Fighting a digital revolution

Present Tense: Whatever emerges from Burma's "saffron revolution", it will be forever viewed through the images of monks, marching in their thousands, ringed by a growing mass of civilians.

That we have much of this footage, though, is thanks to those disparate few who have been carrying out a quieter revolution. By posting images and videos online, and reporting through blogs, texts and chatrooms, they have both revealed and possibly influenced the story in a major way.

It is further evidence of how new technology offers a channel for human courage and hope, as much as it does for rumour and confusion. It shows its growing role in reporting and fuelling dissent. And, in a week when the few foreign journalists on the ground operated in danger of their lives, it was another reminder of how much the traditional media relies upon, and trusts, the civilian voice. And why it is that several regimes work hard to silence it.

The nature of the Burmese sources meant that much of the unfiltered accounts from inside the country came in an unsettling mix of textspeak and chaotic reportage. Take this text message from a hospital attendant that moved via a Burmese blogger on to newspaper websites: "1 patients died on d spot on arriving Hospital . . . (shot on Bladder) 4 r still bad. The patient r not in d line of protest . . . they (victims) are just chatting and watching d protest line and sitting on Cafe Bar near Shawe Dagon Pagoda, some r pedestrians."

Other accounts revealed both the ordinariness of the writer, and their extraordinary bravery - even as they dismissed this. "My friend said I was brave blogging about this when I am confused about where I stand," Dawn Xanga posted on Thursday. "I was not being brave. I am a coward hiding in the office. At first, I started removing my photo in my profile, and was going to hide the posts that provide personal details of me. Then I decided not to because I am not doing anything wrong . In the midst of all these chaos, I am very afraid. I am afraid for myself, I am afraid for my family, and I am afraid for the country."

It would be neat to describe these people as the epitome of the "citizen journalist", a term which remains novel yet necessary. But these Burmese encapsulate far more than that. They are eyewitnesses, diarists, revolutionaries and resistance fighters. Burma's junta knows this, which is why its crackdown occurred not just on the streets, but online. It has spent recent days attempting to cut internet connections and phonelines. Already, the state controls the country's two internet service providers.

That dissenters have circumvented this firewall has had much to do with their ingenuity, including, say reports, breaking messages down into small pieces and sending them in "e-cards".

In Burma, all computers must also be registered with the state and it is on the Reporters Without Borders list of 13 "enemies of the internet", alongside Belarus, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

Some of these have also been busy of late. China has closed down over 18,000 internet sites since April, apparently accelerating its efforts in preparation for next month's Communist Party Congress. Half of these prohibited sites, it claims, were pornographic. The rest of the list included several dissident voices.

In a country in which online dissent is punished with jail and, according to human rights groups, torture, blogging can be a hazardous hobby. Next year, China hosts the Olympic Games. What kind of crackdown will there be before the world comes to play?

Iran, which censors more sites than any state other than China, has recently added another to the list: a news site, Baztab. And not only are there no homosexuals in Iran, as Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed this week, there is no high-speed broadband either. That was banned last year.

It would be foolish to believe that new technology means that freedom goes "viral" in any closed society. You do not find North Korean bloggers, for example, only official pronouncements from that most insular and batty of states, in which technology has yet to wake people from their state of cultural hypnosis.

But what has happened in Burma has shown new media's potential in a dramatic way. And in the West, where there has been much debate about the value of text messages, of YouTube and of the self-indulgence of bloggers, we are being shown that there is no doubting their value in that country, at this moment.