It all started on social media: #UKUncut

March 2011 was the month that UK Uncut hit the headlines. Born out of the hashtag #UK Uncut which began circulating after George Osborne’s spending review in October 2010, Uk Uncut describes itself as a grassroots movement taking action to highlight alternatives to the government’s spending cuts.

It was on 26^th March – when Uk Uncut occupied the luxury department store Fortnum & Mason’s in response to its parent company’s alleged tax avoidance – that the protest group was transformed into a household name.

The occupation of  ’the Queen’s grocers’, which is owned by Whittington Investments, a company UK Uncut believe to have dodged of over £40 million, cost the 300-year-old store £54,581 worth of business and received prominent coverage in mainstream media.

It all started on social media: the domino effect

Libya Protest in Copley Square by WEBN-TV

February 2011 was the month of the domino effect. Following on from the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, social media was flooded with calls for protests in Middle Eastern counties including Yemen, Algeria, Bahrain and Libya.

The internet’s influence was evidenced by the increasing reliance of mainstream news upon Twitter and Facebook. On 4 February Al Jazeera reported that calls for action were spreading online – citing the Syrian Revolution Facebook page which was liked by 13,000 people.

Bypassing a state ban on Facebook, Syrian protesters used proxy servers to communicate. Fidaa Aldin Issa, a Syrian living in Sweden, told Al Jazeera that he and other activists had found each other through social networking sites such as Facrbook.

“We’re trying through Facebook to break this fear, encouraging them [Syrians] to stage peaceful protests, without violence, even without badmouthing the president.”

Throughout the month, social media not only enabled protesters to coordinate rebellions across the Arab world, but it provided a channel for publicising the protests in action. The popularity of uprisings – and the reactions of ruling regimes – were broadcast to the world through Youtube. Mainstream media faced new challenges as it battled to sift through a wealth of amateur film content, interpreting its significance and veracity before publishing it to a wider audience. As journalists were banned from countries such as Libya, it became the norm for mainstream news sites to publish amateur footage.

Breaking news on twitter

Rebecca Ratcliffe

Following on from Abby’s post discussing reasons to get active on twitter, here’s some insight from Kate Day – The Telegraph’s social media powerhouse – on how to use twitter as a breaking news platform:

1)      If a story is about to break, create new lists quickly

Searching for contacts or tweets is a race against time; the longer you leave it, the more content you’ll have to sift through. Reports of July’s Norway attacks surfaced on twitter before they broke on the wires – and it was this original wave of tweeters who were on the ground and knew what was happening. Following a hashtag for a major event such as the Norway attacks is time consuming, but by moving quickly and fishing out these original tweeters, journalists can cut through the noise. In the case of the Norway attacks, the quick creation of twitter lists enabled The Telegraph  to find a case study within 20 minutes.

2)      Piggyback

Not sure who to follow? Subscribe to other news organisations’ lists.  Reporting on an unfamiliar area? Look at which accounts Reuters’ stringers or local journalists are talking to/retweeting.

3)      Know your twitter contacts

Manage your twitter contacts wisely. Which ones will offer colourful quotes? Who is especially opinionated? Who can you trust? Likewise, demonstrate to useful contacts that you appreciate their help – use direct messages to say thanks

5)      Use context and think laterally

When Rev Giles Fraser tweeted his resignation from St Paul’s Cathedral last week, journalists rushed to verify his account. The Telegraph reported the news tentatively (‘Fraser appears to have resigned’) while reporters trawled through his newsfeed, questioning a. how many followers does he have? b. who is he talking to? c. does the paper know any of the people he is talking to?

Getting past the paywall: Companies House

Rebecca Ratcliffe

At this week’s Hacks/Hackers meet up Heather Brooke discussed the Companies House website’s paywall and the restrictions it places on access to company data.

In response, audience members suggested some useful sites which offer free access to annual accounts. Here’s a few that were discussed: