With all the talk earlier this year of the “Twitter Revolution” in Moldova, I am surprised that the affect of new media on the electoral outcomes and the subsequent protests isn’t more of a focus of attention.  When the government temporarily blocked Facebook, that became front page news, and it was widely reported that this was an attempt to control youth.  Most of the pictures of this green tsunami have focused on young men and even more prominently young women, showing their support for the moderate Moussavi.   I suspect that new media has had more of an effect on these elections and will have on thier aftermath than they had in Moldova.  I’m going to try to learn more about youth and new media in Iran.  I think this, more than the outcome of the election, is the real news.

For all this talk of Moldova, I wonder why the protest in Thailand haven’t received the same attention.  After all, the “Red Shirts” managed to get an  ASEAN meeting canceled and rallied at least the same number of supporters to their cause as did the youth protesting in Piata Marii Adunari Nationale.  There is even talk of civil war in Moldova, whereas in Moldova the major concession the communist government has made is to recount the vote in an election they very well may have fixed and surely will control.  Are we just to assume that the Red Shirts weren’t using Twitter and Facebook to organize themselves?  I have been to both Moldova and Thailand in the last year, and truth be told, Thailand has far better Internet access than Moldova and the cell phones are ubiquitous.

The Red Shirts, though, are just not that compelling a story.  Though the Red Shirts are protesting a government put in place through a military coup, Thaksin is not the most sympathetic figure.  The former prime minister, who is accused of corruption and is remarklably well off for a public servant, is hardly a sympathetic figure in the West.  And, let’s face it, the “Red Revolution” just isn’t going to work;  “red” might be the one color that isn’t the best moniker for a revolution in the post-Soviet era of rainbow revolutions.

I do not want to be misunderstood by the few readers of this blog: I am not equating the protesters in Thailand with the protesters in Moldova.  The unrest in these countries are literally a world apart and bear little relation with one another.   Youth are rallying in Bangkok, but their cause is less certain and it is unclear whether string around being pulled from abroad.  In Moldova it seems relatively clear that there is a generational as well as ideological conflict at the heart of civic unrest.   However, what’s notable at this point is how differently these events are being portrayed, both in traditional media and the blogosphere.   Bloggers quickly picked up the front page article in the New York Times that proclaimed Twitter’s prominent role in the protest movement and began to trumpet the “Twitter Revolution.”  I am curious to see if Twitter will share any of the blame if this revolution fails.

The protests in Moldova and Thailand deserve far better coverage than they’ve been getting.