“Design is my tool and this is the way I fight” – the story of an Iranian activist
X is a designer/researcher. His work focuses on how to help social movements to develop practices for spreading news and information in ways that do not rely on the Internet as main platform of communication, but rather on using a combination of analogue and digital technologies. He calls this “Amphibious Media”.
X has created a way for activists to spread short bits of information by using tools such as Mp3 players, FM transmitters and standard radios in contexts such as traffic-jams. His system is not a substitute for online communication but rather a way to spread a message when the Internet is shut down by the governments in rogue countries.
X, why are you doing this?
This project is something really personal for me because it’s part of my identity and it’s something I want to do for my country. By the time I started this project, the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and the other middle-eastern countries emphasized more the need that I had found after the presidential election in Iran in June 2009: having means of communication that do not completely rely on the Internet as a platform of communication. When the government shuts down the Internet – or block peoples’ access to it – people must still have a chance to manage their communication and get their messages across. This is the intention I had when I started working on it and the final result is what I call “Amphibious Media” which is a combination of online and offline platforms of communication that is capable of spreading information through the whole society.
Could you describe how Amphibious Media works in more detail?
Amphibious Media is the combination of two networks of people: one network inside the country and one network outside the country. I have defined three typical roles in these networks. The first role is the Data DJ. The task of the Data DJ is to collect news via different sources such as the Internet or data provided by citizen journalists. The Data DJs then select the most relevant pieces of news according to the current condition in the country and transform them into small bits of information, something that I call “news strings”. I defined the second role as the Ants. Ants are the people who collect the news strings from the Data DJs and prepare them for distribution and convert them into suitable formats. The third role belongs to the group of activists that I call the Bees and their task is to spread the news around the city.
So how does the distribution of information work?
When the Internet is shut down, people still have other means of communication: mobile phones, offline social networks and satellite TV channels. Imagine that I heard something on satellite TV. I then record it to my Mp3 player and make a very short message of it which I call a “Tweet Talk”. I then connect the Mp3 player to an FM transmitter and start to broadcast the content of Mp3 player within a 10 metre range in a public place. If I’m in a car, then I can connect the Mp3 player to the car audio system and use the antenna to turn the car into a mobile radio station. As I drive through the city, and I stop for a traffic jam, the people around me can get the message through their radio receivers. It’s like a radio network of people.
How easy would it be for the government to find out where the signals are coming from?
Triangulating these very short-range radio frequencies isn’t easy to do, and in a traffic jam where you have for example 200 cars in it, it’s not very easy to identify the car that is broadcasting. It is just matter of seconds for you to disconnect the Mp3 player and the broadcasting stops. It’s ephemeral media, short-form messages that are no more than a few minutes long, but also media which are fleeting in the way they circulate. As the traffic jams open up, you move and in cities like Tehran there is a good chance that you will get stuck in another traffic jam in other parts of the city very soon.
How will you get people to use these practices and technologies?
I’m trying to get in touch with activists outside of Iran, but it’s really hard to get in touch with them because of privacy and trust issues. I needed to wait for the right time to get in touch with them and now I’m trying because I have something to show them.
How will you present it to them?
It depends on the people I will be in touch with. I don’t know yet how I will present it. Maybe in the form of a proposal of one of many possible solutions or meet them in person, but that is less likely to happen.
The activists you want to meet, will they be the Data DJs?
Yes, the majority of the activists who are outside of Iran have already been acting as Data DJs in the last two years, as well as people inside the country. But the activists inside could also be the Bees. But they can have different roles because when the Internet is shut down then the connection between people inside and outside are lost, so I need to have people on the inside that can also act as Data DJs and Bees at the same time.
What about reputation and trust within these informal networks of Data DJs, Ants and Bees?
This is a network among the activists inside and outside of the country. They know each other and they know how to get in touch through their informal social networks that they already have. For the rest of the people who receive these news, there are different ways to verify the messages. Regular citizens do not have access to the core of the network. Amphibious Media is a tool for activists and social movements to spread the news around and issue of trust is something within their own social network.
Amphibious Media was designed for the second and third phase of a social movement, when the social movements start to organizing themselves and when the collective actions start. The messages will thus not be mainly “news” but rather information on when and where the next protest will be. As you go through the city, you will get different messages from different activists. If you hear a message again and again and again, you can almost be certain that the information is correct because it comes not from a central broadcaster but from several broadcasters. You can, of course, not totally trust the whole thing because you are not in contact with the “real” person. There is a chance that the government CAN get into it but the point is that there won’t be only one news source so you can always verify the information with other news sources as well.
What if the government has 10 or 50 people infiltrating the system?
Actually, something like that happened in 2006 in Egypt. The government got to Facebook and changed the whole story and they then arrested all the activists that showed up for a protest. But if you look at the whole picture, it’s more like a cat-and-mouse game. If you use the web, the infiltrators will be there. Whatever channel you use, infiltrators will be there. It’s an ongoing challenge and a battle between the activists and the government to make sure that what they are doing is the right thing. The government will always come up with new ways of infiltrating and the people will have to solve it again. Amphibious Media is not a long-term solution, it’s a short-term solution for very extreme situations. It’s not meant for the daily communication between people but rather for extreme situations.
Do you want to go back home to Iran?
It’s my country. Maybe not tomorrow but in the future I will have to go back.
Would your family be in danger if the government knew what you are doing?
As long as the government doesn’t find out about my project, I don’t think they’re in danger. My own security is not my first priority, it’s my family and friends and the people I have been in touch with for this project. I’m more worried about them than about myself. The minute I decided to go for this project, I accepted the risks of carrying it out. If you fight for freedom, there is a price you have to pay.
What is the situation in Iran right now?
People are still fighting for what they believe in. The green movement is still in need of a way to get its messages to a larger group of people inside the country and I hope my project can help the movement and other movements that are facing the same problems, the total mass media blackout.
What is the time-frame you are working according to?
As far as I know, the movement for change in Egypt started in early 2000’s. The January 25 revolution was the outcome of years of fighting. In Iran, it’s not easy to say how long it will take. Maybe two years, maybe ten years. I can’t say for sure.
Would you be interested to get into politics?
Plato said: “Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.” So I have to do something, but to be a politician? No. I want to remain on the peoples’ side and to help the green movement because I believe in it.
Does going back to Iran scare you?
No. I’m one of many people that fight for freedom of this country. I’m part of the whole group, the whole green movement. People choose different methods to fight for what they believe in with the tools that they have. Design is my tool and this is the way I fight.
To get in contact with X, contact the author of this post.
Image credit: nuztorad CC:BY-NC-SA
