Thursday, June 30, 2016
OLD MEDIA
The Old Media or Legacy Media are traditional means of communication and expression that have existed since before the advent of the new medium of the Internet. Industries that are generally considered part of the old media are broadcast and cable television\, radio, movie and music studios, newspapers, magazines, books and most print publications.
Although studies suggest that New Media, primarily the Internet, is increasingly getting stronger, replacement of Old Media is not a widespread phenomenon quite yet. There is insufficient evidence and it appears that television outlets are still heavily regarded as valuable news sources.
Challenges Faced by the Old Media
Some observers believe that the challenges faced by conventional media, especially newspapers, has to do with the perfect storm of the global economic crisis, dwindling readership and advertising dollars, and the inability of newspapers to monetize their online efforts. Newspapers, especially in the West and the US in particular, have lost the lion's share of classified advertisement to the Internet. The situation worsened when a depressed economy forced more readers to cancel their newspaper subscriptions, and business firms to cut their advertising budget as part of the overall cost-cutting measurements. As a result, closures of newspapers, bankruptcy, job cuts and salary cuts are widespread. This has made some representatives of the US newspaper industry seek some sort of bailout from the government by allowing U.S. newspapers to recoup taxes they paid on profits earlier this decade to help offset some of their current losses. This is what they put forward to the Joint Committee of Congress (The Star Online, September 2009). Accusations are being hurled at search engines giants by publishers such as Sir David Bell, who categorically accused Google and Yahoo of “stealing” the contents of newspapers. A similar allegation came from media mogul Rupert Murdoch in early April 2009. "Should we be allowing Google to steal all our copyrights?" asked the News Corp.Chief. Likewise, Sam Zell, owner of the Tribune Company that publishes the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and the Baltimore Sun claimed it was the newspapers in America who allowed Google to steal their contents for nothing, but asked without the contents what would Google do, and how profitable would Googlebe?
Advent of old Media
The advent of New Communication Technology (NCT) has brought forth a set of opportunities and challenges for conventional media. The presence of new media and the Internet in particular, has posed a challenge to conventional media, especially the printed newspaper. Analysts in industrial organizations and businesses are of the view that the U.S. newspaper industry is suffering through what could be its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Advertising revenues are tumbling due to the severe economic downturn, while readership habits are changing as consumers turn to the Internet for free news and information. Some major newspaper chains are burdened by heavy debt loads. As in the past, major newspapers have declared bankruptcy as several big city papers shut down,lay off reporters and editors, impose pay reductions, cut the size of the physical newspaper, or turn to Web-only publication (Kirchhoff, 2009). The new media have also affected the way newspapers get and circulate their news. Since 1999, almost 90% of daily newspapers in the United States have been actively using online technologies to search for articles and most of them also create their own news websites to reach new markets.
BY FUMBUKA SEIF S
42554 BAPRM 3
Public Relations and the Internet
Public Relations and the Internet
The Internet has caused a revolution in communication by giving a voice to those that previously could not have been heard. This has opened a whole new world of opportunities for both businesses and individuals that were unimagined in the era of the traditional media. These still play an important role in shaping the public opinion but with the entire globe moving to the online world to search for information and buy products/services, a PR that does not effectively communicate with the online community can no longer effectively shape and maintain the desired public image.
Challenges of the Internet for PR
Although the Internet is one of the greatest inventions in human history, it has dramatically changed the world and above all, the communication. The world wide web has opened a number of opportunities but it has also opened a number of challenges, especially for the PR sector that has mastered communication with and through the traditional media. While PR specialists virtually had no competition in the era of the traditional media, the democracy of the Internet has forced them to compete with the entire world.The Internet has given just about everyone the ability to share their opinion just about everything with the entire world in a matter of seconds. The ability to reach thousands or millions of people in virtually no time gave PR specialists a powerful tool but it also made their jobs more difficult, especially in case of an attack on integrity of their clients. Just imagine restoring the client’s reputation if the first page of search engine results contains mainly compromising or damaging content.
The Importance of Internet PR
Why businesses and individuals who want to succeed in the modern world cannot afford not to utilise the Internet PR is clearly evident from the example of “anti-campaigns”. These can either be an unfortunate incident or a carefully devised plan of unethical competition. But regardless of who stands behind and why, negative campaigning can have a devastating effect on public reputation of a company or an individual. The risk of negative publicity, however, is not the only reason why the Internet PR is increasingly gaining in importance.The Internet has a major influence on people’s opinion and the decisions they make, especially when they are uncertain. For example, let’s say Joe has difficulties deciding which anti-acne cream to choose. He will open his search engine and look for information about the creams he is considering buying. He will most likely take into account a variety of factors including the price and other people’s opinions but his decision will also be influenced greatly by the information he will be able to receive about a particular product. And if he finds little information about how the product is supposed to work, how soon he will be able to see the results, etc. there is a great chance that he will not buy that product.
Dahaye Theresia 42544
NETWORK SOCIETY AND NEW ECONOMY
NETWORK SOCIETY AND NEW ECONOMY
Network society is a kind of society which is formed by the emergency of
the electronic based way of communicating. The system of communicating
now days have changed due to the development of science and technology
and due to this now days emerged the network society or online society.
Network society led to the emergence of new economy in the world and the characteristics of new economy are;
It is global,
means that new economy is all over the world. The world now create its
economy through the internet or online this is due to the reason that
things have changed now days, most of the things are done online, for
example most of the advertisements are through online and there fore
many publics or customers are found through online.
It is network
New economy is network, means that it is operating through networking
all over the world and without this network it will be hard for
countries or organizations to create economy through the internet and in
order to win more it must be more connections with different and many
people around the global.
It is information
New economy is full of information of everything, it tells the positive
and negative of life. Due to the large connection around the global, new
economy must contain a lot of information in different aspects of life
like political, social, economy as well as economy around the world.
New economy is also characterized by the inclusion and exclusion
Starts with inclusion
This means that in new economy there are those who want to dance with
new economy and technology and work with it, therefore you don’t ignore
the emergence and presence of it and therefore you play with it in order
to get advantage of it.
Exclusion
This means that if you don’t want to know the concept of new economy
and and technology and therefore you ignore it and it means that you cant get the advantage of it due to the fact that you don’t like to have an awareness of new media technology and new economy so it is just useless to you. If you don’t want to be in network society you will loose the experience of the network society and this will cause you not be able to manage information.
and and technology and therefore you ignore it and it means that you cant get the advantage of it due to the fact that you don’t like to have an awareness of new media technology and new economy so it is just useless to you. If you don’t want to be in network society you will loose the experience of the network society and this will cause you not be able to manage information.
It is very important to be in inclusion in network society especially
the corporate communication professionals and they need to use it as a
tool to make their professionals in a better position.
Lastly, with new economy there is space flow, means you don’t
need to have space to do things, even when walking you can do things,
with new economy there is not limited to space. For example you can walk
while working with your laptop or other devices like the cellphones.
By Tamba Philip 42679
MODERN TECHNOLOGY
MODERN
TECHNOLOGY IS CHANGING THE WAY OUR BRAINS WORK
By SUSAN GREENFIELD
This will affect our
brains over the next 100 years in ways we might never have imagined.
Our brains are under the
influence of an ever- expanding world of new technology: multichannel
television, video games, MP3 players, the internet, wireless networks,
Bluetooth links - the list goes on and on.
But our modern brains are also having to adapt to other 21st century intrusions, some of which, such as prescribed drugs like Ritalin and Prozac, are supposed to be of benefit, and some of which, such as widely available illegal drugs like cannabis and heroin, are not.
Electronic devices and
pharmaceutical drugs all have an impact on the micro- cellular structure and
complex biochemistry of our brains. And that, in turn, affects our personality,
our behavior and our characteristics. In short, the modern world could well be
altering our human identity.
Three hundred years ago,
our notions of human identity were vastly simpler: we were defined by the
family we were born into and our position within that family. Social
advancement was nigh on impossible and the concept of "individuality"
took a back seat.
That only arrived with
the Industrial Revolution, which for the first time offered rewards for
initiative, ingenuity and ambition. Suddenly, people had their own life stories
- ones which could be shaped by their own thoughts and actions. For the first
time, individuals had a real sense of self.
But with our brains now
under such widespread attack from the modern world, there's a danger that that
cherished sense of self could be diminished or even lost.
Anyone who doubts the
malleability of the adult brain should consider a startling piece of research
conducted at Harvard Medical School. There, a group of adult volunteers, none
of whom could previously play the piano, were split into three groups.
The first group were
taken into a room with a piano and given intensive piano practice for five
days. The second group were taken into an identical room with an identical
piano - but had nothing to do with the instrument at all.
And the third group were
taken into an identical room with an identical piano and were then told that
for the next five days they had to just imagine they were practicing
piano exercises.
The resultant brain
scans were extraordinary. Not surprisingly, the brains of those who simply sat
in the same room as the piano hadn't changed at all.
Equally unsurprising was
the fact that those who had performed the piano exercises saw marked structural
changes in the area of the brain associated with finger movement.
But what was truly
astonishing was that the group who had merely imagined doing the piano
exercises saw changes in brain structure that were almost as pronounced as
those that had actually had lessons. "The power of imagination" is
not a metaphor, it seems; it's real, and has a physical basis in your brain.
Alas, no neuroscientist
can explain how the sort of changes that the Harvard experimenters reported at
the micro-cellular level translate into changes in character, personality or behavior.
But we don't need to know that to realize that changes in brain structure and
our higher thoughts and feelings are incontrovertibly linked.
By: ULAYA SIJALI A. (BAPRM 42681)
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EMAIL AS A REPLACEMENT OF WRITTEN LETTERS IN THE DIGITAL ERA
One estimate suggests that there are now over 1.2 billion, and rising, email users in the world. For those of us within that sixth of the world’s population email is now an everyday medium; part of the everyday routines which have dropped below the level of conscious attention. Yet ‘e-mail’ (electronic mail) developed alongside or within the wider development of the Internet from its origins in more local networks such as ARPANET from the 1970s on. In this sense it was simply a way of writing terse notes or messages in much the same way as people wrote and sent notes or letters to one another with the advantage of much more rapid delivery.
However, as the ownership of networked PCs grew, and email applications became widely available, commercially or as free downloads, the email came to replace the written letter for very large numbers of people. There is more to this than meets the eye (not least for the postal services that still exist worldwide) and it continues to be a useful case study in thinking about the significance of digitality. The conventional letter had specific and valuable characteristics and an important history (and for some people, it still has. Indeed, some of the characterstics of email communication that we discuss below have led to a certain re-evaluation of the ‘letter’). The letter requires physical production, it has to be written or typed, put into an envelope, licked, posted in a special box. It is then subject to the vast enterprise of the post office system in which each house is a physicalised data address.
In addition to these material properties the letter has an important history as a literary and cultural form. Until industrialisation interpersonal communication over distance by writing depended upon the physical transportation of the text by messenger, hand to hand. Public or private news took days or weeks to move from one part of a country, or empire, to another. This pace of transmission had an effect upon the status of the message: the arrival of a letter in pre-industrial society was an ‘occasion’, replete with significance. The commercial and military imperatives of industrialisation and imperialism demanded greater speed and accuracy in person-toperson communications, leading to developments in telegraphy, telephony and the modern postal service. By contrast, we might characterise email in relation to the principles of digitality (like speed, quantity and flexibility). The email process, though not instantaneous, is extremely fast compared to the physical transportation of a letter; so fast, in fact, that it might stand as one of the best examples of the kind of ‘space time compression’ often referred to as typical of a postmoderncommunications environment. Distant locations are brought into the same communicative proximity as the office next door.
Certainly, the email, because it exists only in digital not analogue form, is subject to multiple transformations and uses. Unlike the handwritten letter it can be multiply re-edited during composition, and the recipient can re-edit the original, interpolating comment and response. The email can be sent to individuals or groups, so the email might be written in any number of registers on a private–public scale. Writing an email to your co-workers will demand a different mode of address from writing an email to your extended friends and family network. A one-to-one email will have a different tone from a group email in composing we are constantly negotiating different positions on a private in public scale. This flexibility is enhanced by the possibility of making attachments to the email. These might be anything from another text document to photos, moving image files or music. More or less whatever can be digitised can be attached. Here we see email exemplifying convergenceof previously discrete media forms.
These qualities have led to a massive increase in the quantity of communications information processed via the PC. There is a net increase in communicative actions, a perceived increase in productivity for organisations, and arguably an increase in social and familial communicative traffic (among what we have to remember is still a global minority with domestic online access). At the level of administration and management this use of email represents an intensification of the paper-based form of the memo. However, this increase in traffic creates new problems of data storage and management; the sheer volume of email received by organisational workers creates ‘information overload’. ‘No email days’ have become a feature of corporate life as managers have come to understand that constant message checking is the enemy of concentration (Wakefield, 2007). These changes have a number of qualitative implications. For instance, whereas the postal letter has evolved a whole series of formal codes and conventions in modes of address (inscribed as core topics within British schools’ National Curriculum) the new forms of digital text communication have evolved a whole set of far less formal conventions:
Thoughts tend toward the experiential idea, the quip, the global perspective, the interdisciplinary thesis, the uninhibited, often world that has always been at the centre of media processing. For consumers worldwide, differences of wealth and poverty which underpin their highly differential access to other goods, services and technologies apply equally to digital media. The digital principle does not escape the demands of physics or the economic principles of scarcity.
Thoughts tend toward the experiential idea, the quip, the global perspective, the interdisciplinary thesis, the uninhibited, often world that has always been at the centre of media processing. For consumers worldwide, differences of wealth and poverty which underpin their highly differential access to other goods, services and technologies apply equally to digital media. The digital principle does not escape the demands of physics or the economic principles of scarcity.
BY MWINYIJUMA REHEMA
BAPRM III - 42686
Global Village
GLOBAL VILLAGE
Global village
this was a term that was associated by Canadian well know as Marshall McLuhan.
According to McLuhan described how the globe has been contracted into a village
by electric technology and instantaneous movement of information from every
quarter to every point at the same time. Also according to him through enhanced
electronic speed in bringing all social and political functions together in a
sudden implosion has definitely heightened human awareness of responsibility to
an intense degree. It increased the speed of communication and the ability of
people to read about, spread and react to global news quickly, forces people to
become more involved with one another from various social groups and countries
around the world and to be more aware of global responsibilities.
Web
connected computers enable people to link their web sites together, meaning
this new reality has implications for forming new sociological structures
within the context of culture. However, global village is also a term used to
express the relation between macroeconomics and sociology throughout the world.
McLuhan
predicted the global village, that one world interconnected by an electronic
nervous system, making it part of popular culture before it actually happened.
He was the first person to popularize the concept of global village and to
consider its social effects. He chose the insightful phrase ‘global village’ to
highlight his observation that electronic nervous system (the media) .His ideas
have permeated the way global village think about technology and media to such
an extent that generally no longer aware of the revolutionary effect his
concepts had when he first introduced. McLuhan made the idea of an integrated
planetary nervous system a apart of our popular culture, so that when the internet
finally arrived in the global village it seemed no less amazing, but still
somehow in the natural order of things. Through the media such as telephone,
television and more recently the personal computer and the internet are real
increasingly linked together across the globe and this has enabled us to connect
with people at the other side of the world as quickly as it takes us to contact
and converse with those who inhabit the same physical space. He also argues
that it is the speed of these electronic media that allow us to act and react
to global issues at the same speed as normal face to face verbal communication.
Also through technology people are able to be to another level in terms of
knowledge.
McLuhan
gained prominence again the emergence of the internet, a medium that seems to
promote the idea of an integrated global community. He also said electronic technology
would seem to render individualism obsolete and corporate interdependence
mandatory.
Generally,
the global village is due to new technology therefore people are real
encouraged to use technology because it simplifies communication.
BY: KIYABO NELLY
BAPRM-42587
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
EFFECTIVE SECURITY PROGRAM
ENSURING
AN EFFECTIVE SECURITY PROGRAM IN THE ORGANISATION
There are several
elements that we have found to be critical to ensuring an effective security
program in the organizations.
- Be open and honest about the effectiveness of your security program and regularly share an honest assessment of your security posture with the executive team and board.
We use a data-driven
approach that scores our program across the categories: risk intelligence,
malware prevention, vulnerability management, identity and access management,
and detection and response. Scores move up and down not only as our defenses
improve or new vulnerabilities are discovered but also as threats change. The
capabilities of the adversaries are growing, and you need a dynamic approach to
measurement.
- Invest in security before investing elsewhere. A well-controlled environment gives you the license to do other things. Great and innovative products and services will only help you win if you have a well-protected business.
- Don’t leave the details to others. Active, hands-on engagement by the executive team and the board is required. The risk is existential. Nothing is more important. Your involvement will produce better results as well as make sure the whole organization understands just how important the issue is.
- Never think you’ve done enough. The bad guys are smart and getting smarter. They aren’t resting, and they have more resources than ever. Assume they will attack.
Defending against cyber
threats is not something that we can solve for our company in a vacuum. At
Visa, we must protect not only our own network but the whole payments
ecosystem. At the heart of Visa’s security strategy is the concept of “cyber
fusion,” which is centered on the principle of shared intelligence—a framework
to collect, analyze, and leverage cyber threat intelligence, internally and externally,
to build a better defense for the whole ecosystem.
Championing security is
one of Visa’s six strategic goals. This is an area where there are no grades—it
is pass or fail, and pass is the only option. Cybersecurity needs to be part of
the fabric of every company and every industry, integrated into every business
process and every employee action. And it begins and ends at the top. It is job
number one.
accounts had been
compromised—a pivotal moment for our industry. The losses experienced by our clients,
combined with the impact on consumer confidence, galvanized our industry to
take actions that, we believe, will have a meaningful and lasting effect on how
the world manages sensitive consumer data—not just payments. We are taking
action as an ecosystem, to collaborate and share information across industries
and with law enforcement and governments and to develop new technologies that
will allow us to prevent attacks and respond to threats in the future.
Consumer purchases online
and with mobile devices are growing at a significant rate. In order to prevent
cyberattacks and fraudulent use of consumer accounts online, Visa and the
global payments industry adopted a new payment standard for online payments.
The new standard replaces the 16-digit account number with a digital token that
is used to process online payments without exposing consumer account
information.
By: ULAYA SIJALI A. (BAPRM 42681)
BUILDING TRUST IN COMMUNICATION
Recent events before and during
the global recession have reawakened public scrutiny of a corporation’s
purpose. These events have revealed strong differences and opinion about the
role of business in society and how it links to the stated purpose of
corporations. The current societal flux is also leading corporate
decision-makers to revisit the definition of corporate purpose.
Companies articulate and
communicate on corporate purpose with the ultimate aim of building and
sustaining reputation and trust. Managers have good reason to view this
proposition as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, more thoughtful and
careful communication of corporate purpose gives the opportunity to build,
sustain and increase trust. On the other hand, some managers feel it can open
the door to still more stakeholder mistrust and skepticism. Clearly the idea of
not only walking the talk, but talking the walk consistently and coherently is
the only way around this conundrum. This is no easy proposition, but the
rewards, in terms of reputation and brand benefits, are potentially rich.
In interviews, leading companies
stated that they are not positioning financial performance in their
communications as an end in itself, but as a means to an end. Interestingly,
they also claim that the of leading companies’ efforts in communicating
corporate purpose is dedicated to communicating on issues that help companies
to align their corporate interests with those of key internal and external
constituencies. Customer-focused messages also take up a good share of efforts.
But viewing the literature and discourse around this subject, companies still
have to be careful that talk matches walk. Otherwise, a substantial
reputational risk factor enters the equation.
Overall, we found a positive
correlation between effective communication of corporate purpose and financial
performance. The effect of corporate purpose on financial performance of many
companies was statistically tested through regression analysis and the results
show that communicating purpose in a way that is consistent with corporate
action can boost differentiation, strengthen reputation risk management and
build additional competitive advantage.
Companies in the banking,
insurance, logistics and automotive sectors have been struggling to communicate
purpose in an effective way, with the exception of financial issues.
The food and beverage sector
have the most uneven play field in purpose communication, followed very closely
by group companies, its competitors are having a very hard time in building and
sustaining reputation and trust. Interestingly, food and beverage is the sector
in which purpose has the strongest influence on financial performance from
which all other communication’s trust is built.
By Mwasandube Aden A
BAPRM III 42638
CYBERCRIME
Computer crime, or cybercrime,
is crime that involves a computer and a network. The computer may have
been used in the commission of a crime, or it may be the target.Debarati Halder
and K. Jaishankar define cybercrimes as: "Offences that are committed
against individuals or groups of individuals with a criminal motive to
intentionally harm the reputation of the victim or cause physical or mental
harm, or loss, to the victim directly or indirectly, using modern
telecommunication networks such as Internet (Chat rooms, emails, notice boards
and groups) and mobile phones (SMS/MMS)". Such crimes may threaten a
nation's security and financial health. Issues surrounding these types of
crimes have become high-profile, particularly those surrounding hacking, copyright
infringement, child pornography, and child grooming. There are also problems of
privacy when confidential information is intercepted or disclosed, lawfully or
otherwise. Debarati Halder and K. Jaishankar further define cybercrime from the
perspective of gender and defined 'cybercrime against women' as "Crimes
targeted against women with a motive to intentionally harm the victim
psychologically and physically, using modern telecommunication networks such as
internet and mobile phones"Internationally, both governmental and
non-state actors engage in cybercrimes, including espionage, financial theft,
and other cross-border crimes. Activity crossing international borders and
involving the interests of at least one nation state is sometimes referred to
as cyberwarfare. The international legal system is attempting to hold actors
accountable for their actions through the International Criminal Court. Fraud and financial crimes
Internet fraud.
Computer
fraud is any dishonest misrepresentation of fact intended to let another to do
or refrain from doing something which causes loss. In this context, the fraud
will result in obtaining a benefit by:
- Altering
in an unauthorized way. This requires little technical expertise and is
common form of theft by employees altering the data before entry or
entering false data, or by entering unauthorized instructions or using
unauthorized processes;
- Altering,
destroying, suppressing, or stealing output, usually to conceal
unauthorized transactions. This is difficult to detect;
- Altering
or deleting stored data;
Other
forms of fraud may be facilitated using computer systems, including bank fraud,
carding, identity theft, extortion, and theft of classified information.
A
variety of internet scams many based on phishing and social engineerins, target consumers and businesses.
Cyber terrorism
Government
officials and information technology security specialists have documented a
significant increase in Internet problems and server scans since early 2001.
But there is a growing concern among federal officials that such intrusions are
part of an organized effort by cyberterrorists, foreign intelligence services,
or other groups to map potential security holes in critical systems. A
cyberterrorist is someone who intimidates or coerces a government or
organization to advance his or her political or social objectives by launching
a computer-based attack against computers, networks, or the information stored
on them.
Cyberterrorism
in general, can be defined as an act of terrorism committed through the use of
cyberspace or computer resources (Parker 1983). As such, a simple propaganda in
the Internet, that there will be bomb attacks during the holidays can be
considered cyberterrorism. There are also hacking activities directed towards
individuals, families, organized by groups within networks, tending to cause
fear among people, demonstrate power, collecting information relevant for
ruining peoples' lives, robberies, blackmailing.
Cyberextortion
Cyberextortion
occurs when a website, e-mail server, or computer system is subjected to or
threatened with repeated denial of service or other attacks by malicious
hackers. These hackers demand money in return for promising to stop the attacks
and to offer "protection". According to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, cyberextortionists are increasingly attacking corporate websites
and networks, crippling their ability to operate and demanding payments to
restore their service. More than 20 cases are reported each month to the FBI
and many go unreported in order to keep the victim's name out of the public
domain. Perpetrators typically use a distributed denial-of-service attack.
BY FUMBUKA SEIF S
42554 BAPRM III
Cyber Activism
Cyber Activism
Cyber activism
is the process of using internet-based socializing and communication techniques
to create, operate and manage activism of any type. It allows any individual or
organization to utilize social networks and other online technologies to reach
and gather followers, broadcast messages and progress a cause or movement.
Cyber activism is also known as internet activism is also known as internet
activism, online activism, digital activism, online organizing, electronic
advocacy, e-campaigning and e-activism.
Cyber activism
uses social networking tools and platforms to share and broadcast mottos and
messages and to interaction. These platforms include Twitter, Face book, LinkedIn,
You Tube and other popular and niche social networks along with email, instant
messaging and other online collaboration tools.
Depending
on the cause or need of the e-activist, cyber activism can be used for various
purposes such as awareness creation, gathering and organizing followers and
initiating reactions.The e-activists use e-petitions digitally signed by a
number of followers before they are sent to government and legislative
authorities.
However,
the internet can be a double-edged sword when it comes to activism. It is a
cheap and immediate way to get your
message out to a wide audience, there is a vast pool of information at your
fingertips for research and it allows communication with others all
around the world. But it can also have valuable time and creating an online
presence for your campaign can be yet another challenge.
The
following are the things that activists can make best use of the web;
1. Be topical;
this means be part of the online news revolution.One of the biggest advantages
of the internet is its accessibility: a website costs little to start and has a
global reach. This has loosened the mainstream media’s grip on news production,
a hugely important development. Also whatever your campaign is about, respond
to mainstream news stories in real time on your blog or website. Producing
information that is topical and contributes to reason debate not only makes the
most of the democratizing potential of the internet but should also bring you
more readers.
2. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn;
this means the use of social networking sites was until recently, often derided
as the ultimate in slacktivism. Facebook groups sprung up for every cause, with
little or no real life impact. They are however, a useful tool in releasing the
bite-size chunks of information
3. Be careful with the law;
if you are to organize a direct action, or use another confrontational or
potentially illegal tactic, the internet may not be the place to plan or
discuss it.
4. Do not be an armchair activist;
the biggest danger with the internet is that you can spend hours surfing and
typing, and end up with little to show for your efforts. Updating social media
platforms and checking emails too often can be a distraction from more
substantial work. Also do not campaign online at the expense of real-world
activism.
BY: KIYABO NELLY
BAPRM-42587
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