Ego journalism, although it is a cognitive and emotional investment in innovative practices, raises professional problems related to credibility, craftsmanship, and legal controls (Getty)
The “X” platform banned an account for the Al-Qassam Brigades, hours after it was created, on January 4, under the pretext of violating laws, and after Western activists denounced and questioned Elon Musk about the reason, he told them that the platform does not recognize those whom the United Nations includes on terrorist lists, Let criticism be heaped on his contradiction and complicity with racist Zionist accounts that adopt hate speech and incite terrorism!
There are many accounts belonging to settler groups that are classified as lacking legal legitimacy determined by United Nations lists and agreements, noting that there are parties that are still registered on the blacklists, but they are not banned, including Iranian and ISIS, and even “Fatah” itself - as its ambassador repeats and reiterates. In London, Hossam Zomlot is registered as a terrorist organization. So why are all these “terrorists” allowed to have accounts on social media platforms, while Hamas and Al-Qassam Brigades are not allowed?!
It is the fear of real influencers who are “absent” from a world whose existential records depend on platforms that are activated by dependence rather than follow-up, by creating fake models with digital specifications that have no value for heroism. Therefore, pirates of communication platforms rush to cut interactive and influential links with models that do not serve their agenda and their goals behind the industry. An alternative press provides major newspaper brands with a sacred mission: to create topics other than the weather for circulation, just as British journalism professor Tim Luckhurst wrote about the impact of newspapers in World War II.
It filmed the field battles, the dazzling performance of its soldiers, and the way they conducted combat operations, then broadcast it on Al Jazeera and its channels on Telegram, using technology against its inventors, thereby abolishing their absolute guardianship over the narrative and the mechanism of classifying and sorting information and judgments, restoring consideration to the truth and its owners.
A power outage during a shower is a topic that should be much more interactive than a shot that destroys Merkava Castle. This is the game - my dear - through which they recycle idols and slaves with the help of an algorithm. You are a number, so you exist in the “system.” As for “ Hamas, which lives with us on the same planet, is the only one that falls outside its digital counters. Has the ban method succeeded in confiscating its influence when it is the one that excelled in playing outside the rules and fields of the game and its operational field?
In addition to the heavenly factors that fortified the means of interaction, the resistance developed a penetrating approach to methods of oppression and alienation, striking the enemy’s media, Western media, and digital platforms with a double blow:
It fought the interactive battle with independence and genius preparedness, based on formulating and transmitting events in the hands of its activists, so that it issued its own narrative and documented history in the words of its heroes and not in the words of its thieves, as was usual.
It filmed the field battles, the dazzling performance of its soldiers, and the way it conducted combat operations, then broadcast it on Al Jazeera and its channels on Telegram, using technology against its inventors, thereby abolishing their absolute guardianship over the narrative and the mechanism of classifying and sorting information and judgments, restoring consideration to the truth and its owners.
Hamas turned the tables on the conspirators who are working to divert awareness from its healthy, innate path that favors meaning and a sober style, not trivial matters that marginalize what is important, but how?
Hamas created its own media brand, with a suggestive, “expressive and mobilizational” style loaded with messages and lessons. It is a brand that is no less important than the Al-Yassin missiles, and it has the same effect that overthrew the principle of technological mobilization and the magnitude of capabilities. The interactive imprint of the “Al-Qassam Brigades’ Military Media” invaded all corners of the globe.
You see everyone who avoided condemning the resistance defended it openly, and instead of Al-Qassam having one interactive account, it now has thousands of accounts belonging to interactors with millions of followers and views, who share what he publishes and celebrate his achievements, in various languages and amazing creative reflections, which brought back... Considering the hero as a model and not as an idol, inaugurating a new phase of digital polarization based on: value influence, which does not resemble the heroes of the digital “digital influencers” who are surplus to the need for circulation, and this is what disturbed the robotic mind, which was involved in perpetuating the resistance and consolidating its presence through its absence and exclusion, so tell me who is your enemy. I tell you who you are!
Moataz Al-Azaizeh and Owen Jones
After Palestinian activist Moataz Al-Azaizeh published opinions attacking the resistance, Jordanians demonstrated; In protest against the phenomenon of the “digital influencer”, which raised the question of Osama Jawish in his program on the “Mukmalin” channel about the Arabs and Muslims’ reluctance to support a British digital influencer, who is gay and supports the Palestinian cause, Owen Jones, while they find it difficult to accommodate Al-Azayza?
There is no doubt that there is flexibility shown by Al-Arabi when it sees a Western journalist siding with its cause with complete dedication, especially if you follow his dialogue with Piers Morgan and compare it to Moataz Al-Azaizeh’s performance with CNN, while Jones refused to put him in the category of condemning “Hamas,” arguing with Morgan for the crimes of the occupation, to the extent Who insulted him and exposed his hypocrisy, Al-Azaizeh was a spoiled guest on CNN, which asked him: Does “Israel” directly target civilians?
He answered: “When Israel wants to target someone, it does not care about the civilians present in the place, it kills thousands for the sake of one person”!
Of course, you would not expect the “eccentric” broadcaster to denounce this dilution, saying: “When Israel dug up graves, stole organs, and left the bodies of children to decompose in hospitals, then directly sniped the elderly and pregnant women, and assassinated journalists with drones, was it targeting a member of Hamas?” .
Not because Moataz is a journalist from Gaza, but because the journalistic duty requires its holder to take sides with what cannot be considered a mere point of view or neutrality, but rather an absolute value as Aristotle saw it, and adhering to it is an honor for the profession, but expressing the opinion of the front to which one belongs is a guaranteed right. It does not make its owner a journalist, but rather a media spokesman for his front, and there is a big difference between the two roles, as long as he is behind the mound beyond it!
The surprising and admirable difference is Moataz’s presence on Al Jazeera Live after he left Gaza, where the digital model became vibrant with a living language, a language completely different from what we saw “before Al Jazeera”... Will this academy create a new media miracle, defeating Mark and Musk’s algorithms and robots? ?!
Digital slavery is not for the detractors
Do you want to reach the world or do you want the world to reach you?! Is it fame or message? Language, or charisma, which is usually unique to a person in his field, is consecrated by an octopus machine, imposing it as a model to follow, not to follow as it is supposed. It is an alienation, through malicious methods, of a hero with no heroism other than digital slavery that controls people’s interests and distorts their standards. So where is Wael Al-Dahdouh in all of this?!
There is the iconography of ideals and symbols, and there is the iconography of statues and figures. As for “street journalism” - as it was called before the adoption of “citizen journalism” - I want it to be a revolutionary reformist, not against government censorship but against religious and cultural restrictions, and therefore sociology experts consider it the best movement. A social organization in the history of the modern world, as it harnesses the citizen to its agenda, exactly in the manner of “Wael Ghoneim’s Revolutionary Kitchen.”
You can imagine how the elite in the West rejected this type of alternative journalism and called it “civil crusades” due to its dominant nature, perhaps more than the army and Congress’ control over the means of communication and publishing during World War II!
The model of “Wael Al-Dahdouh” is an exception, as he is the son of reality and its martyr, he is a field eyewitness, he is a committed citizen and journalist, even in the most painful and bitter moments, he did not use his message to settle personal scores with the killer, as he mentioned in the MSNBC interview, Stripped of his opinion and pain, biased towards the professional code of honor: truth, ethics, and the laws of belonging to the system and the media message... he was able to be an ambassador and champion of the martyred press, and a living example of the “human being of Gaza” who rises from the dead to complete the journey of life with passion and loyalty to those who sacrificed for it. A powerful and extraordinary example of an honest Palestinian even when he is insecure.
It is an epic unity in which Palestine, the resistance, and all its components identify with it, consecrating everyone to the model, and not the other way around. As for the content creator, he imposes his authoritarian subjectivity, in a manner similar to the “paradigm,” the model that can be reproduced and emulated through the “selfie-journalist” - which the two sociology researchers see as “ Jill Mast and Martina Timmerman's "ethnographic" dimension has provided a renewed force - befitting the spirit of postmodernism or reflexive modernity - and an organizational and discursive resource, which will force the world to give up the "gold standard" of journalism: objectivity!
Ego journalism, although it is a cognitive and emotional investment in innovative practices, raises professional problems related to credibility, craftsmanship, legal controls, and the dividing line between the ego and society, while Luckhurst believes that Britain’s control over official newspapers during the war is a constitutional absurdity, and that the popular press polished Britain’s credentials with its democratic version, not Imperialism, heralding the flood of alternative journalism since correspondents of major press institutions rushed to airports to obtain photos and videos from the phones of those returning from the tsunami, to broadcast on their channels.
Are the social media platforms a friendly façade behind which hides a forest of Tarzan’s new descendants, who wear suits and ties, drink champagne, and dance with Kit Kat mermaids, but do not acknowledge the Hague Court’s pleas against Zionist crimes?!
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.