Mobile everything: 3 new dimensions of citizen engagement

April 28, 2008

Blogs have started a little revolution — nowadays everyone with Internet access can publish content on the web. Citizens can articulate their perspective and exchange it within a network of blogs. The mobile phone, with its improved access to the web, gives new means for citizen engagement because one can connect from everywhere and engage and broadcast from anywhere. These are the three most influential factors:

Always online

There is a slow shift when the web loses its physical limitation. Although the web is all around the world, in most of the cases you have to go somewhere to be connected. The mobile phone, because it is easier to connect to the web, changes that — you are always online. The web is a constant follower that might be frightening to some. But a “blackberry for activism” lets activists get involved instantly. On a peer to peer basis, people are connected = protected. A recent case underlines the potential: “Twitter Saves Man From Egyptian Justice.” Jan Chipchase wrote in a recent New York Times article, “the cellphone is becoming the one fixed piece of our identity.”

Interacting from everywhere

Some years ago I read Howard Rheingold’s “Smart Mobs” and I could not really see these mobile peer-to-peer networks happening on a massive scale, but, nowadays, a connection to the web allows people to be part of social networks. There are many worldwide experiences for sms campaigns for political change. The New York Times recently wrote, “50 million people, or about 2.3 percent of all mobile users, already use the cellphone for social networking.” This is particularly important in developing countries, where mobile phones are the communication tool. The real benefit is not in the northern hemisphere, where through the recent years most mobile business models have been failing. It is in Africa or Asia where the mobile phone is the main communication technology. If this is connected through the web, it then allows interaction, coordination and organization on a peer to peer basis. The cvberactivism in the aftermath of political violence in Kenya is one example and another is the mobile social blogging network vipera.com.

Broadcast from everywhere

In re-publica.de I watched a fascinating session on video citizen journalism. Brian Conley presented a project in which people from Iraq broadcast from Baghdad over the web (Alive in Baghdad), and there is no media team around. This presentation reminded me of a recent new development: live video broadcasting. Two new services are very interesting: Qik and Mogulus. Yes, more new tools, but these ones represent a shift — with Qik you can broadcast alive from your mobile phone wherever you are. I first got introduced to it when David Wilcox interviewed me through his mobile phone at the Social Innovation Camp. And the other tool, Mogulus.com, can be set up easily in your own television station to be online, letting you broadcast on daily basis from it. Eduardo Avila writes a fascinating story from Ecuador:  My Mobile Voice and Citizen Journalism.

Citizen video broadcasting has two interesting facets: First, videos often have a stronger impact compared to texts. Second, citizen journalists, such as mobile reporters in Africa, go themselves to demonstrations and make interviews or film directly from areas where no media outlet goes.

A network of ideas - development 2.0

February 1, 2008

[Published in the Internationale Politik magazine in December 2007.]

How the participative Web 2.0 challenges development cooperation - and why this is a chance for development organizations 

Adyaka, a village in the heart of Uganda, needs a new trade school. None of the 4,000 inhabitants have the necessary skills to develop a business plan an the government has not been of any help at all. So the citizens of Adyaka have had to come up with a plan. With the help of the Internet they petitioned, literally, the whole world and asked for support for their village. Via the global neighbor network nabuur.com, volunteers worked in conjunction with the villagers to set up a business plan. Adyaka is not alone it its quest for support. 10.000 volunteers, who provide their skills and expertise, are available to help up to 150 communities. This web-based global neighbor network allows people from all over the world to discuss basic approaches, develop concepts and receive immediate feedback regarding the difficulties and the success during the implementation process.

Nabuur is just one of many platforms with innovative players which have emerged in recent years. The plurality of their approaches has one thing in common: each and every one is using the internet to promote and advance new development ideas. The traditional development cooperation is being confronted with a new, and so far, unfamiliar dynamic. The concept of ‘help to self-help’ defines the roles of the participants in an entirely innovative way: The borrowers pick the lenders.

The internet, since its breakthrough ten years ago, has been the subject of constant change. More than a Billion users have transformed it into a complex and multi-layered social network. The catchword “Web 2.0” allows internet users to create new individual realms within networks, users swap their knowledge and work together to create concepts and develop solutions. How can biomass be used to generate energy? The answer is provided by Howtopedia, a platform for applied knowledge, which supplies simple sets of technical instructions. The technology is secondary — the main motors of this spontaneous Internet movement are openness, transparency, networking and a focus on innovation. Cross-national project ideas are developed uniting a wide range of experts, interested parties and above all people in need of support. Cooperation develops via the peer-to-peer principle, directly, world-wide and very casual. In the past past, users exchanged songs in decentralized networks, now they are exchanging concepts for African villages. Organizations are working together with civil societies, individuals and groups form ad-hoc alliances across borders. Charles Leadbetter, author of the book “We Think“, sees an unlimited creative potential in these flat self-organized networks that are no longer in need of a classical organization. A new generation of social entrepreneurs, activists and volunteers are on their way to establish their own definition of international understanding.

Read more

Citizen journalism in Africa

December 6, 2007

Flickr: verhoogen.beMost countries are far away from reaching the level that Koreans have on citizen journalism, such is the case of the famous Ohmynews: “The Net and Netizens Watchdogging Government.” A pioneer of citizen journalism was certainly indymedia.org, which got famous during the WTO protest back in 1999 in Seattle. In German language there is an interesting concept called “Gegenöffentlichkeit” (counter public); it refers to a Bertolt Brecht’s text about a two way conversation through a radio from last century 1932.

It is purely an apparatus for distribution, for mere sharing out. So here is a positive suggestion: change this apparatus over from distribution to communication. The radio would be the finest possible communication apparatus in public life, a vast network of pipes. That is to say, it would be if it knew how to receive as well as to transmit, how to let the listener speak as well as hear, how to bring him into a relationship instead of isolating him.

Mark Glasser says about citizen journalism: “The idea behind citizen journalism is that people without professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others.”

The web enables citizens worldwide to engage in this citizen journalism. In Africa a lot is happening on that already. An interesting article on citizen journalism in Africa by IPS-News, “Citizen Journalism Opening Up Political Space in Africa,” describes how the spread of radio and mobile phones have changed the perception of politics and how this can lead to more transparency. Citizens can call in to radio shows and give their opinion in politics. Ghana alone got twenty new radio channels during the last 10 years. So, radio broadcasts more intensive according to the article, but also mobiles are used more and more to raise awareness about human rights violations.

Brenda Burrell said on an interview on mobileactive.org about how a group of human right activists use mobile phones to spread news of latest developments in Zimbabwe. Citzens can report over FrontlineSMS tools on human rights violations. “Our services are so popular because people are really hungry for balanced information, because they do perceive the government media to be propaganda.” FrontlineSMS was developed by Kiwanja and was also used to monitor the last election in Nigeria.

Another facet is the growing blogosphere in Africa and its contribution to critical reports about politics or social development. The ISP article sees a strength in these new blogging efforts. However, probably only minority of blogs are dealing with politics and activism. By the way, in Germany the blogosphere is hardly engaging in activism. Imagine beneficiaries from funds would give through their blogs a direct authentic feedback. However, there is also a risk that local content becomes too overwhelming. Professor Lewis Friedland says there is a trend in the US and recalled “hyper-localism“, which basically lowers the interest for national or global themes. However, in the case of Germany, I wish there would be a lot more engagement, and for Africa I am thrilled to see the growing blogoshpere on Afrigator.com.


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