DigiActive.org

Campaign: Save the Ottawa Arts

Description: The Canadian city of Ottawa is planning to close a gap in their 2009 budget by cutting funding for the arts by as much as 100%. To protect funding for Ottawa festivals and galleries, the Council for the Arts in Ottawa has launched a campaign opposing the cuts.

Digital Activism Tools: web site, Youtube videos, social bookmarking and sharing platforms like Digg, StumbleUpon, and del.icio.us

How These Tools Are Being Used: The campaign’s centerpieces are two humorous YouTube videos, Artsy Clean (above) and Crazy Larry, both simulating over-the-top commercials. The first video is a fake info-mercial for the product “artsy clean,” which magically removes culture from a city. The second video simulates a commercial for a blow-out sale at a car dealership – all art must go!

As mentioned in the DigiActive video guide, humor can be an effective way to attract interest and stimulate viral effects (people emailing the video to their friends). The videos end with a call to action – write your City Councillor and tell them not to cut the arts budget.

The videos are hosted on their own web page, http://www.crazylarry.ca, with links to content-sharing platforms, like Digg, StumbleUpon, and del.icio.us. The goal in linking directly to these platforms is to encourage the viral sharing of the campaign to a large number of citizens who will hopefully take action.

Outcome: The Ottawa budget has still not been decided upon.

Hat-tip: Beth Kanter

Campaign: Homeless Nation offers a place to tell stories and interact

Description: Homeless Nation was started by Daniel Cross, a documentary filmmaker who has highlighted Canada’s homeless population in several of his films. While gathering thousands of stories given by the homeless, most of which wouldn’t fit into the films, Cross envisioned a space where these reports wouldn’t be lost.

He thus created a social network that not only brought many of these stories to the forefront, but offered continued opportunities for sharing and interaction between the homeless and those interested in listening.  Furthermore, part of their mission is “ensuring that digital tools for media, learning and communication are made available for homeless Canadians.”

Tools: Internet, podcasting, video

Application: Armed with donated computer and video equipment, Homeless Nation “outreach workers” go to various drop centers (shelters, day-centers, squatting areas, etc) located in several Canadian metropolitan centers and create audio, video or written testimonials from the homeless, while also providing them internet and computer training.  Additionally, they provide a place online to find resources that offer food, shelter, healthcare etc.

It allows the homeless, who would otherwise not have access to the sorts of web-based communities that many of us are used to, to join in conversation, make connections with people and have a voice they may not otherwise have.

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• Homeless Nation Gives a Digital Place to The Displaced

Campaign: Iran – Protesting Online Against the Canadian Embassy

Description: About 670 Iranian-Canadians have signed a petition to Ottawa’s political leaders protesting what they say is worsening discrimination against Iranians who want to visit Canada, some of them internationally known dissidents on the blacklist of the regime. Only a minority of several hundred Iranian artists and intellectuals invited to Toronto events this summer were granted visas.

Tools: Blog, Petition, Email

How these tools have been used:A Visa for Ordinary Iranians blog explains the situation and provides the addresses where people can sign the petition. It also informs how media covers this petition issue. People who can not post the petition or take it to six different locals, are asked to send an email to support this initiative.

Objective : Visa for Ordinary Iranians blog says that the goal is to collect 1000 signatures before 14th of October.

Impact: Lawmakers may pay attention to their requests as Iranian community is a large one in Canada but 1000 signatures are not that much. If this news finds itself through Canadian mainstream media, the impact of the petition will undoubtably grow.