All posts tagged media

3 Posts
January 3, 2011 · Featured, thoughts

Social Media to Prevent Hate Media

George Orwell wrote “History is written by the winners” and while this has been the case in many places, it has certainly not held true for Israel. After the war of independence established the state of Israel, it has continued to fight for legitimacy as a state.

Media has been central to framing this discussion. They have rightly outed human rights abuses as they’ve occurred, but often given heavy-handed and biased coverage that not only sours the debate, but encourages the promulgation of hate speech as the discussion norm. Most recently, this has been exemplified by an upcoming film by Benny Brunner, The Great Book Robbery.

January 28, 2010 · thoughts

Haiti’s need for community-led reconstruction

The outpouring of support in response to the devastating earthquake has been astounding, with over $58 million being raised by Hollywood alone through the “Hope for Haiti Now” telethon organized by George Clooney. The European Union’s 27 nations are contributing $575 million. U.S. charities have raised $470 million for disaster. The U.S. is providing the largest slice of a global response that totals more than $1 billion in government pledges. Even with the Haitian government allegedly getting only 1 cent of every US aid dollar, it’s still $100 million dollars. Haiti is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, consistently ranking in the top 10 along with the likes of Iran and Turkmenistan. Even some charities, such as Yele (formerly Wyclef Jean Foundation) on the ground have been accused of mishandling records.

December 19, 2009 · thoughts

Armenia’s New Media Landscape

Last week I was in Armenia looking at the current media landscape. It was a pleasure to be back again after I was there for Barcamp Yerevan back in April. It was fun to be back and exploring the media sector in more detail, applying what I learned from the civil society tech brainstorm sessions I held.

The country has been through a lot since facing a difficult transition from being a part of the Soviet Union to the present, having gone through a war to do so. Now the country witnessed a lot of growth that stagnated after the economic crisis. A lot of wages had been imported from Russia and this is now suddenly cut off, throwing many into turmoil. However, things didn’t seem as bad in December as in April. Which says a lot given the brutality of local winters. Even cabbies switched back to saying things were “same as always” rather than “difficult”.