Upload images of violence this week in Manama, the capital, on websites like YouTube and yFrog, and then sharing them on Facebook and Twitter, the demonstrators upstaged of public accounts and drew worldwide attention to their requests.
New in less than a decade ago, the camera of the mobile phone has become an essential tool for documenting the Government's response to the unrest that have spread across the Middle East and North Africa.
Recognizing the power of such documentation, human rights groups have published guides and has provided training on how to effectively use mobile phone cameras.
"You have finally technology video that can fit in the Palm of the hand of a person, and what the person is able to capture may end up all over the world," said James e. Katz, Director of the Center for studies of Rutgers Mobile communication. "This is the dagger throat of creaky old regimes that, through the manipulation of these old centralized technologies, were able to stifle the voice of the public".
In Tunisia, mobile phones were used to capture video images of the first protests Zid in December, which has helped to spread the unrest in other parts of the country. Images loaded required producers Al Jazeera satellite television network, to start focusing on the revolt that overthrew the Tunisian Government in mid-January and set the stage for demonstrations in Egypt.
While the built-in camera commercially available in phones since the late 1990s, it was not until the tsunami that struck South-East Asia on 26 December 2004 and the London subway bombings following July news organizations began to take serious the outpouring of images and videos created and published by nonprofessionals. Memorable, in June 2009, cell phone video of the death of a young woman in Tehran, known as Nedawere roll uploaded to YouTube, galvanizing the Iranian opposition and exploding all over the world.
Now, news organizations regularly seek, sift and publish these images. However, authentication remains a challenge, since photos can be easily altered by computer and can resurrect old video again, to be again. YouTube is using Storyful, a news aggregation site, to help manage tens of thousands of video that has been uploaded from the Middle East in recent weeks and to highlight those significant channel CitizenTube.
But journalists are not the only conduit. Mobile pictures are increasingly shared among users on mobile networks and social networking sites, and are widely being consumed on Web sites that aggregate videos and pictures.
Hosting Web sites are marked increases both in the comments from the Middle East and view the content of visitors.
Between sites, Bambuser has distinguished itself as a way to stream video. Mans Adler, co-founder of the site, she said she had 15,000 registered users in Egypt, most of whom signed shortly before the election last November. He said there were more than 10,000 videos on the site that have been produced around election time, focusing on activities at the polls, in what appeared to be an organized effort.
As a result, the level of activity settled at 800 to 2,000 videos per day, but then came back to 10,000 again someday when the mass protests erupted in Egypt last month, he said.
In Bahrain, the Government has blocked access to Bambuser.
Training sessions to help activists to use their cameras, Bassem Samir, the Executive Director of the Egyptian Academy of democracy, said that the improvement of picture quality and video was a high priority.
"Video stories," said Mr. Samir. "What happened on January 25 and 28, is a story. It's like a story of people who demanded of freedom and democracy, and we had, like, three or five minutes to say that ".
Robert Mackey has contributed reporting.
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