As an avid watcher of ICTs and the Information Society they help create, I have always been interested in how new technologies are perceived and adopted by different individuals and communities.
In the wake of WikiLeaks, there is renewed interest in the free flow of information. Governments and large corporations are naturally anxious about their secrets being leaked. Journalists and activists are working overtime to produce coherent stories or advocacy positions out of the massive volumes of hitherto classified information being released by WikiLeaks. And the rest of society is bewildered on just how to make sense of it all.
Can humanity survive the deluge of information unleashed by ICTs?
This is the question I posed to Sir Arthur C Clarke in a wide-ranging interview I did on the eve of the first World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in December 2003. The full exchange was published on OneWorld.net, where it is still archived.
Here’s the relevant Q&A:
Q: So you are confident that humanity will survive the current deluge of information?
A: Undoubtedly. There are many who are genuinely alarmed by the immense amount of information available to us through the Internet, television and other media. To them, I can offer little consolation other than to suggest that they put themselves in the place of their ancestors at the time the printing press was invented. ‘My God,’ they cried, ‘now there could be as many as a thousand books. How will we ever read them all?’
Strangely, as history has shown, our species survived that earlier deluge of information, and some say, even advanced because of it. I am not so much concerned with the proliferation of information as the purpose for which it is used. Technology carries with it a responsibility that we are obliged to consider.
I’m delighted to highlight another commendable effort, this time on the web. It’s a website called The Juice Media, which presents news reports in, believe it or not, rap music! It has been online for a while, drawing rave reviews. One of them: “Like a mix of Eminem and Jon Stewart”.
TheJuiceMedia: Rap News is written and created by Hugo Farrant and Giordano Nanni in a home-studio/suburban backyard in Melbourne, Australia. In fact, Hugo appears as the amiable Rap News anchorman, Robert Foster.
Here are their latest three releases, which are hilariously serious.
Rap News 6 – Wikileaks’ Cablegate: the truth is out there
Rap News 5: Wikileaks & the war on journalism (ft. Julian Assange)
RAP NEWS 4: Wikileaks vs The Pentagon – the WWWAR on the Internet
Television leads in Asia, including Sri LankaToday, 21 November, is World Television Day. The United Nations declared this in 1996 recognising “the increasing impact television has on decision-making by alerting world attention to conflicts and threats to peace and security and its potential role in sharpening the focus on other major issues, including economic and social issues”.
A new survey that I was closely associated with has just confirmed that broadcast television is the most dominant and most trusted source of information on news and current affairs by Lankans of all walks of life.
The mass media are the major source of public information on current news and affairs for Lankans living in cities, towns and villages – and broadcast television leads among the different types of media, according to the survey on public perceptions on climate change in Sri Lanka 2010.
Broadcast television is the single most popular source, cited by the highest number of respondents (94%). It is followed by radio (74%), and newspapers and magazines (taken together, 70%). There was no significant urban/rural difference in these preferences.
By mid 2010, Sri Lanka had 19 terrestrial channels broadcasting free-to-air transmissions in English, Sinhala or Tamil languages. Meanwhile, close to 50 radio channels – mostly on the FM band – crowd the airwaves.
The next most widely cited information source was friends, neighbours and colleagues. But interestingly, while 52% of all respondents listed this category, only very few (2%) acknowledged it as a credible source. In contrast, the credibility factor was higher for TV (88%), radio (42%) and print media (33%).
Educational institutions (schools, universities and training centres) were assigned a very low rank as a source (7%) and even lower status as a credible source (3%).
Although only 9% of the respondents cited the Internet as a regular source of information for themselves, its perception as a credible source was considerably high (51%). This makes the Internet the second most trusted source for the sample, behind only TV.
The exact survey question that elicited these answers was: “What are your main sources of information for current affairs/events?”
Please bear with us while we're out makin' an honest living...
When Twitter experiences over-capacity (i.e. too many demands on its system), users see this delightful image. Known as the “fail whale” error message, it is an image created by Yiying Lu, an artist and a designer in Sydney, Australia. The New York Times Magazine called it ‘a successful failure’.
Well, I’m over-capacity too these days! That’s because I’m out there earning an honest living and that takes most of my waking hours. As a result, I’ve been blogging less and less in recent weeks. On such days, I have just enough energy for a quick tweet or two, but not for a fully-fledged blog post. (Yes, I take my blogging seriously.)
Sorry about that folks! I don’t look anything like the Fail Whale, although I’ve always been fascinated by these creatures. Right now, I’m as over-capacity as Twitter sometimes gets.
As Woody Woodpecker used to say: Don’t go away! We’ll be back soon….
Paper paper shining bright...but for how long? Cartoon by Mike Luckovich
My regular readers know my deep interest in political satire, and fascination with cartoons of all kinds including those political. On this blog, we’ve also discussed the worldwide decline in mainstream journalism.
“Political satire is nothing new: it has been around for as long as organised government, trying to keep the wielders of power in check. Over the centuries, it has manifested in many oral, literary or theatrical traditions, some of it more enduring — such as Gulliver’s Travels and Animal Farm. And for over a century, political cartoonists have also been doing it with such brilliant economy of words. Together, these two groups probably inspire more nightmares in tyrants than anyone or anything else.
“Today, political satire has also emerged as a genre on the airwaves and in cyberspace, and partly compensates for the worldwide decline in serious and investigative journalism. Many mainstream media outlets have become too submissive and subservient to political and corporate powers. Those who still have the guts often lack the resources and staff to pursue good journalism.
“If Nature abhors a vacuum, so does human society — and both conjure ways of quickly filling it up. Into this ‘journalism void’ have stepped two very different groups of people: citizen journalists, who take advantage of the new information and communications technologies (ICTs), and political satirists who revive the ancient arts of caricaturisation and ego-blasting…”
“If you’re an alien planning to invade the Earth, choose July 11. Chances are that our planet will offer little or no resistance.
“Today, most members of the Earth’s dominant species – the nearly 7 billion humans – will be preoccupied with 22 able-bodied men chasing a little hollow sphere. It’s only a game, really, but what a game: the whole world holds its breath as the ‘titans of kick’ clash in the FIFA World Cup Final.
“Played across 10 venues in South Africa, this was much more than a sporting tournament. It’s the ultimate celebration of the world’s most popular sport, held once every four years. More popular than the Olympics, it demonstrates the sheer power of sports and media to bring together – momentarily, at least – the usually fragmented and squabbling humanity.”
This is the opening of my latest op ed essay, which appears in several print and online outlets this weekend. It’s timed for the finals of the FIFA World Cup 2010 – the most widely followed sporting event in the world, which will be played in Soccer City, Johannesburg, South Africa today, 11 July 2010. The Netherlands will meet Spain in this culmination of international football that has been distracting a good part of humanity for a month.
This sporting event is tipped to be the most-watched television event in history. Hundreds of broadcasters are transmitting the World Cup to a cumulative TV audience that FIFA estimates to reach more than 26 billion people. Some TV channels offer high definition (HD) or 3-D quality images to enhance the mass viewing experience.
The essay was written a few days ago, after the FIFA World Cup 2010 had reached the semi-finals stage. To be honest, I’m not an ardent football fan. But as an observer of popular culture, I’ve gladly allowed myself to be caught up in the current football frenzy. I just love to watch people who watch the game…
It’s a light piece written to suit the current global mood, but I acknowledge that the World Cup is really more than just a ball game. The basic thrust of my essay is to comment on the powerful mix of fooball and live coverage: “For the past month, the winning formula for unifying the Global Family seemed to be: international football + live broadcasts + live coverage via the web and mobile phones.”
United Colours of Football, courtesy FIFAThe essay builds on themes that I’ve already explored on this blog – for example, how President Nelson Mandela used the 1995 World Cup Rugby championship to unite his racially divided nation, as told in the movie Invictus.
Here’s my parting thought, on which I invite reader comment: “On second thoughts, those invading aliens don’t need to worry too much about the Earth’s political leaders or their armies. Without firing a single shot, the globalised media have quietly taken over our Global Village — and now it’s too late to resist! We can argue on its merits and demerits, but the facts are indisputable.”
If one acronym has dominated the world’s media and public minds in the past month, it must be FIFA.
It stands for the International Federation of Association Football, and is derived from the original French name, Fédération Internationale de Football Association. It’s the global governing body of association football, founded in 1904 and with its headquarters in Zürich, Switzerland.
FIFA is responsible for the organisation and governance of football’s major international tournaments — most notably the FIFA World Cup, held once every four years since 1930. The current World Cup, being held in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010, is the 19th edition. The next will be hosted by Brazil in 2014.
As a global body with substantial financial resources, FIFA has had its own share of controversies and been criticised for its lack of transparency and internal democracy. It’s true that FIFA controls the media rights to key international games with an iron fist (which inspired the above cartoon). They are not alone: the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has its own detractors and allegations on similar considerations.
Who's got the soft power?But there is little argument on how far and wide the influence of these global sports bodies extend. In an op ed essay being published this weekend, I contend: “FIFA, with its 208 member associations, is probably more influential — and certainly better known — than the United Nations, with its 192 member states. The difference is in media outreach. It signifies the rise of soft power in our always-connected information society.”
Indeed, the UN itself is well aware of this. In one of the most memorable op ed essays he’s written, the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan acknowledged in 2006 (during the previous FIFA World Cup): “The World Cup makes us at the UN green with envy. As the pinnacle of the only truly global game, played in every country by every race and religion, it is one of the few phenomena as universal as the UN. But there are better reasons for our envy.”
He continued: “This is an event in which everybody knows where their team stands, and what it did to get there. They know who scored and how and in what minute of the game; they know who saved the penalty. I wish we had more of that sort of competition in the family of nations. Countries vying for the best standing in the table of respect for human rights, and trying to outdo one another in child survival rates or enrolment in secondary education. States parading their performance for all the world to see. Governments being held accountable.”
Of course, FIFA’s domination over the global public mind will wane after the FIFA World Cup 2010 ends. But how many other global bodies can claim to hold billions of people so engaged for a month? And in this era of 24/7 information society, that’s formidable soft power indeed.
What can we call the wielder of such soft power? How about Super-soft-power?
And can this kind of power also intoxicate and even corrupt its wielders? We’ve seen how power manipulations work in other centres of soft power, such as Hollywood and Bollywood. The challenge for FIFA — and all others who are connected to it through the love of football and/or media’s outreach — is to watch out that this concentration of soft power doesn’t corrupt.
The very same media that helps FIFA attain the status of a soft-super-power needs to keep an eye on how this power is being used. Perhaps that’s the ultimate game in the media-saturated 21st Century: Emperors of Eyeballs vs. Titans of Kick.
Smart but fleeting mobs?‘Smart mobs’ is an interesting term for like-minded groups that behave intelligently (or just efficiently) because of their exponentially increasing network links.
The idea was first proposed by author Howard Rheingold in his 2002 book, Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. It deals with the social, economic and political changes implicated by developing information and communications technology. The topics range from text-messaging culture and wireless internet to the impact of the web on the marketplace.
In the eight years since the book first appeared, we’ve seen a proliferation and evolution of smart mobs, fuelled by the growth web 2.0 tools and, more recently, the many and varied social media. In fact, author Rheingold is credited with inventing the term virtual communities.
But the reality is that smart mobs can also be very fickle — their attention can be easily distracted. A smart mob can disperse just as fast as it forms, even while its original provocation remains.
This was demonstrated in dramatic terms in June 2009. Following a hotly disputed presidential election in Iran, there was a surge of online support for pro-democracy activists there who launched a massive protest. A main point of convergence for online reporting and agitation was micro-blogging platform Twitter. Within a few days, mainstream media like TIME and Washington Post were all talking about this phenomenon in gushing terms.
As I wrote at the time: “I have no idea if the Ayatollahs are closet fans of Michael Jackson. But they must surely have thanked the King of Pop for creating a much-needed diversion in cyberspace precisely when the theocracy in Tehran needed it most.”
Other recent experiences have demonstrated how online interest can both build up and dissipate very fast. Staying with a single issue or cause seems hard in a world where news is breaking 24/7.
Here’s a current example. Following the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that started on 20 April 2010, local communities and environmental activists deployed various social media tools to track the unfolding disaster. BP, the giant oil company implicated in the disaster, has also tried to use social media to communicate its positions, but not too successfully. On Twitter, it was not BP’s official account but the satirical @BPGlobalPR that was dominating the online conversation. As one commentator wrote: “It is an object lesson in how social media can shape and control a company’s message during a crisis.”
Beyond PR?By early July 2010, however, there were already signs that online interest on the issue was already waning — even as the oil continued to leak from this largest offshore oil spill in US history. In a detailed analysis of main social media platforms’ coverage of the issue, Mashable noted last week: “An estimated 100 million gallons or more of oil have surged into the Gulf of Mexico…Yet on Twitter, Google, blogs and even YouTube, we’re already wrapping up our collective discussion of the oil spill and how to repair its damage.”
Riding the wave can be fun, but waves form and break quickly. Those who want to use social media tools for social activism still need to learn how to hitch a ride with the ocean current beneath the fickle waves.
FIFA World Cup Football enters its final few days this week, culminating a month of international football at the highest level.
Played across 10 venues in South Africa, this is much more than a sporting tournament. It’s the ultimate celebration of the world’s most popular sport, held once every four years. More popular than the Olympics, it demonstrates the sheer power of sports and media to bring together – momentarily, at least – the usually fragmented and squabbling humanity.
And one upbeat song has characterised this World Cup more than any other: the FIFA World Cup Anthem, “Wavin’ Flag” (The Celebration Mix). Sung by K’naan (born Keinan Abdi Warsame) a Somali-Canadian poet, rapper, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist.
It opens with these now famous words:
…Singing forever young, singing songs underneath that sun
Lets rejoice in the beautiful game,
And together at the end of the day.
We all say
When I get older I will be stronger
They’ll call me freedom, just like a wavin’ flag…
“Wavin’ Flag” is the third official single (eighth single overall) from K’naan’s Troubadour album. He specially recorded a version of the song for the tournament, hosted by South Africa. The remix of “Wavin’ Flag” is part of Coca-Cola’s global integrated marketing campaign “inspired by the joyous dance celebrations familiar to Africa.”
The song is popping up and pouring out from billions of radio and TV sets, mobile phones, websites and other devices. So much so that I wonder if it might as well be our planetary anthem — an idea that some social activists and artistes have dreamed about for decades?
Last year, shortly after Michael Jackson’s sudden death, I wrote a blog post that looked back at his songs that celebrated social and environmental themes. Referring to one, I said: “…the Earth Song had much wider and more lasting appeal, almost becoming an anthem for the global environmental movement in the past decade. But its real impact was not among the converted – with this song, Jackson took the green message to the heartland of the Facebook generation.”
We can argue about that (please do!). For now, here’s the celebrated song, currently the most popular on the planet:
FIFA Wold Cup Anthem “Wavin’ Flag” (The Celebration Mix) by K’naan
Wavin’ Flag lyrics (Celebration Mix) by K’naan
Ooooooh Wooooooh Ooooooh Wooooooh
Give me freedom, give me fire, give me reason, take me higher
See the champions, take the field now, unify us, make us feel proud
In the streets are, hands are liftin’, as we lose our inhibition
Celebration, its around us, every nations, all around us
Singin’ forever young, singin’ songs underneath that sun
Lets rejoice in the beautiful game
And together at the end of the day
WE ALL SAY
When I get older, I will be stronger
They’ll call me freedom
Just like a wavin’ flag
And then it goes back…And then it goes back…
And then it goes back…And then it goes…
When I get older, I will be stronger
They’ll call me freedom
Just like a wavin’ flag
And then it goes back…And then it goes back…
And then it goes back…And then it goes…
Ooooooh Wooooooh Ooooooh Wooooooh
Give you freedom, give you fire, give you reason, take you higher
See the champions, take the field now, unify us, make us feel proud
In the streets are, hands are lifting, every loser inhibition
Celebration, its around us, every nations, all around us
Singin’ forever young, singin’ songs underneath that sun
Lets rejoice in the beautiful game
And together at the end of the day
WE ALL SAY
When I get older, I will be stronger
They’ll call me freedom
Just like a wavin’ flag
And then it goes back…And then it goes back…
And then it goes back…And then it goes…
When I get older, I will be stronger
They’ll call me freedom
Just like a wavin’ flag
And then it goes back…And then it goes back…
And then it goes back…And then it goes….
Ooooooh Wooooooh Ooooooh Wooooooh
WE ALL SAY
When I get older, I will be stronger
They’ll call me freedom
Just like a wavin’ flag
And then it goes back…And then it goes back…
And then it goes back…And then it goes…
When I get older, I will be stronger
They’ll call me freedom
Just like a wavin’ flag
And then it goes back…And then it goes back…
And then it goes back…And then it goes…
Depictions of social media: Conversations Prism (left) and Social Media Starfish
As I wrote in an earlier blog post, in the of social media, we need to be as daring and adventurous as Sinbad. Like the legendary sailor of Baghdad, we have to take our chances and venture into unknown seas. Instead of maps or GPS or other tools, we must rely on our ingenuity, intuition and imagination.
During his seven voyages in the Indian Ocean, Sinbad had fantastic adventures going to magical places, surviving assorted monsters, and encountering a host of supernatural phenomena. Armed simply with his guts, wits and wanderlust, he sailed to places where no man had gone before, and certainly none had returned alive from!
Preparing for my Beijing session last week on using social media to communicate in the public interest, I did a good deal of web browsing and online reading. I came across many attempts to map or visually depict the social media (including two shown above). I also found some interesting lists and guidelines – my favourite so far is 10 Things Your Grandmother can Teach You about Social Media.
This inspired me to come up with my own rough guide to get you started and keep you going. As a salute to Sinbad’s seven voyages, I call it the 7-‘ups’.
• Turn up. As Woody Allen famously remarked, eighty per cent of success is just…showing up. You won’t get anywhere by simply observing or critiquing from the sidelines. You have to wade in and set sail — for better or worse.
• Once we join the planetary conversation, we need to do some catch up. Find your feet – and niche – in the online world. The Internet turned 40 in 2009, and its graphical interface – the World Wide Web – is now 20. So much has happened in that time – and a lot has also been superseded. You need to know what’s on, and what’s not.
What's your winning combination?• After catching up, we also need to keep up — at least with the mega trends. Large companies like Google – as well as hundreds of individual geeks – keep releasing new applications frequently, many for free use. Popular websites (such as Wired, Mashable and their local equivalents) help us navigate through these depths and currents.
• Next one is harder. We have to give up our baggage of old habits and attitudes picked up over the years. For many Digital Immigrants, leaving the comfort zone of paper was scary enough. How can we let go of complete control over our communication products and processes? But that’s just what the social media demand. It’s not a choice, but an imperative.
• It’s also helpful – though not quite essential – if we are less glum, prim, exacting and academic in how we relate to others in social media. In short, ease up, mate! There are some basic norms for online behaviour, but crusty intellectuals or matronly bureaucrats don’t gain much traction. Keep things short, focused and simple. And hey, it’s okay to be funny, cheeky and irreverent…
• Conversations in this realm can last for weeks, months or longer. Some topics and discussions tend to have ‘long tails’. When we start something online, we have to be clear when to engage whom and how. Equally important is knowing when to shut up. (A bore is a bore, offline or online!).
• And if all this is making you feel dizzy…just cheer up: there are no real experts in this field. No one is an authority. Everything is ‘in beta’. We are all learning by doing. Neither is there a definitive road map to the social media world. In fact, in this partly Undiscovered Country, there is plenty of scope to explore, innovate and be original.
Are you a land-lubber who doesn’t trust any seas? Let me then offer you another metaphor. Think of this as hitchhiking or back-packing online. Take your chances. Be adventurous. Discover a whole new world!
We have some advantages over Sinbad. The virtual world poses no real danger to our lives. But beware: social media can be very time-consuming and even addictive.
You have been warned.
Here, for some edu-tainment, is an interesting video on social media that I found on…YouTube:
Open Minds! 