New forms of alternative media in Syria during the revolution
The impact of the Internet on Syria has been incalculable, particularly with regard to the way news and information have been reported and disseminated by a movement of citizen-journalists who not only challenge regime propaganda but shape opinion worldwide.
New media played a crucial role in the Arab Spring, when popular uprisings in various states led to the fall of their regimes. However, the Syrian revolution has probably had the most media attention. It has taken longer than the other revolutions, and has been more brutal because of the Assad government’s determination to burn the country and wage a destructive war.
During more than three years of the Syrian revolution, the media has played an important role in clarifying events inside a country that is semi-isolated from the outside world. Syrians are grateful for modern technology, which has enabled them to document the massacres that have taken place daily. Without mobile-phone cameras and the Internet, it is doubtful that anyone would have known what was happening inside the country. People recall Hafez al-Assad’s 1982 devastation of Hama, still shrouded in secrecy. The number of victims remains unknown, but is estimated to be at least 25,000.
In forty years of rule by the Assads, Syria has had no independent press. Instead, the role of the media has been to disseminate propaganda about the regime’s ‘achievements and victories’. Officially sanctioned journalists have been reshaping the news drafted from one source alone – the official SANA News Agency, the country’s only news agency since its establishment in 1965. For about thirty years, Syria has had only three daily newspapers: Tishreen, Ba’ath and Al-Thawra, and only one non-Arabic, English-language newspaper, the Syria Times. Even after Bashar al-Assad came to power and liberalisation began in some areas of society, the press was not included in the government’s ‘policy of development and modernisation’. The old rules still apply. The regime was behind the 2003 closure of the country’s first satirical newspaper, Al-Doumari, and issued media licences to businessmen close to the regime or Assad’s relatives – such as Rami Makhlouf, owner of the newspaper Al-Watan, and Muhammad Hamcho, the main funder behind the Addunia television channel. Syria is also classified as one of the worst states in terms of Internet freedom and information, according to Freedom in the World 2013, a report by the US-based nongovernmental organisation Freedom House. Within this framework, the revolution opened a hole in the wall of media restrictions behind which Syrian society lived.
As the military and political response to the uprising became more violent, the regime closed its borders to the foreign independent press, permitting only news organisations from its allies Russia and Iran to report on the conflict. The Russian and Iranian coverage only reinforced the slanted reporting put out by official domestic media organisations. Once the Syrian people found themselves trapped in the dark under a media blackout imposed by the regime, what can only be described as a ‘popular collision’ took place. Armed with firsthand experience of bloodshed on their streets, and seeing their reality yet again not reflected in the official propaganda, the people collided with the country’s long history of censorship and disinformation.
The real story of the Syrian revolution began the moment the country’s citizens became citizen-journalists. Their reports and short documentary films effectively became sources for the majority of foreign journalists who had no access to Syria. The wealth of personal accounts, plus detailed footage of massacres, chemical attacks, etc. have been used to refute claims by the regime. No doubt online media has played a pivotal role, helping Syrians to bring their voices instantly to the world, and with greater freedom. They can express ideas that would have been banned had they been vetted by regime officials at traditional media outlets such as newspapers or television.
This phenomenon was only made possible by the emergence of media centres attached to Local Coordinating Committees (LCC) (see ‘Mystery Shopper’, p. 104-111) and rebel battalions, some of which maintain their own publicity officers. In Syria’s alternative media, young people have emerged as providers of news coverage and documentary footage – often at a high cost.
International media-freedom and human-rights organisations have cited the numbers of journalists and citizen-journalists who have died during the revolution. In a 2013 report released on World Press Freedom Day, Reporters without Borders listed twenty-three foreign journalists and fifty-eight Syrian citizen-journalists killed during the clashes. Seven journalists still remain unaccounted for. Amnesty International released figures the same day, stating that between 44 and 100 journalists, reporters and citizen-journalists have died during the conflict.
Initially, the thirst for information inside Syria came at a time of continuing campaigns of displacement and siege. All means of communication such as the Internet, plus electricity, phones and occasionally roads were cut off. Such suppression inspired a few activists and journalists, both professional and nonprofessional, to establish their own newspapers in each district or town. Even though distribution was limited at first, the success of these newspapers encouraged many others to engage in the process. Today there are newspapers funded by political parties and civil-society organisations. Certain publications remain free of charge, and staff are unpaid. There were approximately fifty-three newspapers at the end of the second year of the revolution, according to the first census of alternative newspapers in Syria. They have not only taken advantage of the atmosphere of freedom and the lack of censorship to contradict the regime’s version of events, but have also criticised the opposition (and even Free Syrian Army battalions) fiercely. This development is an important achievement in media freedom that would not have been possible in Syria prior to the revolution.
Despite their limited capacity and the difficult conditions under which staff work, these newspapers have been able to make a reasonably good impact during their relatively short existence. For example, despite the siege and invasion of Daraya by regime troops, the newspaper Enab Baladi was still being published in the town centre and attempted to present a unifying national voice. Known as My Grapes online, Enab Baladi takes its name from the rural countryside around Daraya, known for grape farming. Recently the newspaper added to its editions a new magazine for children, Tayyaret Waraq (The Kite).
Almost every region of Syria has produced its own newspaper. In Zabadani, there is Oxygen; in Idlib, Zaytoun (Olive); and in the coastal region, Sindyan (Oak). The names of these newspapers are linked to their places of origin, and are relevant to local audiences. In addition, there has been a return to political journalism. The mouthpieces for political groups are the newspapers Tlia’ana ala Hurriya (We Came Out for Freedom), published by the LCC, and Ahd al-Sham (Promise of Damascus), by the Revolution Command Council in Damascus. Issued weekly or fortnightly, most newspapers cover the Syrian revolution and political events in general. They also report on human rights, martyrs, detainees and missing persons, a remit outlined in many of their mission statements.
New radio stations have also appeared during the uprising. They were late to emerge, on account of the need for technical staff and more stable working conditions than other media outlets require. Initially, young Syrians from communities based abroad established radio stations; then new stations were set up inside the country, specifically in areas no longer under regime control.
These stations have benefited greatly from Internet technology. Most broadcast mainly through their websites, because of the prohibitive cost of broadcasting by other means. Run by young Syrians, the majority of these stations are either unfunded or only receive support for the basics. Radio One Plus One, the first experiment in this field, is an initiative of Syrians abroad and was followed by Radio Voice of Reason, which later changed its name to New Beginning and then closed down for lack of funds. However, other stations such as Albalad, Baladna, Surreal, Deir al-Zour and Nasaem Syria have survived. Most are operated by young Syrian amateurs seeking to introduce new ways of thinking and to prove themselves in an arena that, for years, was controlled by official radio with ties to the regime. When the authorities permitted private radio stations, they did not allow them to have an impact on the public and political landscape in any way. They were only allowed to broadcast songs and variety shows. After the beginning of the revolution, these stations – again, owned by businessmen close to the regime – were absorbed into the official media apparatus that defended the regime and promoted its views.
The Syrian revolution still suffers from the lack of a television station to cover events in a satisfactory and professional manner. Many political groups specifically state in their manifestos that they would establish a TV station for the revolution. No alternative or opposition TV has been able to compete with the major, region-wide news stations, which also broadcast Syrian official news and feed these other reports into their own political agendas. Many activists boycott these regional stations, and leak news to other media groups.
Also on account of poor funding and lack of personnel, the experiments of the television stations Orient, Suriyah al-Ghad and Suriyah Ashaab exhibit varying levels of professionalism. They have not reached the standard of television journalism that would enable them to compete in a mass media market. There are also YouTube channels, such as those belonging to the Free Syrian Army (which show FSA operations), other opposition military brigades and the LCC, each seeking to reach a specific sector of a wider audience. Interestingly, the use of the Internet has led officially sanctioned commentators such as Syrian presenter Tawfiq Hallak to join activists online. Hallak even named his channel on YouTube ‘Negative and Positive’, after a famous programme he once presented on mainstream TV.
Events in Syria are fast, dramatic, bloody and not without adventure. The sheer number of images and words appearing in cyberspace has also been a direct response to the regime, which has made journalists, activists and media workers the key targets of snipers and arrest campaigns. However, alternative media in Syria has generally been marked by low professionalism. Despite the dangers and setbacks, amateur enthusiasts lacking in experience run their media outlets with no clear editorial policy or direction except for supporting the revolution in general. As is evident in many of the videos on YouTube and social networking sites, there is often confusion between opinion and news, and some reports appear illogical and provocative. Activists inside and outside the country need to be wary of this tendency and must help change it; otherwise a chaotic situation will arise in Syria, fuelled by irresponsible media. It is too early to ignore the lessons of Iraq and Lebanon – and how tragic they have been.
The process toward attaining true press and media freedom has not been easy. The Arab Spring did not solve problems, but rather revealed other ones that have long been hidden. Obviously, Syrians still feel the need to report and cover news after the collapse of the fear barrier constructed by the regime. The first stage for media freedom has started, but there is still much to do in terms of protecting journalists through law, trade unions and the right to independence and non-exploitation. All these issues have been raised in Syria by citizen-journalists, who have taken newsgathering and opinion-making into their own hands.
Translated from the Arabic by Ghias Aljundi