Data, context, knowledge: mapping conflicts in the Middle East

"Global Protests & Uprisings Maps Time-Lapse video" is a series of maps showing where protests and uprisings have occurred in the last few months, as documented in open source media. It was posted by the international blog portal Global Voices, but it was created by musician activist John Caelan at his website The Swamp Post. He explains that he documents each report on an excel spreadsheet, creates the images of maps and then puts them together in a video to give the effect of time-lapse. A very labor intensive effort, but with a mesmerizing, thought-provoking result.

It's important to also look at the key to the map where you can click on each flag to pull up the stories, and see the color key (red: violence resulting in death) and number of flags key (Five: Over 100,000) to understand where protests have been peaceful (green) or have been sites of conflict.

Having just spent five days of involuntary exposure to CNN, I can say that the effect is frightening, mind-numbing and singularly uninformative when not outright distorted. I don't know how people endure it.

Reliable, trustworthy historical context for me comes from Juan Cole: Top Ten Ways that Libya 2011 is not like Iraq 2003