2010 Predictions for digital technology, social media and other

Filed under Thoughts by Kate Brodock on 5 January 2010 at 09:13 {3 comments}

I posted a few of my marketing predictions over at Other Side Group, but here’s another set that includes digital activism and other goodies.

  1. Location-based digital technology use will give way to several major advances in the fields of citizen journalism and digital activism.  Patrick will agree with me – there will be a major increase in convergence of LB technologies and digital mapping tools, and we’ll probably see a lot of new, ad hoc use cases.  There may be a little structure put around the field, but the number of new cases will delay its maturity to some extent.
  2. Cases when moderate (“regular”) Muslims speak out against radicalism will not only increase, but the media will start to report on these cases.  This isn’t only important when it comes to mobilizing of the positive and progressive voices with Islam, but it will also be incredibly important in creating a more positive image of the religion in the eyes of much of the world, especially this country.  We’re already seeing it here and here.
  3. Also for digital activism and citizen journalism, mobile will be a force, not only for marketing, but also for communications and mobilization of people.
  4. People are going to start getting tired of the thousands of fundraising pleas that are in the social media sphere and do something about centralizing efforts.
  5. As I said on OSG, personal branding is going to be very important and influential. I’ve worked pretty darn hard at personal branding, and, if I must say so myself, have done at least a reasonable job at it.  But it takes work.  Oh, and personal branding online and the effects of web 2.0 on personal brand management are going to be HOT HOT issues.

What do you think is coming up in the next year and decade?

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

DigiActive Post: Iranian elections, Information Passing and Twitter

Filed under DigiActive, Digital Activism, Technology, new media by Kate Brodock on 19 June 2009 at 19:32 {2 comments}

I posted analysis on the Iranian election Twitter phenomenon and its effects on the future of information dissemination on the DigiActive blog.

Earlier this week, amidst travel and trying really hard to work, I followed the events of what was happening in Iran post-election.  I followed it all on Twitter.

There are many comments I could make on the events, but I wanted to highlight something that will be important for how information and participation happens in the months and years to come.

The fact is, we are all becoming a larger part of the information dissemination mechanisms that were once reserved for formal media channels.  DigiActive has reported many instances of citizen journalism, on-the-ground reporting and information gathering, but now we’re talking about the addition of a process of broader dissemination.

Visit DigiActive for the full post.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Documenting Kenya’s Election Using Crisis Mapping Techniques

Filed under DigiActive, Digital Activism by Kate Brodock on 1 May 2009 at 20:10 {one comment}

I’m going to repost this research write up that has been over at the Other Side blog for several months.  It was originally posted on 28 October 2008.  Eventually I’ll be posting some of my better posts from OSG over here as well.

What are citizen journalists’ roles in documenting conflict and are those roles becoming more important?

Led by Patrick Meier, a Doctoral Research Fellow at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, I’m happy to report that we’ve just completed the first of (hopefully) several case studies this case study will attempt to answer this question more concretely.

Supported by Humanity United, the project seeks to explore the changing role and impact of information communication technology in crisis early warning and humanitarian response. The eventual goal is to identify ways in which citizen journalists and new communications tools can work more effectively in crisis situations.

Patrick did a really good job of writing up the methodology at his blog, so I’m going to leave wheel inventing up to him.

The exciting thing for me was to see the way in which new media tools were being used by citizen journalists, specifically how much more effective they seemed to be in disseminating on-the-ground, real-time information than the mainstream media was. The effects of efforts like Ushahidi also contain incredibly valuable information for future research.

Our preliminary findings:

  • Mainstream media reported actual death count before citizen journalists; however, on many accounts, mainstream media did not report on incidents leading to actual deaths, i.e., early warning signs;
  • Citizen journalist reports and Ushahidi reports did not overlap geographically with mainstream media reports;
  • Citizen journalists tended to report as soon as violence started, well before mainstream media;
  • The number of comments on citizen journalist blogs increased during the 30-day period, or during particular periods of violence;
  • The comment section was also used as a medium for real-time updating;
  • Many citizen journalist bloggers used real-time updates sent to them via SMS, primarily from rural areas;
  • Citizen journalism reports declined after the launch of Ushahidi;
  • Ushahidi reports document an important number of violent events not reported by the mainstream media and citizen journalists;
  • Contrary to news media and citizen journalist reports, Ushahidi data always had specific location information;
  • Ushahidi reports also covered a wider geographical area than both mainstream news and citizen journalist bloggers.

For further information on our project’s methodology and sources, please see this short powerpoint presentation (pdf) which we have also uploaded on Slideshare. For more on crisis mapping, please see this page.

Some follow up questions that we identified as being interesting off-shoots of this project are:

  1. What was the role of SMS messaging in the overall information chain? How does it differ across the country (rural vs urban) and what are some of the most effective ways that this medium was (or could be) used?
  2. What was the role of blogs in mainstream media information gathering? Were they a resource? What about Human Rights organizations? If so, is there anything we can learn about how to make that information more effective in terms of crisis response?
  3. Can efforts such as Ushahidi be replicated in other areas, or have there been similar efforts?

We hope to refine the process as we move forward, and with that being said, we’d love feedback as possible on both methodology and analysis, as well as the visualization. We’re looking to clean the whole package up moving forward, so this would be very helpful.

Our next case study will be Georgia. Please contact me if you’re interested in joining the team.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Feed me!

What I thought

Check out our book release!




Obviously you were wondering what time it was....

A barrister bookcase is furniture.

Get Adobe Flash player

Follow me

My Company