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Resource: Digital Activism for the Environment
Written by Mary on May 12, 2008 – 9:10 pm -
Title: Green Global Voices: Web 2.0 Environmental Activism
Author: Juliana Rotich, editor of Green Global Voices
Published by: Reuters Blog (2008)
What is it?: A detailed post reviewing how activists are using digital tools to protect the environment. Featured tools include blogs and video, Flickr, data mashups, and mobile phones.
Tags: environment, green
Posted in Blogs, Guides & Resources, Mashups, Mobile Phones, Video | No Comments »
Guide: Designing an Advocacy Video
Written by Mary on March 16, 2008 – 10:44 pm -All the cool digital tools in the world aren’t much help without an effective strategy. Posts in the new “Strategy” topic will present ideas for how to fit digital tools into your overarching strategy for change.
In this first post, we will present a strategy for designing a YouTube-style video to promote your cause. A good advocacy video should contain the following elements:
1. Start With Background Info
Assume the person viewing the video knows nothing about your cause. You need to tell the viewer who, what, when, why, and where of the cause you are fighting for. The goal of presenting this information is for the person to understand the injustice that has occurred and why action is needed.
There are two options for presenting this information: slides and voice-over. If you are using slides, just type the information (white text on a back background looks nice). Then animate the slides. For voice-over, you need to write a script of the information and then record it and layer the audio over the video. The slides option is easier as you do not need to edit the audio track.
- EXAMPLE: Video Denouncing Homophobia
This video denounces the homophobic statements of Sally Kern, an elected representative from the state of Oklahoma in the USA. The first 33 seconds show the use of black-and-white slides to give background information about the issue. Specifically: Who? a State Legislator. What? a speech delivered at a gathering in her district. When? (doesn’t say) Why? she thought only 50 people were listening to her speech. Where? the state of Oklahoma. Read more »
Tags: censorship, homophobia, imprisonment, morocco, racism, saudiarabia, tunisia, USA
Posted in Americas, Guides & Resources, Mashups, Mid-East & N. Africa, Video | 5 Comments »
Guide: Blog for a Cause! - The Global Voices Guide to Blog Advocacy
Written by Mary on February 15, 2008 – 1:22 am -Title: Blog for a Cause!: The Global Voices Guide to Blog Advocacy
Author: Mary Joyce
Published by: Global Voices Advocacy (2008)
What is it?: A strategic step-by-step guide to using a blog as the center of a campaign for social or political change
Tags: advocacy, globalvoices
Posted in Blogs, Guides & Resources | 4 Comments »
Guide: How to Find A Volunteer Developer For Your Activism Project
Written by Mary on February 12, 2008 – 9:38 pm -Title: How to Find A Volunteer Web Developer For Your Social Change Website or Web Application
Author: Joe Solomon
Published by: NetSquared (2008)
What is it?: A short online guide of 10 steps to recruiting a volunteer web developer to help you build a social change web application.
URL: www.netsquared.org/blog/joesolomon/part-2-how-find-volunteer-web-developer
My friend Joe Solomon, with whom I created Rayt, has written a great little guide on how to find a web developer to help you create an online project for social change. The guide is available at.
Finding volunteer developers is a really serious challenge for digital activists. Although a lot of current software, like Facebook and Blogger, is fairly easy to use, some more complex projects, like Ushahidi.com necessitate the help of a skilled developer. The process of finding developers to help you is not obvious and Joe’s guide provides the necessary guidance to help you get the help you need to make your project a reality.
The guide, which is available on the NetSquared blog, is available in two parts. In Part One, Joe breaks down the task of finding a developer into 5 parts. Part Two contains continues with tasks 5 through 10. Here is a summary of the tasks he covers: Read more »
Tags: , joesolomon, meetup, netsquared
Posted in Guides & Resources | No Comments »
Guide: Handbook for Bloggers & Cyber-Dissidents
Written by Mary on November 26, 2007 – 5:22 pm -Title: Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents
Published by: Reporters Without Border (2005)
What is it?: A general guide to blogging with special content for people interested in publishing politically sensitive content
Rating: 4.5 stars
Download it!
If the above link does not work, you can also download it here or click on the image below.
Tags: anti-censorship, guide
Posted in Guides & Resources | No Comments »