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Lidia Naskova — Comments Off on Anonymous video blogging as a tool for freedom of speech on the Internet – what role can participatory media projects play today and in the future?
26
Oct 15

Anonymous video blogging as a tool for freedom of speech on the Internet – what role can participatory media projects play today and in the future?

By Lidia Naskova

Communicating through blogs is a relatively new phenomenon; however, today many people are becoming more and more accustomed to read and comment on various blogs on a daily basis. Being an academic blogger since 2000, Walker Rettberg (2008) discuss the essence of blogging, of how people most commonly blog today, of how media relations looked like before blogging became a common practice as today, and how possible developments of communicating through blogs in the future may look like, among other things. According to Walker Rettberg (ibid):

“[b]logs are part of a fundamental shift in how we communicate. Just a few decades ago, our media culture was dominated by a small number of media producers who distributed their publication and broadcast to large, relatively passive audiences. Today, newspapers and television stations have to adapt to a new reality, where ordinary people create media and share their creations online. We have moved from a culture domination by mass media, using one-to-many communication, to one where participatory media, using many-to-many communication, is becoming the norm” (31). Continue reading →

Lidia Naskova — Comments Off on New media activism within the context of war
26
Oct 15

New media activism within the context of war

By Lidia Naskova

After my first blog post about participatory journalism and new media that are used to increase societal discussions within countries that has a restricted and rather controlled media climate such as Angola, new questions were raised about how new types of medias are used, and for what purposes they are used under even more restricted conditions, such as, for example; during war.

How does new media activism look like during contemporary war in the information age and is war reporting different in the new media landscape from when countries are in peace? As well, does the use of new media provide further civil participation for certain groups in societies, or do they solely challenge mainstream media outputs? This blog post will attempt to put some light on these issues. Continue reading →

Christos Mavraganis — 2 Comments
26
Sep 15

The borders of human dignity

by Christos Mavraganis

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Aylan Kurdi as an angel – Reuters

The historians of the future will probably refer to the year 2015 as the outburst of an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. The war in Syria is in full swing and as a result thousands of Syrian citizens are playing -on a daily basis- the ‘russian roulette’ of escaping the country, mostly by boats. Italy and Greece are the first destinations, before the big dream of the so called developed Europe. This phenomenon, which is related to multiple development issues, is not of course something new. Continue reading →

David Leeming — 2 Comments
25
Sep 15

Social media activism and international diplomacy

by David Leeming

Ecuadoran Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño with freedom technologist Julian Assange [1]

 It is certainly true that the new and social media have transformed our lives in many ways. Whether or not you agree that the new technology has been a net benefit for political movements and activists, or believe in a more complicated, nuanced outcome as Zeynep Tuekci argues, we can’t deny the spectacular way the  Occupy movement was able to mobilise tens of thousands of protesters to symbolically reclaim public spaces and creatively bypass authority. Another recent example of social media put to good use for political mobilisation was the use of the NationBuilder software in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Leadership campaign. Continue reading →

Lidia Naskova — 2 Comments
20
Sep 15

Can new media activism promote social change?

By Lidia Naskova

WordItOut-word-cloud-1111792

Created at www.worditout.com

During the last decades, we have seen how new technologies have altered as well as eased the ways of how we can communicate with each other around the world. This blog, for example, is a perfect sign of what new types of media really enables us to do. We are four people, situated in four different places around the world and we are still able to communicate our thoughts to each other regarding new media, activism and development and we may choose who to share this information with. Continue reading →

David Leeming — 2 Comments
17
Sep 15

Indigenous media as a form of social change activism

by David Leeming

The Australian film Tanna, co-directed by Dean and Martin Butler and made in collaboration with the Yakel people of Tanna, Vanuatu, has won two major prizes at the Venice Film Festival, writes Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian.

I can’t wait to see this film which promises authentic representation of island life portrayed with rich and entertaining drama.The film joins ranks with a growing number of “indigenous” Pacific Islands films:

“Shot entirely in the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu ..(the film).. is based on dramatic events that took place on the eponymous volcanic island in 1987 (and) weaves fascinating details of tribal life into a universally accessible and emotionally affecting romantic drama,”

Richard Kuipers, Variety 

Hearing about the film led me to reflect on a critical analysis of an other film in the same genre, Hereniko’s Rotuman film The Land Has Eyes, that I had conducted as part of my studies earlier this year, and to make connections with the subject of this blog; new media and activism. Continue reading →

Uncategorized — Comments Off on Hello [glocal] world!
10
Sep 15

Hello [glocal] world!

Created by Mike Rundberg and edited by Muhammad Al-Waeli

The first blogpost in many blogs doesn’t differ much (in meaning) from this one:

Welcome to Malmö Högskola Blogg Sites. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

I allowed my self to slightly modify the title that traditionally is “hello world” and change it to “hello glocal world”. After starting to study COMDEV, the concept of glocalization has become for me a new way of looking at the world, rather that just thinking of it as a global village. The interaction between global and the local, accelerated through the globalization processes, is what makes our world what it is today.

Continue reading →