the Iranian’s revolution.

Some Iranian election protesters used Twitter to get people on the streets, but most of the organizing happened the old-fashioned way

but admits that Twitter played a crucial role in raising INTERNATIONAL AWARENESS

… the main reason to use the tools is the attention it generates in the international media. Indeed, one of Twitter’s primary contributions in the Iranian elections has been to raise awareness of the issue among tech-savvy users outside the country.

Here are some twitter thoughts about what “The revolution will be digitized” could mean: