New Media
Maybe no one has told you yet; we are the news. That's a good thing, so long as we have freedom of speech. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Storify, blogs, and so forth are the new media, and the content is our responsibility. Consider what you're bringing to the conversation. It counts for more than we can see firsthand; in a world where there is ~4.7 degrees of separation between you and everyone else, what you have to say carries. Mark your words, and use your voice. Is that blurry picture of what you ate for breakfast what you really want to say? Dec 24
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Baltimore – Howard Besser, a New York University archivist, recently got into a shouting match at an Occupy protest, making a case for why the activists should preserve records of their activities. “Within the Occupy movement there’s a huge suspicion of traditional organizations, including libraries and universities,” Mr. Besser explained Monday at the spring meeting of the Coalition for Networked Information. The shouting match was an extreme moment, but Mr. Besser and other archivists on a panel here explained that they have had to take unusual steps to try to gather a snapshot for future scholars of the nationwide Occupy protests, which call attention to income inequality in the United States. Those steps—including distributing postcards promoting archiving at protests, developing automated systems to download photos posted online, and asking participants to vote on which images are most important for the historic record—could serve as a model for preserving future events.
For Archivists, ‘Occupy’ Movement Presents New Challenges - Wired Campus
A few days ago, I posted a piece about the Pepper Spray incident at UC Davis. When people saw the original video clip, they overwhelmingly supported students and felt the police had acted harshly and without justification. When I posted a longer video clip, those who commented on my blog, on Twitter and Facebook were about evenly divided on whether police actions were justified or not. The point of my post seems to have gotten a little lost. I was calling for a need for balance in citizen-generated news content.
crystal cox, $25 million libel
Citizen journalism in the simple sense is news collected and published online by people like you and me. We aren’t reporters by any stretch, but citizen journalism websites gives us an opportunity to speak as interested observers. It is freedom of speech without any censorship in its unadulterated sense. Citizen journalism as first witness accounts or even as second hand reporting has gained credibility thanks to many media channels. The common man as a commentator or a reporter also goes where walking-the-beat journos sometimes can’t.
7 Citizen Journalism Websites For Crowdsourced News
I have assembled a catalogue of 85 tools to help you run a more effective social media program for your campaign, organization, or business. Most of these are free. A lot are for Twitter.
A Catalogue of Social Media (and Related) Tools | Digital Politics
Twitter, Facebook, and social activism
At four-thirty in the afternoon on Monday, February 1, 1960, four college students sat down at the lunch counter at the Woolworth’s in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina. They were freshmen at North Carolina A. & T., a black college a mile or so away. “I’d like a cup of coffee, please,” one of the four, Ezell Blair, said to the waitress. “We don’t serve Negroes here,” she replied.Liking Social Justice - Politics
The whole Kony 2012 debate has gotten me thinking about how activism has changed over the past few years, especially with the explosion of social media use. Back in 2010, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a much-read piece in The New Yorker about the so-called “ Twitter Revolutions ” in Moldova and Iran the previous year. Many observers had jumped to the conclusion that social media had reinvented grassroots activism, that, of all things, Facebook and Twitter were now powerful tools for populist change. But as Gladwell argued, activists’ use of Twitter in both countries had been way overblown, and in fact, it was hard to see how social media could ever live up to claims like that . Historically, most social movements, like civil rights in the U.S., had been based on what sociologists call “strong ties”—activists were more likely to commit time, energy, and personal safety, if they belonged to a strong, cohesive group of like minded friends.
UNICEF says Facebook 'likes' won't save children's lives
UNICEF has launched a bold advertising campaign that takes direct aim at perhaps the most ubiquitous form of online activism — the Facebook "like." Late last month, UNICEF Sweden released three commercials that urge viewers to support humanitarian aid not through posts or shares on social media, but monetary donations. The Swedish-language spots each present different variations on this theme, but by far the most harrowing stars a 10-year-old orphan speaking directly to the camera from inside a dark and decrepit room.
Digital activists have gone online and adopted the logic of the marketplace. Photograph: Stone/Getty A battle is raging for the soul of activism.
Clicktivism is ruining leftist activism | Micah White | Comment is free
By Francesca Polletta Jennifer Earl and Katrina Kimport wade into the debate over the role of the Internet in contemporary social movements with a provocative claim: the Internet is ushering in a new repertoire of protest. In this repertoire, mobilizations are sporadic rather than deep-rooted and enduring. Protests flare up, gather huge numbers to the cause, and then fade away—sometimes to reemerge, other times not. More people participate than in earlier repertoires, and they do so for diverse reasons: because they care passionately about the cause or because they’re mildly concerned; because they believe that protest will be effective or because they just want to express themselves. Targets are diverse and issues are too.
Maybe you’re better off not holding hands and singing We Shall Overcome | Mobilizing Ideas
