Code Orange: How the Internet, cell phones and new technologies helped shape the Ukrainian Revolution of 2004 more

Atlanta Review of Journalism History 11, no. 4 (2010):73-88 Duffy 73 Code Orange: How the Internet, cell phones and new technologies helped shape the Ukrainian Revolution of 2004 Matthew J. Duffy This paper examines the impact of websites, blogs, cell phones, and new technologies on Ukraine’s Orange Revolution of 2004. Using a variety of primary sources including blogs, Ukrainian newspaper articles, and interviews with participants, the author documents the impact of non-traditional media on the 12 days of protests following the fraudulent election results in November 2004. Particular attention is paid to how protesters and other Ukrainians spread the word and took advantage of new communication tools. The interaction of a global audience with English-language bloggers taking part in the revolution appears unprecedented. The event is viewed through various theoretical lenses including McLuhan’s “global village” and Appurdarai’s concept of the “mediascape.” The author concludes that while new media played a robust role in the events, the effect of traditionally media (notably Kiev’s Channel 5) should not be understated. Introduction A variety of factors influenced the people of Ukraine to reject the elections of November 2004 and manifest what would be called the “Orange Revolution.” Determined leaders, an authoritarian-weary electorate, and a high-tech communication system all worked to circumvent the government control on information and force new elections. Many observers saw the 2004 Ukraine election as a demonstration of how communication could be used to combat authoritarian rule. “Communications technologies,” one U.S. columnist wrote, “…have finally begun to affect an historic shift in the relationship between governments and the governed. The governed are starting to win.”1 The Orange Revolution may represent a shift in the familiar paradigm that state control of media can protect powerful incumbents indefinitely. Ukraine’s authoritarian regime controlled most of the media and backed incumbent Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych. But, the opposition – led by Victor Yuschenko and symbolized by his party’s bright orange campaign color – still managed to prevail. Technology played a major role in the events that led to a new election. Internet newspapers, smart cell phones, e-mail, blogs, RSS feeds, and communication satellites all disseminated information and helped organize protests. In the new-media environment, the autocratic Ukrainian government Daniel Henninger, “Here’s one use of U.S. power Jacques can’t stop,” December 17, 2004, 3, http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/?id=110006042. 1 74 Code Orange found it difficult to control the media flow. Because of technology, the world participated in the events the Orange Revolution in an unprecedented fashion. Mainstream news outlets linked to blogs written by active participants in the protests. With the click of a button, people from around the world could even donate money to the protesters. This paper will document the events that led to the Orange Revolution including the use of new media and new technologies. The paper is grounded in a variety of primary and secondary sources including interviews with a Ukrainian journalist and an Orange Revolution blogger, a review of the local Kiev Post and international news sources, and archives from blogs. The hypothesis is that new media and new technologies including websites and cell phones played an essential role in the demand for new elections. The paper will explore the flow of information into and out of the country and its effects. The author will argue that protesters and global audiences interacted within a mediascape, as defined by theorist Arjun Appurdarai. This interaction appears to support McLuhan’s optimistic prediction that the advances in technology would create a “global village” for the benefit of humankind. The paper may shed light on the way in which new media is changing the communications paradigm and may prove useful for future attempts to circumvent statecontrolled media messages. Ukrainian media landscape In the 1990s, Ukrainian journalism enjoyed great freedom after the fall of the Soviet Union. Ukrainians launched many private newspapers and television channels. Young news anchors appeared on many Ukrainian broadcasts, perhaps reflecting the inability of old-guard journalists to embrace their newfound freedom. By 1994, the honeymoon for reporters started to end. President Leonid Kravchuk attempted to shut down a television station that had supported his electoral rival, Leonid Kuchma. The move may have helped Kuchma look like a victim of censorship and convinced journalists to side with him. In the election of 1994, Kuchma beat Kravchuk, but his presidency was marked for its attempt to control the press as well. In 2000, a Ukrainian journalist who had been fired from a privatelyowned news station because of his aggressive reporting of official corruption started an online newspaper. Journalist Heorhiy Gongadze launched Ukrainska Pravda2 and immediately began criticizing the government. Later that year, Gongadze’s body was found, decayed and decapitated, in a shallow grave about 75 miles from Kiev. The murder of their fellow journalist proved a turning point for some reporters. They insisted on covering the case without influence from state control or their superiors’ desire to self-censor. Evidence was later presented that showed Kuchma was involved in the journalist’s death. A bodyguard had taped Kuchma in his presidential office 2 “Ukrainian Truth” Duffy 75 indicating that he was irritated with the reporter and “asked that his middlemen get rid of him.”3 Protests and a “Ukraine without Kuchma” campaign emerged. But, “in early 2001, the opposition campaigns came to naught owing to disunity and weakness. Apathy and mistrust returned to Ukrainian society.”4 Despite evidence that a sitting president was involved in the murder of a journalist, Ukrainians couldn’t rally the will to oust Kuchma. The heavily controlled media system that rarely criticized the authoritarian government likely influenced the apathetic public. The media landscape may have contributed to the public’s apathy. In the early 2000s, the incumbent administration enjoyed the support of most television broadcasters. Five of the six major television stations were either directly owned by the state, by the government’s political party, or by financial or political groups that depended on the incumbent administration.5 National outlets, particularly Inter TV and Studio 1+1, controlled the lion’s share of advertising and audience.6 Yanukovych was often presented as a “prime minister in tune with and responsive to voter concerns.”7 One observer estimates that 80 percent of television time was devoted giving the incumbent Prime Minister a positive image.8 Two smaller stations, Channel 5 and TRK Ukrainia, appeared in 2002, but they had small audiences.9 In 2002, Kuchma’s administration began intensifying its interference with broadcasters, a practice for which his administration would gain infamy. After airing critical reports about the administration, the president’s office began calling news station to complain. Broadcasters grew nervous and downplayed their news coverage of the government to avoid the wrath of Kuchma and his aides. Journalists and owners self-censored reports they felt would offend the president. Although the government wasn’t officially prosecuting newspapers or broadcast outlets, the effects of their intimidation managed to keep unfavorable news out the press.10 When a Kuchma ally, Victor Yushchenko, was elected as prime minister in 2002, this relatively subtle censorship became even more overt. The Olena Prytula, “The Ukrainian Media Rebellion,” in Revolution in Orange: The Origins of Ukraine’s Democratic Breakthrough, ed. Anders Åslund and Michael McFaul (Carnegie Endowment, 2006), 105. 4 Ibid., 106. 5 Ibid. 6 “Country profile: Ukraine,” BBC, February 15, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ europe/country_profiles/1102303.stm. 7 Taras Kuzio, “From Kuchma to Yushchenko: Ukraine’s 2004 Presidential Elections and the Orange Revolution,” Problems of Post-Communism 52, no. 2 (April 2005): 9. 8 Kuzio, “From Kuchma to Yushchenko.” 9 Prytula, “Revolution in Orange.” 10 Olena Prytula, “The Ukrainian Media Rebellion,” in Revolution in Orange: The Origins of Ukraine’s Democratic Breakthrough, ed. Anders Åslund and Michael McFaul (Carnegie Endowment, 2006), 216. 3 76 Code Orange government dictated tymnyky [themes] that would provide journalists with an outline of what they expected in the news coverage. The president’s office sent these instructions to both state-controlled and private media outlets. Because of the tymnyky, many opposition events would receive no coverage and often news programs would vary little in content. In 2003, the system was exposed through parliamentary hearings and a resolution described future tymnyky as a form of political censorship. Despite the action, the government still held sway with most broadcast outlets and some newspapers.11 Only Channel 5 presented a different point of view. Its broadcasts reached only about 30 percent of the Ukrainian population12 when it debuted in 2002, but it gained popularity for its differing coverage. The channel would air live political talk shows and refused to air image-boosting events staged by the government. The station was owned by Petro Poroshenko, a deputy in the parliament and a member of Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine Party. The owners of the station publicly signed an agreement with Channel 5’s journalists that promised no interference with the news-gathering process. Poroshenko, a multimillionaire businessman, served as one of the opposition’s largest financial backers.13 The station quickly gained acclaim for its objective – or at least not pro-government – point of view.14 The print media in Ukraine tended to be highly partisan. Many papers openly sided with the government, only covering negative news about the opposition. Other papers remained independent or represented the opposition viewpoint. As Prytyla put it, one had to read several newspapers “to find out what was really happening in the country.”15 Several online news outlets existed in the early part of the millennium, but only 3 to 4 percent of the population could access the Internet. However, many of the articles from websites were printed and shared. Regional papers outside of Kiev also printed articles from online news sites. As with television and print, Internet news sites presented views from government and opposition viewpoints, but the latter received much more traffic.16 Given the severely limited, but somewhat existent, press freedom in the country, categorizing Ukraine’s media system proves difficult. Due to the heavyhanded tactics practiced by the government, one couldn’t call Ukraine a free democracy. But, a purely authoritarian media system fails to accurately describe the county as well. The increasingly maligned Four Theories of the Press model (i.e., Communist, Authoritarian, Libertarian and Social Responsibility) doesn’t Prytula, “Revolution in Orange.” Via its broadcast signal in Kiev and sporadic cable access throughout the country. 13 “Ukraine: TV Channel Finds Itself Under Hostile Fire In Fight For Country’s Presidency,” News, RadioFreeEurope, October 22, 2004, http://www.rferl.org/ featuresarticle/2004/10/790dcfb1-4279-4c90-9145-357970930849.html. 14 Prytula, “Revolution in Orange.” 15 Ibid., 108. 16 Prytula, “Revolution in Orange.” 11 12 Duffy 77 seem to hold a category for the Ukrainian system.17 Ukrainian scholar Paul D’Anieri dealt with the overall classification of the country in the pre-Orange Revolution era by noting that observers characterized Ukraine as a “delegative democracy” or as “competitive authoritarianism.”18 Perhaps a new category of press freedom – “competitive authoritarianism” – would best describe preOrange Revolution Ukraine.19 Barring the invention of a new term, Merrill and Lowenstein’s model could also prove useful. The communication scholars argued that that all media systems simply fall somewhere between libertarian and authoritarian. Early 2000s Ukraine would sit near the authoritarian end of the scale, but not at the far end of the spectrum. Disputed election In the run-up to the 2004 election, President Leonid Kuchma’s administration kept a tight control of the media, both public and private. Ten days before the election, the government attempted to shutter Channel 5, the one station that would air opposition positions. The station chose to fight back. They pre-empted their normal programming and made a dramatic live announcement about the attempts to close down the station by freezing the assets of its owner. “The attempt to try to close the channel 10 days before the election is an attempt to deprive viewers of an objective view about what is happening in Ukraine,” the anchor warned viewers.20 The station remained on the air, but authorities did limit Channel 5’s reach by closing down various regional broadcasts. Other government tactics to squash press freedom included taking independent Radio Liberty off the FM dial, prosecuting a cable company that carried Channel 5, and refusing to allow a regional opposition newspaper to be printed.21 On the day of the elections, November 21, 2004, exit polls conducted by foreign observers showed that Yushchenko was leading by a relatively large margin. But at the end of the night, the head of the Central Electoral Commission announced that incumbent Yanukovych led Yushchenko by three percent. “Almost immediately,” Oksana Tsisyk wrote in Kiev Post, “buses and cars from across [Ukraine] began heading to Kiev to join in demonstrations that began in Maidan Nezalezhnosti [Independence Square.]”22 The next day, protesters arrived from pro-Yushchenko parts of the Fred Seaton Siebert et al., Four Theories of the Press: The Authoritarian, Libertarian, Social (University of IllinoisPress, 1963) 18 D’Anieri, Understanding Ukrainian Politics, 4 19 D’Anieri, Understanding Ukrainian Politics, 4 20 “Ukraine: TV Channel Finds Itself Under Hostile Fire In Fight For Country’s Presidency,” 5. 21 Prytula, “Revolution in Orange.” 22 Oksana Tsisyk, “Regional cities reject Central Election Commission rulings,” Kyiv Post, November 25, 2004, para. 3, http://www.kyivpost.com/nation/21892/. 17 78 Code Orange country23 and helped create a tent city on the square. Protests erupted in other parts of the country, including roughly 200,000 Yuschenko supporters who gathered outside the Regional State Administration in Lviv, a large city 50 miles from the border of Poland in the west. The Lviv City Council declared Yushchenko as the legitimate president. Other city councils followed Lviv’s move and protests sprang up in other cities as well as Kiev. Many businesses and universities declared general strikes and threw their support behind Yushchenko. Intimidating Yanukovich supporters described as “blackjacketed men” poured into Kiev. The Kiev Post implied that the men were likely government sponsored and they were shipped in from cities in the eastern part of Ukraine, which tended to side more with Yanukovich and Russia.24 International reaction helped shape events too. Russia welcomed the results of the election and publicly congratulated Yanukovich on his “victory.” Meanwhile, the United States and Europe refused to recognize the election results because of the widespread claims of fraud and intimidation. 25 Despite freezing temperatures and heavy, late-November snowfall, protesters refused to leave the Maidin. Featuring a ubiquitous bright orange glow, the tent city soon claimed a population of 200,000, with its own ad hoc self-government. Unarmed guards secured the perimeter, a medical center helped care for the sick and cooks provided food.26 In a sign of support, the mayor of Kiev granted the protesters access to the bottom floor of City Hall.27 Older residents brought food and supplies to help the mostly young protestors. According to the Kiev Post, support for the “protestors has grown since the first day of civil disobedience.”28 After 12 days of protests, the Supreme Court invalidated the government’s election results and called for a new election.29 A month later, Yushchenko was declared the winner. “For 14 years,” Yushchenko declared after winning, “we were independent, and now we are a free nation.”30 The Orange Revolution was complete. Although an overly simplistic explanation, the western part of Ukraine generally aligns with Yushchenko and the West; the eastern part of the country tends to support Yanukovych and ties to Russia. 24 Oksana Tsisyk, “Regional cities reject Central Election Commission rulings,” Kyiv Post, November 25, 2004, http://www.kyivpost.com/nation/21892/. 25 Kuzio, “From Kuchma to Yushchenko.” 26 Dima Kozmin, “Too much love,” Kyiv Post , December 2, 2004, http://www.kyivpost. com/nation/21975/. 27 Roman Olearchyk, “Kyiv mayor opens doors to demonstrators,” Kyiv Post, November 26, 2006, http://www.kyivpost.com/top/21918/. 28 Kozmin, “Too much love,” 10. 29 “Supreme Court rules election void; revote by Dec. 26,” December 3, 2004, http:// www.kyivpost.com/top/21991/. 30 “An orange victory; Ukraine’s presidential election,” The Economist, January 1, 2005, sec. EUROPE, 2, http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/frame.do?tokenKey=rsh20.695559.5835095448&target=results_listview_resultsNav&reloadEntirePage=true& rand=1206899115128&returnToKey=20_T3386267761&parent=docview. 23 Duffy 79 Blogs and Channel 5 provide non-government perspective Two English-language blogs from Kiev, La Sabot Post-Moderne and Neeka’s Backlog, sent out a steady stream of reports on events as they were unfolding. Relatively obscure before the events of late 2004, the blogs found a much wider audience after other bloggers and mainstream news sources began linking to them. John Bush, an American in Ukraine helping build a church, published La Sabot Post-Moderne.31 The blog detailed life in the tent city and events in central Kiev during the revolution. His blog gained fame for its eyewitness, ground-level accounts of the revolution including an impressive of array of pictures that captured the spirit of the events. In an interview for this paper, Bush said that he mostly blogged using Internet cafes that were located around the square. At times, he would use a cell phone to call in reports to his wife32 who stayed at their home in Kiev during the revolution. She would then update the blog from their home computer.33 Although never detailed fully on the blog for fear of government retribution, Bush also worked with PORA,34 the official protest movement. He often acted as their foreign press liaison and helped with organizational tasks as well. 35 Veronica Khokhlova, an Ukrainian journalist with training in the United States,36 published Neeka’s Backlog. The blog detailed her view of the revolution while living in Kiev.37 Her site also featured a wide assortment of photos from the protest center at Maidan Nezalezhnosti. She would return to her home in Kiev throughout the revolution (she once noted that she felt guilty for being warm and indoors), so her posts add more insight into the media accounts on television and on the Web. The New York Times published her op/ed piece in the middle of the protests.38 Both blogs stressed that Channel 5 was a primary source for information during much of the Orange Revolution. La Sabot referred to Channel 5 as “the good guys” and reported the channel was “on all the time in the organizational Bush explained the blog title on his site: “French workers tossed their sabots [shoes] into the machinery of those great symbols of modernity – the factory. Whence the word “sabotage.” We at Le Sabot Post-Moderne do our humble best to toss clogs into the grinding maw of postmodernity.” 32 Observations posted on her blog, Tulipgirl, also gained fame during the revolution. 33 John Bush, “Le Sabot Post-Moderne,” Le Sabot Post-Moderne, http://www. postmodernclog.com/. 34 Ukrainian for “It’s Time.” 35 John Bush, “Personal Interview,” email, March 17, 2008. 36 She earned a M.A. in journalism from the University of Iowa. 37 Veronica Khokhlova, “Neeka’s Backlog: November 2004,” http://vkhokhl.blogspot. com/2004_11_01_archive.html. 38 Veronica Khokhlova, “New Kids on the Bloc,” The New York Times, November 26, 2004, sec. Opinion, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/26/opinion/26khokhlova.html?_ r=1&oref=slogin. 31 80 Code Orange office.”39 The day after the elections, Neeka’s Backlog reported in stilted English that “some 40,000 people at the Independence Square – Channel 5 is showing it live. (I’m on my way there...).”40 While the other stations ignored the mounting protests, Channel 5 showed live pictures. The station featured marathon coverage featuring interviews, spot news and “without comment” feeds of the live events on a giant stage on the Maidan square. The first week after the elections focused on electoral violations and the next week on the actions of protesters. “Lately the television is switched to Channel 5 from morning till night,” a Kiev student told the Kiev Post. “Whoever is at home watches it constantly.”41 In an interview, Khokhlova said that the station served as more than just a news station. “They weren’t just a source of information, but also a huge source of inspiration,” she said.42 With all the other government-allied channels neglecting to cover the events, Channel 5 came to symbolize the pro-Yushchenko movement. The coverage stood in stark contrast to the other channels, but that would change before the end of the revolution. Mainstream outlets change their coverage The sign language interpreter for the state-controlled channel First National was one of the first mainstream journalists to take a stand. Natalya Dmitruk first signed the official results of the November 2004 election. Then the 47-year-old mother of two signed the following message: “Do not trust the results that you see on the screen. Do not trust the results, because they are lies. Yushchenko is your president.”43 She pulled up her sleeve and allowed viewers to glimpse an orange ribbon that symbolized Yushchenko’s campaign. Dmitruk closed with the following: “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.”44 She would say later that she was sure she’d be fired. The interpreter didn’t lose her job but instead found herself honored several months later in Washington, D.C., as one of the heroes who helped provoke the Orange Revolution.45 Other media outlets began to follow Dmitruk’s lead. After days of protests, the journalists and management of privately held channel 1+1 announced that they would start reporting the news without bias. “Since inception in 1995, 1+1 has been a popular channel that became Veronica Khokhlova, “Neeka’s Backlog: November 2004,” http://vkhokhl.blogspot. com/2004_11_01_archive.html. 40 Ibid. 41 Anna Kozmina, “Channel 5 sees an orange-colored protest spike,” 2004, December 2, 4, http://www.kyivpost.com/nation/21974/. 42 Veronica Khokhlova, “Personal Interview,” March 28, 2008. 43 These quotes represent one version of her statement. Several media accounts differ on her exact phrases, but all descriptions share the same meaning. 39 44 45 Davies, “I risked jail to expose my country’s crooked election on National TV.” Duffy 81 notorious for its biased news coverage a few years ago,” the Kiev Post reported.46 Khokhlova said that 1+1 and the other media “changed their approach five minutes before the victory. When it was all too clear which side was winning.”47 She said that the other television channels had “very little” to do with helping the revolution succeed.48 Bloggers accused the television stations outside Kiev of being biased for the government, spreading anti-Yuschchenko propaganda. Neeka’s Backlog said that television stations in Odessa (in eastern Ukraine, closer to Russia) had claimed that pro-Yushchenko protesters were “zombies funded by the United States.” Khokhova wrote that her mother “said that perhaps it’s time for the wonderful Kiev crowd to get on the trains and go to Odessa and Kharkiv, to show them we aren’t zombies.”49 La Sabot stated that an “independent” Russian television channel told viewers that Yushchenko’s scarred face was the cause of a bad reaction to Botox injections used commonly to eliminate wrinkles.50 The cause of Yushchenko’s blemished face was widely recognized as a botched attempt at poisoning. The traditional media systems were entrenched with a pro-government, anti-Yushchenko slant. Technologies help spread news Participants also received news from other sources on the Internet. Bush said he checked a few English-language Ukrainian websites that were offering regular updates. “They tipped me to events I’d missed,” he said. “And also let me know when something important was upcoming.”51 Neeka’s Backlog cited the Web-only news outlet Ukrainska Pravda one of her sources of for reliable information.52 Through email, blogs and websites, Ukrainians exchanged funny messages, jokes, and even protest songs. Prytula noted that “websites that provided free access to revolutionary songs and jokes about the governmentbacked candidate became extremely popular.”53 A previously obscure hip-hop band saw their song, “Razom Nas Bahato” [“Together We Are Many”], turn into the unofficial anthem of the revolution. The song circulated on radio and in digital format, downloaded onto music players. “I can’t say it adds much to advancement of rap, but it has heart,” one blogger noted.54 Cell phone technology also played a role in the events, both with voice Vlad Lavrov, “1+1 playing it straight,” December 2004, 2, http://www.kyivpost.com/ business/general/21982/. 47 Khokhlova, “Personal Interview.” 48 Ibid. 49 Khokhlova, “Neeka’s Backlog: November 2004.” 50 Bush, “Le Sabot Post-Moderne.” 51 Bush, “Personal Interview.” 52 Khokhlova, “Neeka’s Backlog: November 2004.” 53 Prytula, “Revolution in Orange,” 121. 54 “Orange Ukraine,” Razom Nas Bahato, 1, http://orangeukraine.squarespace.com/ journal/2004/11/29/razom-nas-bahato.html 46 82 Code Orange calls and with text messaging. Khokhlova called texting “a crucial medium to communicate the news.”55 She said that oftentimes cellular phones wouldn’t work in the middle of the square because of all the demand on the network. But, protesters could walk a few blocks away to use their service. The news received from text messaging wasn’t always reliable. Khohhlova’s husband was in St. Petersburg, Russia, during the revolution. He would read unverified information about dangerous developments and attempt to warn Khokhlova via text messages: “[He would hear of] crowds of thugs moving towards Maidan or troops on their way to Kiev – info that he kept running into on forums and news sites. He was worried for me and he was trying to help … because when I was out in the street [and] I could not access the web for the latest news.” The reports never turned out to be true. Khokhlova said she never worried for her safety since there were “about a hundred thousand non-thugs out here.” She said that even when “people were getting false or exaggerated info about some alarming developments, it wasn’t likely to send them to hide at home.” 56 Cell phones and text messages appear to have given Ukrainians a “safety net,” a feeling that they were not alone. Twenty years earlier, the protesters on the Square would have been all alone, isolated from the greater world. But with text messages coming in from, for example, St. Petersburg, the protesters perhaps felt connected and supported in a unique way. Cell phones also provided the ability to stay easily connected to friends and family while living in the tent city on Maidan. Inside the tent city, thousands received news from announcements on a center stage, word of mouth, cell phones, and a one-page newspaper printed for protesters.57 Bush said that the protesters ran their operations from the basement of a nearby building “with a large bank of computers there. This enabled them to coordinate activities around the country, keep provincial activists informed, and also keep up a stream of desktop publishing.”58 The use of technology helped the protesters keep the flow of information open. Bush said that the government did try some “old school measures, such as preventing trains from bringing Orange protesters to Kiev.” But, the state simply couldn’t stop the flow of information. Connected to the world The use of new media and new technologies soon involved the outside world. As the protests continued, Bush’s La Sabot blog began getting links from mainstream sources such as The New York Post and popular bloggers such as Glenn Reynolds and Andrew Sullivan.59 Global readers offered their comments Khokhlova, “Personal Interview.” Ibid. 57 “Yushchenko, rallying crowd of 200,000, claims victory; asks for international recognition,” Kyiv Post, November 23, 2004, http://www.kyivpost.com/top/21850/. 58 Bush, “Personal Interview.” 59 Who remarked that the “revolution would be blogged.” 55 56 Duffy 83 on the La Sabot blog. He responded to the comments by noting their impact: Thank you all for the encouraging words in the comment section. Keep them coming! I showed them to folks at the organization office today, and it was very encouraging …We know the world is watching. It’s one thing to hear [U.S. Secretary of State] Colin Powell or [Italian Prime Minister] Berlusconi make a statement, and quite another to know that millions of individuals around the world are praying and hoping the best for us.60 This type of global feedback was unprecedented. Supportive people from all over the world offered words of encouragement to protesters in the middle of an ongoing political revolution. The audience could also offer money – through the PORA website – to help fund the protesters living in the tent city and other efforts. In global struggles of the past, viewers at home could only watch as oppressed citizens fought for freedom. But, audiences could actively communicate and support the protesters of the Orange Revolution. The global participation in Ukraine’s internal politics appears to be further evidence supporting Marshall McLuhan’s theoretical construct of the “global village.” In 1962, McLuhan already saw technology making the world a smaller place. “The new electronic interdependence,” he wrote, “recreates the world in the image of a global village”61 He noted that the electronic age had sealed the “entire human family into a single global tribe.”62 Although scholars differ over how optimistic McLuhan saw this electronic world, words such as “tribe” and “village” imply a communal existence in which participants care about each other. Long before the advent of the Internet, McLuhan seemed to argue that electronic advancements could potentially lead to a problem-solving global forum creating a new sense of world community.63 More recently however, theorist Arjun Appadurai dismissed McLuhan saying that he “overestimated the communitarian implications of the new media order.”64 Appadurai argued that media create communities without any sense of place. Observing both “fantasies” and “nightmares” predicting electronic equality, Appaduria sees the new media order “requiring theories of rootlessness, alienation, and psychological distance between individuals and Bush, “Le Sabot Post-Moderne.” “The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of ... - Google Book Search,” 31, http://www. google.com/books?id=y4C644zHCWgC. 62 Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg galaxy the making of typographic man. ([Toronto]: University of Toronto Press, 1962), 8. 63 Marshall McLuhan and Bruce R. Powers, The Global Village: Transformations in World Life and Media in the 21st Century (Communication and Society (Oxford University Press, USA, 1992). 64 Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (U of Minnesota Press, 1996), 29. 60 61 84 Code Orange groups.”65 Appadurai and McLuhan offer competing views on how to embrace technological advances. McLuhan sees a “global village” whereas Appadurai sees participants separated by psychological distance. The followers of the Orange Revolution appear to exist in the more optimistic “global village” camp. The audience indeed created a “sense of place” and cared about the outcome of events, actively supporting the participants. The Internet’s ability to communicate over vast distances and across cultural barriers actually did some good in the case of Ukraine. Perhaps the Internet is making people in some parts of the world rootless and alienated, but not in the case of the Orange Revolution. In this case, the “global village” lived up to McLuhan’s prediction. The “global village” created by the interaction between the audience and the Orange protesters appears to be a fruition of one of Appadurai’s definitions – the concept of a mediascape. Appadurai proposed the mediascape as part of an elementary framework for exploring “disjunctures” caused by modern communication. He created five categories: ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes and ideascapes. The terms all end with “-scape” to indicate their “fluid, irregular shapes” and lack of “objective given relationships.66 Appadurai writes that mediascapes “refer both to the distribution of the electronic capabilities to produce and disseminate information … which are now available to a growing number of private and public interests through the world, and to the images of the world created by these media.”67 The world in which the bloggers and the audience interacted can be best understood as a mediascape, an area where both sides co-existed through a media-created reality. Despite thousands of miles separating them, audiences shared in the revolution in virtual real-time through this mediascape. Before blogs and the interactivity they afford, this mediascape wouldn’t have existed. From within the constructed mediascape, La Sabot encouraged readers to contact their public officials to pressure the Ukrainian regime to act with restraint toward the protesters. Bush said that the blog’s exposure led to many interviews with foreign media outlets including The London Independent, Radio Free Europen and Radio Radicale. Thousands of viewers read Neeka’s Backlog and countless others read her op/ed in The New York Times. Of course, plenty of oldmedia reporters had converged on Kiev as well, so credit for publicity of the revolution cannot rest with new media and new technology alone. On her blog, Khokhlova mentioned that she worked during the revolution as a translator for some of the press that had arrived in the country. Ukrainian officials reported handing out 1,700 foreign press credentials.68 At the end of the email interview with Khokhlova, she mentioned that “those crowds of foreign reporters (and Ibid. Ibid., 33. 67 Ibid., 35. 68 “Neeka’s Backlog: December 2004,” http://vkhokhl.blogspot.com/2004_12_01_ archive.html. 65 66 Duffy 85 observers) – they were a nice presence.”69 Khokhlova’s implication is clear – new media and new technologies helped, but the presence from old-school international media outlets cannot be overlooked. As the plight of the protesters gained more notice, foreign governments did act to pressure Ukraine to hold new elections. Three days after the election, Secretary of State Colin Powell told Ukraine that the United States did not recognize the elections as valid. The European Union followed suit shortly thereafter meaning that the Ukrainian leaders wouldn’t be recognized in any Atlantic-European country. Ukrainian scholar Taras Kuzio notes that “in the two days following Powell’s statement, Ukrainian officials sitting on the fence began to wholesale defect to the Yushchenko camp. Three days later parliament denounced the results. Powell could very well be written up by future historians as the one of the unlikely heroes of the Orange Revolution.”70 The global attention to the plight of the Ukrainians may have helped prevent the government from cracking down on the protesters in a brutal fashion. In interviews with both bloggers, the possibility of such as crackdown was a constant worry among all the protesters. Bush elaborated: It was a really scary time for all of us. The military and internal security forces that Kuchma71 had in his hands were frightening, and we had no way of knowing we’d win in the end. OMON [special forces] troops were in Kiev. Also, Jane’s Defense Weekly had reported that Putin had flown in shock troops to back Kuchma. Even before the [Orange Revolution] began, militsiya types were ubiquitous in Ukraine, in uniforms little changed from Soviet times.72 Bush credits new media with “preventing what could have happened.”73 He noted that Yanukovich and Kuchma were both aligned with Russia. Given President Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian leanings, Bush worried that Russia would help quash the protests with military intervention. “Twenty years ago, they could easily have evicted Western journalists, cracked down, and then presented the West with a fait accompli,” Bush said. “Thanks to new media, this was no longer possible. Handicams, cell phones, [and the] Internet … make even the most determined censorship permeable.”74 The ability of many protesters to help create the mediascape in an unfiltered, instantaneous manner helped prohibit the authorities from dealing with the protesters with force. The audience’s participation in the mediascape also helped solidify the protester’s Khokhlova, “Personal Interview.” Taras Kuzio, “Ukraine’s Orange Revolution: Causes and Consequences,” Academic, The Ukraine List, April 28, 2005, 31. file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/ Administrator/Application%20Data/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/2fr64xrf.default/zotero/ storage/15082/ukl346_13.html. 71 Kuchma was still in office as Ukraine’s president. 72 Bush, “Personal Interview.” 73 Ibid. 74 Ibid. 69 70 86 Code Orange position. Conclusion The new media and new technologies created a steady, instantaneous media flow out of the country. As sociologist Manuel Castells noted, flows of all types dominate our lives. He stated that society appears to be constructed around flows of capital, organizational interactions, technology, images, sound and symbols.75 Communication theorist Daya Kishan Thussu noted that these flows have grown in “direction, volume and velocity” in our increasingly networked global society.76 Thussu sees the media flows consisting of a dominant flow (usually from the government or corporate world) and a contraflow which resists or creates an alternative to the dominant flow. Thussu’s theory sees the United States as the dominant flow and peripheral countries creating a contra-flow. But, a parallel can be drawn to the situation. The Ukrainian government and its media allies represented the dominant media flow. The attention brought directly to the Ukrainian’s plight via Channel 5, online papers, and blogs represent a contra flow. The contra flow of information circulating around and out of the country – that the elections were rigged – differed from the “dominant flow” from the Ukrainian government – that Yanukovich had won. And the flows were operating on a multi-directional basis – both leaving the country in the form of blog postings and returning in the form of comments. The existence of these contra-flows allowed both protesters inside the country and global observers in the mediascape to dismiss the dominant flow of information. New media and new technologies did indeed play an essential role in the call for new elections in Ukraine. Although old media, mostly in the form of Channel 5, reported on events in Kiev, the new media and other methods of communications actively augmented that limited form of communication. For example, hundreds of thousands of protesters couldn’t watch Channel 5 because they were living in tents. They relied upon news from the protest organizers and from their cell phones. Many others throughout the country weren’t receiving Channel 5 because of government interference, so they had to rely upon other sources of news. The other sources of news created a contra-flow of information that successfully withstood the dominant flow. These new flows could not have occurred in an old-media environment. The return flows from outside of the country helped create a shared mediascape that should not be understated. The Internet allowed the worldwide audience to actively encourage and support a political struggle – all from within a constructed reality. The result shows that a “global village” can exist, has a sense of place, and shouldn’t be dismissed as optimistic drivel. Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society: The Information Age, 2 (Wiley-Blackwell, 2000). 76 Daya Thussu, Media on the Move: Global Flow and Contra-Flow, 1 (Routledge, 2006), 11. 75 Duffy 87 Works Cited “An orange victory; Ukraine’s presidential election.” The Economist, January 1, 2005. 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