Einar Thorsen

Professor of Journalism and Communication at Bournemouth University

Publications | Conferences | Teaching | Projects

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Twitter, Facebook, and social activism

October 1, 2010 by Einar Thorsen Leave a Comment

Malcolm Gladwell:

The evangelists of social media don’t understand this distinction; they seem to believe that a Facebook friend is the same as a real friend and that signing up for a donor registry in Silicon Valley today is activism in the same sense as sitting at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro in 1960. “Social networks are particularly effective at increasing motivation,” Aaker and Smith write. But that’s not true. Social networks are effective at increasing participation—by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires. […] In other words, Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice. We are a long way from the lunch counters of Greensboro.

Source

Filed Under: Links Tagged With: activism, culture, Facebook, malcolmgladwell, media, politics, socialmedia, twitter

Global Action Atlas by National Geographic – Mapperz

May 11, 2010 by Einar Thorsen Leave a Comment

    "Global Action Atlas by National Geographic. The application allows users to peer into areas where our planet needs help. National Geographic and Bing Maps invite you to support efforts across the globe to help people in need, protect plants and animals, usands of others who are donating, volunteering, and sharing knowledge on behalf of community-based projects working to solve global challenges.

    "The Global Action Atlas spotlights hundreds of local, cause-related projects from around the world to a large audience of concerned citizens, giving individuals opportunities to take action by donating, volunteering, advocating, and sharing information. The Atlas enhances and extends the mission of the National Geographic Society"

    Themes of interest include Conservation, Humanitarian Affairs, Cultures, Exploration, Climate Change and Energy."

    View the Global Action Atlas – http://www.actionatlas.org/map

    External link

    Del.ici.us tags: maps mapping nationalgeographic activism conservation humanitarian culture exploration climatechange environemtn civicmedia

Filed Under: Links Tagged With: activism, civicmedia, climatechange, conservation, culture, environemtn, exploration, humanitarian, mapping, maps, nationalgeographic

Citizens map the Gulf oil slick with balloons and kites – MIT Center for Future Civic Media

May 11, 2010 by Einar Thorsen Leave a Comment

    "We're helping citizens to use balloons, kites, and other simple and inexpensive tools to produce their own aerial imagery of the spill… documentation that will be essential for environmental and legal use in coming years.

    We're not trying to duplicate the satellite imagery or the flyover data (though we’re helping to coordinate some of the flyovers and trying to make sure the data is publicly accessible). We believe in complete open access to spill imagery and are releasing all imagery into the public domain."

    External link

    Del.ici.us tags: maps mapping citizenmedia civicmedia oil spill environment publicdomain activism visualization

Filed Under: Links Tagged With: activism, citizenmedia, civicmedia, environment, mapping, maps, oil, publicdomain, spill, visualization

Guide: Mirroring a Censored WordPress Blog – Global Voices Advocacy

April 29, 2010 by Einar Thorsen Leave a Comment

    Excellent guide and great initiative:

    "Global Voices Advocacy is pleased to release another Advocacy 2.0 guide: Mirroring a Censored WordPress Blog. The guide, which has been written by Sami Ben Gharbia (Global Voices Advocacy Director), with Rebekah Heacock (a research assistant for the OpenNet Initiative) and Jeremy Clarke (Global Voices web developer and WordPress designer), is for bloggers with self-hosted* WordPress blogs who believe their sites may be blocked by government filters. Its goal is to help bloggers use a mirror site to make censored content available to readers despite these filters. It contains step-by-step instructions for setting up a mirror for an original (”source”) WordPress blog."

    External link

    Del.ici.us tags: wordpress censorship guide howto globalvoices advocacy activism

Filed Under: Links Tagged With: activism, advocacy, Censorship, globalvoices, guide, howto, wordpress