'The World of Social Media'

Understanding new media

This is a presentation I gave this morning at Bilgi University for a group of civil society representatives from Georgia and Abkhazia visiting as part of the Caucasus School project. 

                            

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                        " href="http://prezi.com/zaorpepnjm2j/new-media-and-social-networks/">New Media and Social Networks on Prezi

Why new media and social networks are only tools

This has been argued by many, so I wont be telling something completely new here. And yes, I do therefore agree with Evgeny Morozov too and his "Net Delusion: the dark side of internet freedom" book. 

I would say that by now, many would agree that especially in dictatorial regimes, social media can and is used by these very regimes to "retaliate" its own activists for the sake of "greater good".

But I wont be going into too many details with my personal thoughts on this this time and would like to share here instead an interesting post from Rationalinsurgent's blog titled "Regimes can exploit social media too" that pretty much sums it up perfectly. And here is even a teaser for you from that post:

Authoritarian regimes are crafty. They have lots of resources at their disposal, and they think strategically about the best way to use those resources to restore "calm" (read: maintain power).

When new technology becomes dictator's toys

We all know the drill- in dictatorships, or countries short of democracy, anything related to new technology might be used against you. Because its all seen as a potential treat to the ruling party. Its a simple procedure that is universal pretty much anywhere where circumstances "call for action". In such places, it is likely that your twitter feed, or blog or website may actually by the cause of your arrest, beating or something else. Its no big news, that in places as this, government uses filtering services to monitor what is shared with the rest of the world.

The Open Net Initiative launched a report 'West Censoring East: the use of western technologies by Middle East Censors 2010- 2011'. According to the report's conclusions:

[...] the authors find that nine countries in the region utilize Western- made tools for the purpose of blocking social and political content, effectively blocking a total of over 20 million internet users from accessing such websites.

Below you can read the full report:

ONI_WestCensoringEast

Have you heard of Sourcefabric?

Journalism Postcard

What is Sourcefabrcic?

According to its Facebook page Info section Sourcefabric

is a non- for- profit organization that enables quality journalist worldwide through open source software and services. 

To many of you know who does know it, Sourcefabric was formerly known as Campware and is currently based in Prague, Berlin and Toronto. 

Their team is available for 

consultation, implementation, software development, training, long- term support, harware installation, hosting and anything else that helps media organizations achieve their goals. 

This and much more you can read on Sourcefabric's website. 

Journalism Postcard

Why am I writing about this? Well, first because two people whom I had the privilege to meet and get to know through my work, Douglas Arellanes and Jakub Gornicki are part of this interesting project and these are my two cents in spreading the word :) And second, I couldn't not share this new kid on the block.

Their two main products- Airtime and Newscoop- open new and old doors for journalists and all those who say journalism is out as its their way to say that journalism is in fact back, that its pretty cool and innovative even. 

So prepare yourself some coffee, get over here and start reading this contribution to journalist world and hope you enjoy it!

Below are the rest of the postcards: