Posts Tagged ‘authenticity’

[Session Proposal] Social Media for the Attention Age: The Peace Media Clearinghouse

Friday, December 4th, 2009

If the media production barriers of the one-to-many model of traditional media are disintegrating with the availability of the cheap, convenient, and dispersed many-to-many network of social media, then these technologies also provide new challenges to us as individuals and organizations.

  1. As media producers we are now empowered to produce social media capable of worldwide distribution, how do we broadcast a coherent message through the background noise and engage the appropriate audience in dialogue.
  2. But since we are also consumers of social media, and consumption possibilities remain stubbornly fixed (there are only so many hours in a day), how do we prevent this information abundance from becoming an information overload?  How do we access the information that is relevant, accurate, and timely to what we are trying to achieve?

One possible solution could be to provide a centralized hub for information recommended by our peers (and thus most likely to be personalized and relevant), moderated by authorities in the field for accuracy, and updated continually by a network of facilitators.

The Center of Innovation for Media, Conflict, and Peacebuilding at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) is attempting to do just that with the Peace Media Clearinghouse.  This online resource provides a central site where educators, students, organizations, and the community of practitioners working in the conflict management field can access multimedia materials that support conflict analysis and prevention, conflict resolution, and post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation.

Following a brief demonstration of this online resource, we’ll open up the discussion to explore how other individuals and organizations have addressed these same challenges.

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Social Media, Consciousness, and Conscience

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

I’d like to propose a discussion that, fundamentally, is about the relationship between consciousness and conscience and social media’s (potential) roll in sparking both. It is one thing (difficult enough in itself) to raise consciousness about a given topic. Many people and institutions have become quite proficient at using social media tools to get people talking about important issues, and it is critical to start those conversations.

But it is another huge step to move from general discussion, and even expressions of emotion, on a topic to a personal investment—to something that breaks through the clutter of our inboxes and our everyday lives to really affect us. That, in essence, is when an issue becomes an issue of conscience—something that gnaws at us and compels us act.

There are two main areas I’d like to consider:

1) How to we take that leap successfully? How can we use social media to nudge people toward a personal investment in a social or eco-justice issue? How can we offer compelling narratives and information that equip people to fight injustice? What is the balance between trying to stir up a global movement and connecting people to local issues in their own communities?

2) Should we, as institutions or media producers, try to make this leap? What are the potential ramifications to our communities/audiences (visitors, users, etc.) and what are our responsibilities? Can we do so genuinely in 140 characters? How do we avoid causing fatigue and a sense of helplessness by dwelling on guilt or fear? And how can we deal with such emotions in a virtual environment?

I don’t have the answers to all of these questions, and I would be grateful to get some help thinking and talking them through.

Looking forward to meeting everyone on Saturday!

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[Session proposal] Mobile Devices and Human Behavior: How Can Institutions of Conscience Leverage Phones for Social Good

Monday, November 30th, 2009

Among the many challenges facing institutions of conscience is the question of best methods to engage and mobilize a global constituency to raise awareness, learn and investigate facts, modify behavior and take action in order to prevent genocide, promote human dignity, etc. I am particularly interested in the role that mobile devices can play in such efforts. Because they are highly individualized, intimate, globally ubiquitous, and mobile, cell phones offer exciting opportunities and challenges for institutions of conscience.

It is now common knowledge that mobile devices are among the three objects which most people carry with them wherever they go. They have become indispensible to modern modes of communication. So-called smart phones are expected to make up the majority of the market by 2012 or 2015 in the USA (depending who you ask). Most people are already aware that mobile technology (combined with social media) has played an important role in human rights movements from Egypt to Iran to China as well as the United States, usually because the technology allows users to easily photograph or video capture events and upload to the Internet for a global audience. In addition, mobile apps are emerging that leverage volunteer efforts to tag photographs, provide data quality assurance, and contribute to or promote various campaigns via social media.

This session proposal seeks to explore how institutions of conscience can best exploit the unique qualities of mobile devices to raise awareness, promote action, and affect behavior change in a global constituency. Questions for exploration include:

1.
Because mobile devices are (were) originally designed for personal communication, what are best practices for institutions to use them without violating the personal space of constituents? What challenges and opportunities does this highly individualized and intimate technology present for institutions of conscience? What, if any, is the potential for creating a sense of connection, intimacy, and belonging?

2.
What opportunities for contributions of user-generated content are unique to mobile devices? What challenges do they present? What opportunities do they present?

3.
Mobile devices collapse our physical reality. We can “be” in multiple places at once, wherever we are. What are the implications of ubiquitous communication? Does this open opportunities/pitfalls for institutions of conscience? If so, what? For example, there was much discussion about the implications of becoming “a fan” of Auschwitz on Facebook. It just sounded odd. Are there implications for our particular institutions as we engage people in other highly personal, informal, and often unpredictable settings?

4.
As social media (Facebook and Twitter in particular) integrate with mobile devices, what opportunities for instantaneous and viral action emerge?

5.
Many venues have already demonstrated the potential of mobile devices and social media like Twitter and U-Stream to create blended virtual and live events. In a world where this capability is increasingly in the hands of the end-user, what potential is there for institutions of conscience? Can such content be readily integrated into Augmented Reality via mobile? And how can we exploit the immediacy of such content without sacrificing our reputations for authenticity and authority?

6.
Finally, how can mobile technologies best be leveraged to facilitate communication, understanding, and a sense of shared obligation between people in communities around the world?

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Uses of Social Networking in an Educational Context

Saturday, November 28th, 2009

How can educators tap into social networking as a legitimate, innovative educational tool?  Policies vary between states, as well as districts within states, between public and private educational settings and children who are home-schooled, regarding responsible use of internet tools.  Legal liability, in addition to well-founded concern for the welfare and safety of students in a school’s care, barricades all but the most basic access to the internet in most schools.

As a public school teacher and USHMM  Museum Teacher Fellow, I grapple with my own access to resources in the classroom, including everything from e-mail to images, twitter, facebook, and youtube,  as well as how to support other teachers in myriad contexts with the same concerns.  In designing curriculum for the interactive installation, From Memory to Action: Meeting the Challenge of Genocide, this concern has been important, particularly as it pertains to students writing and following through with their post on the pledge wall and accessing saved data online. 

This dilemma also has created roadblocks for supporting online networking for after school activities, such as our STAND chapter.  How do we create an online presence when most districts prohibit/discourage teachers from sharing an online presence with students (as stated above, with reasonable cause)?

Regarding the institutional side of this discussion, I like Dan’s posted question as a topic:   “How can the design of these online presences reflect the responsibility and liability of the organizations and their members?”   In this setting, a conversation between designers and users could prove fruitful. 

Looking forward to hearing thoughts and ideas!

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[Session Proposal] Interaction as a Two-Way Street

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

My name is Ned Prutzer and I am an intern for the Museum who is majoring in English and American Studies at the University of Maryland – College Park.  I have worked with social media in prior internships, and I anticipate a productive discussion regarding the manner in which the Museum can extend its current use of social media while maintaining the professional nature of its mission.

What I would like to pose as a topic for discussion is how the Museum can implement its use of social networking into the visitor’s experience of its exhibits – that is, how it can provide a more interactive experience on each end of the spectrum, to those who are coming to the Museum and those who are active on our pages.  How can we use varying mediums of social media to replicate the experience of visiting the Museum as best as possible?  How could we go about making an exclusively on-line experience of the Museum for those who are unable to come to DC and visit interactive without making it seem inauthentic?

It is clear that other prominent institutions are facing similar questions as they enter the realm of social networking. The Brooklyn Museum of Art, for instance, has digitized some of its collections through ArtShare, consolidated its web pages through the SimplyRSS application on Facebook, and utilized Electronic Comment Kiosks in their exhibits, for which they gather user-generated comments and post them on the walls of the exhibits.

Likewise, over the summer, the Museum hosted an innovative tour focused its architecture that encouraged participants to Twitter on their thoughts and post pictures as the tour was going on.  There’s an interesting blog on the event by Robert Michael Murray of boxednoise that I think is very pertinent to the issues being raised in the un-conference.  Could we extend such an initiative into Twitter-based tours where groups can ask questions for guides to respond to and leave comments for each other to see?  This is a great example of the issues that arise from the questions I proposed earlier, and though the issues I am raising may not be enough to sustain an entire session, I think that these are questions we should keep in mind and address during the un-conference.

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