May 2012
1 post
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Huffington Post List of People to Follow on...
The Huffington Post established a list of ‘50 people in politics you should follow on Facebook’. Even thought I need to point out that this list is mostly white, male and American dominated before recommending it, it seems definitely worth a look and contains great suggestions!
March 2012
9 posts
3 tags
Politics & Social Networking Sites
The Pew Internet and American Life Project recently published a report about user behaviour on social networking sites (SNS) with regards to politics. It showed that users with similar political opinions do not always regroup on these sites, or rather that people are frequently friends with others holding different opinions. “Among the SNS users whose friends post political content, 25%...
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World Day Against Cyber-Censorship
Reporters without borders declared 12 March world day against cyber-censorship in 2008. Today, the organisation amended last year’s report on the Internet’s recent developments and features a list of the ‘enemies of the internet’, meaning countries that restrict Internet the most.
The reports argues that social media tools help fighting the restriction of information....
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90-9-1-Rule
Have you heard of Jakob Nielsen’s 90-9-1 rule? It states that “in most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.” Interesting!
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CfP: "The Use of Social Media in Public Diplomacy:...
The Global Media Journal dedicates its special fall 2012 issue to the use of social media in public diplomacy. It will also feature a graduate section!! Deadline for submissions is 1 May 2012. Please find the complete call for papers on the journal’s website.
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'Awesome Social Media Propaganda Posters'
John Brown suggested Maria Papaefstathiou’s really ‘awesome social media propaganda posters’. That one is my favourite:
Source
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Facebook Drives more Traffic than Google
A PriceWaterhouseCoopers study amongst German users showed that Facebook (and not Google) was the preferred first place to-go on the Internet for 64% of the users.
Further information on the use of social media in a business environment can be found here.
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“The future of internet” research poll imagines life with technology in...”
– Sophocles, as quoted by Tiffany Shlain, director of the film Connected and founder of the Webby Awards, in this new Pew Internet Report.
This survey is fifth in the series “Future of the Internet” conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and Elon University’s...
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Survey: German Diplomatic Missions & the Use of...
The University of Trier in Germany currently conducts a survey in cooperation with the German Foreign Office on the use of their embassy’s Facebook fan pages. To provide some examples: The questions ask for the reason a fan follows a page, interests, the frequency one visits Facebook as well as some statistical data such as country of residence and age. Interesting!
And just in case you...
February 2012
4 posts
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Facebook Censorship
The Raw Story reported the story of a low-wage former Facebook contractor providing details of his work inside Facebook’s ‘censorship brigade’.
Blogger Gawker disclosed a list of these blacklisted items including subjects such as nudity (please note the distinction made between male and female body parts!) as well as violence. Especially the part international compliance - the...
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It's social media week!
Just in case you missed it, Social Media Week reflecting on the global impact these technologies may have, took place from 13 to 17 February 2012. It is interesting to read that the event has expanded to 21 cities (including New York, Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul, London, Berlin, Paris and Tokyo) within 3 years.
This video features Alec Ross reflecting on social networks, hierarchies, why the 21st...
9 tags
Pinterest, the 'new cool kid' in town
Liz Borod Wright provides 10 very useful social media tips for bloggers not only with regards to the usual suspects as in Facebook or Twitter but also includes StumbleUpon and Pinterest she qualifies as the ‘new cool kid’.
Indeed, Pinterest is the fastest growing website ever with 10 Million monthly unique views, driving more referral traffic than Google+, LinkeIn and YouTube combined...
January 2012
7 posts
10 tags
Digital Policies - DLD 2012 in Munich
The Digital-Life-Design conference takes currently place in Munich. The panel on Digital Policies featured Nicolas Princen, Khaled El-Mufti, Alec Ross, Katie Stanton, Rohan Silva and was moderated by Felix Marquardt.
While Alec Ross argued that a shift from hierarchies to citizen networks is taking place, Twitter’s head of strategy Katie Stanton underlines that social media help all...
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Social Media for Everyone? Terrorist Networks on...
Militant associations seem to have discovered social media for their own purposes. Somalia’s islamist group al-Shabaab is actively tweeting. Also, the Taliban’s official feed is available on Twitter, truly engaging with its audience…
Alec Ross, Secretary Clinton’s Senior Advisor for Innovation an Technology, reflects in this respect about how to balance internet freedom...
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Which countries tweet the most?
Beautifully illustrated graph found on Twitter (@mashsocialmedia). Most interestingly, Indonesia is revealed as the most ‘Twitter-addicted’ nation with roughly 21% of the population using the service.
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Is there really nothing new under the sun?
The Economist article Social Media in the 16th Century: How Luther went Viral argues that today’s social media are rather the continuation of a long communication tradition than a brand new invention. (Image: from ) The author considers it working with the same fundamentals than in the past but with different and much faster means of distribution.
‘The media environment that Luther...
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Reliability of information on social networks
The USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism published its annual key findings of its Digital Future Project. The report argues amongst other things that 51% of the sampled population (1,926 Americans, age 12 and older) believed that ‘only a small portion or none of the information on social networking sites is reliable and accurate.’ Content of established websites on the...
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The political power of social media
While Clay Shirky attributes a crucial role to social media tools for political activism, Malcolm Gladwell remains sceptical arguing that they are useful for rather modest undertakings but not suitable for inducing revolutionary changes. Moreover, they jointly address the question if social media makes protests possible. Both make really strong cases so I guess, the truth lies somewhere in...
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Why do governments engage in digital...
‘Because we have to’, replies the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, voicing what seems to be most governments’ motivation to embark in such undertaking. New Zealand officials, however, brave this trend and oppose using social media as a foreign policy tool because according to their foreign minister Hon. Murray McCully, it is considered ‘hugely risky in our line of...
December 2011
2 posts
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Are diplomats needed in the digital age?
The Canadian International Council published an interesting debate actually entitled ‘Are Diplomats Needed in the Digital Age?’. It features Daryl Copeland, author of Guerrilla Diplomacy, amongst others, and presents diverse standpoints on the topic. While, for example, John Curtis answers the question in the negative, arguing that ‘governments had lost their power over...
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Social - Sharing Trends 2011
Just in case you missed it, the sharing plattform AddThis recently released really telling data about this year’s social-sharing trends. For example Facebook, it is argued, makes up 52% of sharing on the web.
