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Lidia Naskova — 2 Comments
27
Oct 15

Online environmental activism– does it work or not?

By Lidia Naskova

“You can send a press release, and it’s maybe not something media outlets will pursue as a story. But when six million people have seen it, they’ll cover it”

(Travis Nichols, Arctic communications manager at Greenpeace in The Columbia Journalism Review, November, 2014).

The benefits of using media activism online are many nowadays and I found two very interesting examples of where smart online media strategies may help social movement organizations to get messages rapidly out to the public, alter the public opinion about a matter or raise awareness, and consequently changing decisions with the help from the pressure from consumers.

In 2014, the environmental organization Greenpeace launched a YouTube video that was part of a campaign set out to pressure the company Lego to dissociate them from a partnership with the oil-company Shell that had been going on since the 1960s. Greenpeace targeted Lego as a part of a viral protest against Shell’s plans to drill after oil in the Arctic, and in the video, Lego characters were demonstratively placed in a Lego-built Arctic getting slowly covered with oil, along with the slogan that “Lego: everything is NOT awesome”. Continue reading →

Christos Mavraganis — 2 Comments
26
Oct 15

Māori people: Can the new media make their heritage immortal?

by Christos Mavraganis

If you visit govt.nz and go to the “History, culture and heritage” section, there is a folder, called “Māori language, culture and heritage”. Sometimes there is neither a need for fancy words, nor jazzy introductions to prove how much a country appreciates the historical importance of its heritage. Sometimes just 17 simple words can do the job: “Māori culture is a big part of NZ’s identity, so respecting, preserving and promoting it is vital”.

maori1

Photo by newzealand.com

For those who are not familiar, Māori are the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand, who as the website describes, “came to Aotearoa (the most widely known and accepted Māori name for the entire country) from Polynesia in the 13th century and created a new language and culture”. Continue reading →

Muhammad Al Waeli — 3 Comments
20
Oct 15

Reflections on the Future of ComDev and Social Action

by Muhammad Al-Waeli

In the 15th Anniversary ComDev seminar that was held from 18-19 of September in Malmö, lot of important points and reflections were made. Tobias Denskus made an interesting talk about the future of ComDev, as a field and as a practice. This post completes the ideas and comments that were made in the Q&A session after the talk.

In general, all experts in the field of ComDev seem to agree that there are no clear boundaries for the field and that what ever could be counted as a boundary, is in fact constantly moving.

Continue reading →

Christos Mavraganis — 2 Comments
04
Oct 15

Around the world with a suitcase full of debt – Can endless loans and development coexist?

by Christos Mavraganis 

Alexis Tsipras, the Greek Prime Minister and president of SYRIZA, which is a left-wind party, has attended the 70th session of the UN’s General Assembly, in the 27th of September 2015, representing his country.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras addresses attendees during the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. Headquarters in New York

Alexis Tsipras during his UN speech – Reuters

The Greek Prime Minister gave a speech during the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit. This speech could have been the epitome of his political program, but only before he came on power, in January 25th, 2015. Continue reading →

Christos Mavraganis — 2 Comments
26
Sep 15

The borders of human dignity

by Christos Mavraganis

aylan1

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 →

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 →