Archive for the 'Trends' Category

I’m not reading books anymore - I’m trying to “go shelfless”. With the technology available these days, it seemed to us likely that you could abandon all shelving with the consequential enlargement of your living space. That’s an attractive idea, especially if, like me, your home is already jam-packed with books, CDS and papers that have taken up all the shelving space available already - what do you do as you buy new items?

One friend is very efficient at monetizing her acquisitions - once she’s finished reading her books, she sells them off again on Ebay. She used to rip the music of CDS and then sell the discs on Ebay too. She also gets rid of old clothes and other items the same way.

I’ve been wondering if one could minimise the clutter at an earlier point ie at the acquisition point - by going virtual or electronic.

A few weeks ago, I blogged about taking virtual notes using Evernote, which has so far been a great way to cut back on the bits of paper and physical notebooks that I would normally use. I “write” notes on my mobile phone-PDA using the letter recognizer function so it feels just like scribbling in a physical notebook or on the back of an envelope and zap it across to my online account.

I’ve recently discovered audiobooks via Audible.co.uk, which is a subsidiary of the US-based company Audible.com. So I’m not reading books but I’m listening to them. With Audible, you pay for each book you download just like you might if you bought a physical book from Amazon. But you can also sign up an account and pay a monthly fee of around £8 - each month you can download one title. The latter option is good value as you can download a book that otherwise costs more at that £8 price. Once you’ve downloaded it, the audiobook is yours forever and you can stream it from the online site or download it as many times as you like. The only limitation is that you can only play it on up to 4 computers/ devices that you register with your account - this is to stop you sending an e-version to all your friends and doing Audible out of business.

I’m really enjoying my first two audiobooks. I can listen to them while gardening or sitting on the bus. It’s so much more time efficient being able to listen to a book and do something else at the same time. And activities that used to be boring and painful to do are now quite pleasurable. Also, lying in the garden staring up at the blue sky while someone reads to me in my ears is just delightful - I don’t have to strain my arms lifting the book to read it as I lie down or crick my neck to get the reading angle right. And the books don’t take up any physical space - although you can burn CD versions of them if you want to.

My only complaint about Audible UK is that they have only 18,000 titles compared to the US company which has 40,000 titles. Many of the UK titles are older titles and / or of the WH Smith variety ie non-intellectual easy reading (though there are a few exceptions). I tend to prefer Waterstones or Blackwells which have more academic selections - or Amazon where you can get the most obscure books so long as they are in print. I was very excited when I first discovered Audible.com, the US site, as it had loads of books I wanted. For example, the US company has Naomi Klein’s latest book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Stephen Pinker’s The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature and Sudhir Venkatesh’s Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets. My excitement fizzled out when I came to the UK site - where none of these books are available. The UK site has lots on Churchill, how to make a million, chick lit and the latest popular non-fiction, which is fine if your tastes are limited to those topics.

So why don’t I just sign up for the US site? The frustrating thing is that if you try that from the UK, it refuses to allow you to do that and shoots you over to the UK site. Their support team explained to me, “The availability of certain book titles is linked the geographic digital download rights set by the publishers. A title can have different publishers in different countries and the rights are set on a country by country basis. Where possible, we try and secure rights on a world wide basis (for our US, UK, French and German sites) but there are times when this is either not possible or discussions are currently ongoing to secure the rights.” So I have to keep checking back to the UK site in the hope that the UK publishers will at some point issue the UK version of the audiobook.

Still, I have found a few books on the UK site that will keep me going for the next few months - hopefully as time passes more of the kinds of books that interest me will find their way onto the UK site and I won’t have to terminate my experiment with virtual books anytime soon.

Illustration: thanks to Drylcon from Flickr.com (CCL)

I’ve been exploring the mobilesphere recently - partly for my own interest (since I got a new mobile phone with internet browsing, email and a camera all-in-one) and partly for a section on mobile phone marketing in my book New Trends in International Public Relations.

Websites are currently optimized for a browsing experience from your desktop or laptop, both of which these days have speedy and powerful processors so that the website loads very quickly on your screen. The consequence is that many websites - as well as blogs and other social media spaces - have been designed with a lot of features, including multi-media, so that a visitor has a top-notch experience on the site. All means that a lot of data (measured in bytes - as in byte, Kilobyte (Kb) and Megabyte (Mb)) is transferred from the website to your computer for every page that you access. Mobile phones at the moment do not have the same processing power so access to many websites can be very slow.

WiFi is often free at cafes, offices and some public spaces - and of course, if you visit someone’s house with WiFi, you can log on to their system there. So, using WiFi, you can access the web for free. But if you are someplace where you can’t access WiFi, you have to pay for data transfer to your mobile phone provider to use the 3G connection - this is charged on a per byte basis. You can usually buy a monthly package data package eg so many Mbs for £X and there are some unlimited packages (though read the small print: in the mobile world “unlimited” doesn’t actually mean that at all!).

Data rich websites and costly data connection means that surfing the web by mobile phone can be a painfully slow and expensive business. And yet, more and more people seem to be accessing the internet from their phones. You can see the appeal - the phone is the communications gadget that many people have with them all the time. And many people have a lot of time where they are hanging around in between home, office and seeing friends eg while on the train or on the bus. A good way to while away that time is to access the web - check or write emails, chat with friends online, faff around on a social network and all those other things that you would do on the computer.

To best capture this audience, there are applications that can minimise the time it takes for webpages to load as well as minimising the amount of data transferred so that the mobile browsing experience is fast and cheap - while at the same time maintaining an attractive user interface. I’ve discovered a couple of these applications so that I’ve enabled my two blogs, Fusion View and ZenGuide, to be accessed as mobile versions.

The first is via www.mippin.com. I signed up for a free account and created Fusion View Mobile at mippin.com/fusionview and ZenGuide Mobile at mippin.com/zenguide. Mippin positions itself as a mobile social network for news and blogs so that you can access such sites entirely from within the Mippin network. I like Mippin because of the attractive first page when you arrive at my blogs - there’s a list of simple headings with photos from the relevant posts. At the bottom of each post, you have the option to email the post, Twitter it or Share it on Facebook, which gives an added interactive, social media experience. The main mobile Mippin site itself offers you mobile-optimised aggregated news and blogs to read when you access it on m.mippin.com.

You can get ZenGuide on your phone via Mippin by clicking on the “Make it Mobile” badge on the sidebar on far right of the site.

The second mobilising application is www.mofuse.com, which also offers free accounts. I created Mofuse versions of Fusion View Mobile at fusionview.mofuse.mobi and ZenGuide Mobile at zenguide.mofuse.mobi. This applicaiton has one specific function, which is to optimise your site for mobile browsing. The first page when you arrive on my blogs offers a neat list of the post headings but without images. Clicking through takes you to the whole of relevant post with the photos as well. You can access the comments to the post directly within the Mofuse interface (in Mippin, you have to leave the Mippin interface to do that) but there is no social media element whereby you can email the post etc in the way that you can within Mippin.

You can get the Mofuse version by clicking on the blue “Mobile” badge on the sidebar on far right of the site.

Do check out both versions and let me know what you think. Do you prefer one over the other? Are you more inclined to email a post / Twitter it or Share it on Facebook - or are you more interested in interacting via the comments section?

I got a new mobile phone a few months ago and I’ve been slowly exploring all its functions - and in the process, I’m discovering a whole new mobilesphere (I have no idea if there is such a word but it seems an apt way to describe the world of mobile media in the way that blogosphere describes the world of blogs!). My new phone is also a mobile computer, running Windows Mobile and 80% of its front face is given over to the screen - the phone part of it has a virtual keypad for me to touch-type the phone number. It runs a mobile version of Word, Excel, Outlook and Internet Explorer. It has WiFi so so I can surf the internet as well as send and receive emails if there’s a WiFi service available - but I also splashed out and signed up for a monthly data plan so I could be connected wherever I am. With unlimited texting and a huge number of talk minutes on top of all that, the way I relate to my mobile phone has completely changed.

I used my old mobile phone solely for voice calls - and I did not use it a great deal as I don’t like shouting out my part of the conversation in public while I’m on the bus or in the street. I hated texting as I am not very nimble on using the telephone number keys to type out words. My new phone has a Qwerty keyboard (ie like a PC keyboard) as well as letter recognition on a touch-sensitive screen. Now I can email or SMS to my heart’s content in public - an excellent way to pass the time on the bus or wherever I am in transit!

Being a writer with this new writing tool to play with, naturally, I was curious when I came across an article about mobile phone novels. These are apparently huge in Japan. According to Wired magazine: “A mobile phone novel typically contains between 200 and 500 pages, with each page containing about 500 Japanese characters. The novels are read on a cell phone screen page by page, the way one would surf the web, and are downloadable for around $10 each.” The novelists tend to be young twenty-somethings or even teenagers who type their novels via their own cellphones. According to the writer interviewed by Wired, she can type faster on her phone than on a standard keyboard. There’s even a first mobile phone novel award - sponsored by the premier site that hosts these novels Magic iLand: might you call it the MoBooker?

There has been one author in the West who has written a novel on his mobile phone. According to a news report, “Italian writer Robert Bernocco took advantage of his idle time while commuting to and from work by train, writing his 384-page science fiction novel, Compagni di Viaggo (Fellow Travelers is the English translation), on his Nokia 6630 phone, using the phone’s T9 typing system.” The book has been published in traditional book form by Lulu.com.

I have to say, I admire the abilities of these two writers to master the mobile phone keypad. Even with the mini Qwerty keyboard and letter-recognition function of my new phone, I do not have the patience to write more than a few short text messages or emails on the fiddly thing!

It seems to me, in the West, there has not been any novel specially written for the mobile phone, as far as I know. I don’t think that the reason is necessarily the difficulty of writing on a mobile phone keypad - presumably, one could write it on a PC, blog-style, and then post it to whatever mobile phone novel site there is around. I wonder if Wester writers shouldn’t try this potential new genre. It would be a great way for a new writer starting out to write 500 words at a time. It’s great for readers as most of us have our mobile phones with us at all times - it’s a handy way to read short bite-sized chunks. Writing short, gripping prose is pretty hard, to be sure, and reading a lot of text on a tiny screen can be hard on the eyes. But I think these are excellent challenges for a writer to evolve a writing style exactly suited to this new medium - rather like writing poetry to the constraints of the sonnet form rather than just sticking a few lines together in the modern free-form style.

Would you read a novel on your mobile phone? Do you know of any writers in English who have a written mobile phone novel? Would you, as a writer, be tempted to try writing one? Add a comment or email me and share your views.

Photo: thanks to europe.htc.com

Following my post about the Commercialization of the Web, which forms part of the book I am co-authoring with Silvia Cambie on New Trends in International Public Relations, here is the section from the book that outlines the rise of the personal computer.

The text is a verbatim section from the book and the links are set out at the bottom of this post as footnotes rather than embedded links. The text is copyrighted and all rights are reserved.

Computers Get Personal

The evolution of technology is a mega-trend today that no business can ignore. A brief tour of the evolution of computers illustrates the importance of keeping your eye on technological developments.

In 1948, IBM´s Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator, which was to calculate the position of the moon for the 1969 Apollo mission to the moon, took up floor space of 25 feet by 40 feet. In 1951, the computer for the US Census Bureau was one of the early commercial computers and it took up 943 cubic feet, selling at US $1million each plus US $185,000 for a high speed printer. By 1968, the cost of a computer was down to US $8,000 with Data General Corp’s Nova which was the size of small writing bureau.[i]

In 1975, the MITS Altair 8800 could be bought by computer hobbyists from Popular Electronics magazine for US $395 as a kit or US $495 pre-assembled[ii]. The next year, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs created Apple 1, which sold at just over US $600[iii]. In 1981, Radio Shack’s TRS-82 Model III retailed for US $699. By now, computers were housed in boxes that could be used on a normal office desk and had the shape and set up that we are familiar with today. There is a screen and keyboard and a joystick for navigation. Software came via cassette tape, which was beginning to be replaced by the floppy drive. The data appeared as text or figures and there were no graphics. While available for consumer purchase, it was still the math and science geeks who were the main market demographic for these personal computers.

In 1984, the first Apple Macintosh appeared, with a graphical interface – ie the data could be accessed by activating icons on the screen and navigation was by way of a device called a “mouse”[iv]. At around the same time, Microsoft released the first version of Windows, its own graphical interface sitting on top of MS-DOS, the text-based version of Microsoft software used by most computer manufacturing companies at that time, including IBM and Compaq[v].

By the mid-1990s, you were also getting more bang for your buck when it came to computer processing chips with Intel unveiling its Pentium chip at under US $1,000[vi]. While business and industry had been using computers for decades, plummeting costs, greater processing power and increased ease of use meant that for the first time, it made sense for the public to buy a computer for personal use. People were becoming used to computers from their work environment. It was a natural transition to getting a computer for home use. PCs, as personal computers soon came to be called, were also fun – computer games loaded by CD-ROM became a serious contender to TV-based consoles in 1994[vii]. With PCs arriving in many homes bundled with Internet Explorer for access to the internet, Outlook Express for email and a host of other useful (eg Calendar, Paint and CD-ROMs packed with dictionaries and encyclopedias) and not-so-useful applications (eg Minesweeper and Solitaire games), our personal relationship with our home computers as a source of productivity, fun, information and communication truly began.

In 1995, there were 50 million personal computers sold globally.[viii] By 2000, computer sales in China alone were growing faster than any market in the world, with 4.1 million PCs bought in that one country during the second quarter[ix]. Now in the first decade of the 21^st century, there are over 257 million personal computers sold worldwide[x] and sales are likely to increase over the next few years, in particular of laptops and other mobile computing equipment as affordability, performance and wireless access improve. Gartner, the IT consultants, calculate that emerging markets made up 70% of the growth in overall computer sales and projected that laptop sales during 2008 would grow by 11%. They are confident that a looming global recession would not slow sales[xi]. Experts elsewhere in the industry also seem to agree that mobile computing will bring the next wave of growth for the sector. Loren Loverde, the Director of data firm IDC’s PC Tracker, says, “It will be increasingly important for PC vendors to have a strong portable offering to stay competitive as the market continues its rapid shift to mobile computing.”[xii]

It took 30 years for computers to evolve from military and government use via business and industry to become affordable for a limited geek market, with prices dropping from US $1,000,000 to stabilise around US $700. But from the 1970s onwards, major developments in processing power, size and ease of use surged ahead in leaps and bounds. And with each technological leap and bound, we adapted the way we communicate, relate and work. Even as some businesses are only now thinking about getting their first website (and there are quite a few of those still around), the market is already surging ahead towards online social media and mobile communications. For anyone engaged in business nowadays, it is critical to keep one eye on the latest technological and communications advances if you don’t want to be left behind.

We met up with some friends recently whom we had not seen for almost 18 months even though they live in London. That’s part of the London thing - everyone is so busy that it’s difficult to make time to meet up and before you know it, several months - and even years - have passed. For this meet-up, we had to put it in our diaries almost 4 months in advance as it was a matter of co-ordinating 4 diaries and different work patterns and commitments.

We were all so delighted when we finally did meet for a meal last week at Carluccio’s. We talked non-stop, catching up on what we’d all been doing and letting the conversation flow whichever way it fancied - writing, literature, social media, karate, running, health, throwing out old clothes… At the end of the evening, we promised not to leave it so long next time and planned to meet again before too long. I really hope that we will stick to our good intentions as I really enjoy the company of these friends.

I’ve been blogging about “friends” for a couple of weeks now, especially in the context of Facebook and meeting up with these real friends made me think about how my friendships in recent years have evolved since the arrival of social media into my life.

One of the reasons we had not been much in contact with these friends we met at Carluccio’s was that they are not very wired - we’ve exchanged a few emails over time but mainly to do with arranging when we next meet. One of them does not have a working email address. They are both too busy to spend much time online.

In contrast, Angie and I both love emailing, Skype, instant messaging, reading and writing blogs and do spend some time of Facebook even though we’re not great fans of it. Consequently, we have tended to keep up with those friends who are easy to connect with in these digital spaces. More than that, these digital connections have strengthened many relationships which might not have otherwise thrived. I’ve got to know my cousin who lives in Bath so much better in the last two years than in the 40+ years that we’ve been cousins - she and her husband are the most wired couple we know and as a result of Twittering, blogging and Skyping, we come across each other’s daily inconsequentials. Because of her tweets, I know when she takes the kids to the pool and what she’s making for dinner: not the most exciting news but it’s the kind of thing that if she were in my neighbourhood, we might natter about over the garden fence. It’s the small things that can nurture long friendships as much as the deep conversations about life, the universe and everything.

With my non-wired friends, I make a conscious effort to phone them, especially those who live in the Midlands or Yorkshire or Wales or elsewhere far from London, and it’s great to have a long chat over the phone. But it takes a lot of conscious effort - it has to be in the evening after work but not during dinner time and also not too late (I’ve never been sure when “too late” is - 10pm and after?). You also have to hope that you are both on good form so you can have a good conversation - long silences and flat exchanges over the phone are just too awkward. And then after you’ve psyched yourself up for all this, you get the answermachine and you have to leave a message and then it’s up to them to call you back and hopefully, they won’t get your answermachine - and so the game of telephone tag goes on until you both are home at the same time. Whew, exhausting!

Or worse. They don’t call you back. Uh-oh. Does that mean they are snubbing you? They are too busy to call back? They meant to but they’ve forgotten? They are in the throes of a crisis and it’s not the right time for a chat? Or you left your message on someone else’s answermachine - after all it was that electronic lady’s voice on the voicemail and not your friend’s voice…? Do you call again? How many times should you call again before you become a friendship stalker?

You see, it’s all too fraught, this old-fashioned telephone thing, lovely though it is when we do manage to speak. I’d love to persuade these dear but unwired friends into the world of online connection but could I? What will bring them round to the digital way of doing things? Should I even try?

Photo: thanks to Rev Dan Catt from flickr.com (CCL)

We all learnt about the South Sea Bubble at school and not long ago, we’ve had the tech stocks bubble. This is video is a cynical take on all the excitement about social media.

What I find fun is that I’ve blogged about a number of the people and applications on Fusion View and ZenGuide. I’ve also visited my cousin when they were in Palo Alto for a time, the heart of Silicon Valley and seen the kinds of houses mentioned in the video.

Blogging about Facebook etiquette last week got me thinking about what I do on that social network and how much of a role it plays in my online social life - and to be frank, I don’t spend that much time there. You would think that I’d be a great fan, seeing as I’m such a social media aficionado. So why does it not ring my bells, as they say?

After mulling over this for awhile, a number of things struck me:

• For many people, especially those new to social media, Facebook feels like a safe, contained space for them to play in - the nice, white gated community of the internet. For me, I like the great open spaces of prairies beyond that offers a vast range of blogs, images, podcasts and video. 

• In particular, I really enjoy reading great blogs, which can be stimulating, intriguing, engaging, amusing - and I like joining the discussions by adding comments and sharing my thoughts around a thought-provoking topic. The interactions on Facebook are geared for chit-chat rather than longer, in-depth discussions.

• The activities most people engage in on Facebook seem to be fairly trivial - sending Hatching Eggs and the like. Which is fun and a way of saying to someone, “I’m thinking of you” that is different from sending them an email, where you feel obliged to say something more than those few words. I enjoy that from time to time but it’s becoming wearing when you are constantly inundated with variations such silliness - and especially when you have to download the application first in order to receive their greeting AND you know that the person sending you the interaction has just downloaded the application and hit “send to all your friends”. Having fun with your friends has never been so easy - or so automated.

• The Facebook mini-feed keeps you up to date about what your friends have been up to - but it mostly shows you what they’ve been doing on Facebook. It’s all about what Facebook applicaitons they’ve added, what Facebook groups they’ve joined, whose Facebook wall they’ve written on etc and not what they are really doing in their real lives. I prefer dipping in and out of my Twitter stream where my Twitter friends are sending out little messages about what they are doing and about blog posts or real world news stories they’ve been reading - and increasingly, videos of what they are up to. All this can be done from their mobile phones, including live video streaming via Qik.

• Facebook inundates you with ads in the sidebar and also with ad-items that pretend to be part of the min-feed. Its Beacon application which added users shopping activities to the mini-feed as if those users endorsed those products caused an outcry recently. So far, Twitter seems to be ad-free.

• Facebooks seems to be private but it is less private than you think. If you want to be sure about privacy, make sure you check that all your privacy settingsare enabled. This apparent privacy and the naivety of users inexperienced in web-safety has led to the recent hoo-ha over employers finding out about staff’s private indiscretions.  If in doubt, treat Facebook - and any other social network - as a public space.

• Inexperienced users have also left indiscrete messages on each other’s Walls, which can be seen by all the friends of the Wall-owner. It is also very easy to mistakenly send a message to “all ” your friends. When replying to a message sent to “all” from one friend, I don’t think there is an option to reply to that one friend - your reply goes to “all”. This is all potential for tension and drama between friends if someone sees a message they should not have etc….!

So, my final verdict is: Facebook is as good a place as any to start your social media exploration but it’s not as private as you think it is. As with any public space  - or semi-public space like your office, school, college or community space - take a moment to think abuot how what you say and do might be taken. And don’t leave private information lying around, in the same way you wouldn’t leave your wallet, driving licence, passport etc lying around the office or in a lecture room.

If you like to see what your friends are up to in terms of real world interactions rather than just their interactions with Facebook applications, check out Twitter - my Twitter feed  at www.twitter.com/fusionview may be a good place to start, and in particular you can see the mix of people I follow for the news items they share via Twitter and also the more personal daily activities that others I follow tweet about. br />
Photo: of gated community thanks to Dean Terry on flickr.com (CCL)

by Angie Macdonald

Social media is changing the way we do things and one of the issues involved is that of control. Control is slipping from corporates when it comes to promoting their products and from conference speakers and college lecturers, who are no longer regarded as the expert with the final say on the matter.

One example of this phenomenon is “back channelling”. In the social media context, this refers to people at conferences, or students, blogging and/or Twittering while listening to a speaker. It can also involve instant messaging or chatrooms and Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Channels. This is the “back channel”, where the audience engage in a different conversation, separate from the speaker directly in front of them.

At some conferences, a screen is erected behind the speaker, on which the audience can post comments directly from their computers. The speaker, facing the audience, cannot see the comments appearing on the screen behind him or her. From what I’ve heard anecdotally, the comments which tend to appear are generally negative comments on the speaker’s clothes, or how bored people are, rather than comments that further the debate. It is the equivalent of heckling, only here it is virtual and silent.

I’m sure there are some highly skilled people who are able to multi-task and keep with the programme. But most people are unable to give two things the same amount of attention at the same time. If you are trying to listen, analyse, remember, write and follow the conversation all at the same time, something’s got to give. You just have to think about the dangers of driving while talking on a mobile phone to realise that multi-tasking has its limits.

In an article published in the New York Times, David E. Meyer, a cognitive scientist and director of the Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan is quoted as saying, “Multitasking is going to slow you down, increasing the chances of mistakes.” In the same article, René Marois, a neuroscientist and director of the Human Information Processing Laboratory at Vanderbilt University, when describing the ‘cognitive powerhouse’ that is the human brain, says “…a core limitation is an inability to concentrate on two things at once.”

What usually happens, is that by the time the blogger or Twitterer has finished writing or texting a particular thought, the speaker has moved on, the information that has been imparted in the interim is hazy, and the thread of the argument has been lost. This creates a knowledge gap which can result in misunderstanding, which in turn can lead to miscommunication.

Now, it’s fine if one individual has misunderstood. But what happens when that individual has published their misunderstood information online and millions of people around the world read it and get the wrong end of the stick? What are the repercussions? Where is the value in that communication?

Don’t get me wrong, I can see that there are advantages to back-channelling. It can be an inclusive behaviour too and means that those unable to attend a conference in person can follow what’s happening by reading updated blogs or receiving Tweets on their mobile phones.

It can also be a way to open up and encourage discussion and debate around a topic. So rather than information being delivered from one so-called expert in a top-down fashion, everybody who knows something or who has an opinion can join in and conference goers have an opportunity to learn from their peers. In that way, learning can become a more democratic process - a knowledge exchange offering instant feedback and reflection.

The danger is that in the process you may have to listen to people who think they are right, when they may be wrong, or people who love the sight of their words in print and subject everyone to their opinions whenever they can. As in the real world, sometimes conversations are inane, occasionally they are a waste of time.

We live in an age where children are being medicated for Attention Deficit Disorder and adults put their lack of success in life down to the fact that they were never diagnosed with ADD in school, and yet, here we are as adults, actively engaging in attention deficit behaviour. Not only that, but rather than being in the moment and giving it all our attention, we are taking a step back to observe and comment on what is occurring, analysing it as it is happening, rather than experiencing it.

There is no doubt that technology is changing social behaviour, communication and relationships. In spite of the advantages, I still think that in today’s attention-seeking world, perhaps the highest form of regard we can offer anyone, is to give them our full-blown attention.

Photo: thanks to jean djinni on flickr.com (CCL)

This post also appears on the EuroComm Blog today, where I am one of the blogging team.

The Australians are not known for their reticence or their polite turns of phrases. With the Australian General Elections coming up, the Ozzies have taken their outspoken and vigorous style of public debate online. Videos on YouTube and other platforms have been the media of choice with shows by established satirical magazines like The Daily Grind and The Ministry of Truth alongside clips by outspoken individuals. The political parties have also taken to the e-waves with their own channels on YouTube.

Here is a quick romp through the Ozzie political videoscape:

Government supported satire

The satirical The Ministry of Truth has uploaded an episode on their Ning-based online platform. The video features sketches laughing at the obsession with Australianness. The sketch about the Australian barbie made me laugh out loud (possible because I’d make a good Ozzie carnivore if I weren’t already British).

It’s striking that the show is sponsored by the Queensland Government Arts Board. I can’t imagine an Asian government sponsoring this kind of satirical show on their national channels.

Party Political Broadcasts

The Australian Labor Party has its own YouTube channel. The only problem with their very slick videos is that - well, they are very slick. They feature actors playing “ordinary” Australians talking about their “lives” and negative “responses” to John Howard’s statement that “Australians have never been better off”. The series of videos are all typical party political broadcast style ads that don’t sit very well on YouTube where the millions of other user-generated videos are have more quirky, spontaneous content. Take a look at this one featuring a “housewife”:

I reckon they would be more credible interviewing a few real people with all the “ums” and “ers” and a less slick presentation.

Amateurs join the fray

This one is a satirical song featuring Elvis and animated collages of the main electoral candidates John Howard and Kevin Rudd by someone(s?) called Captain Rant and the Knee Jerk Reactions. I couldn’t find out much more about them on the net - so if you know who they are and what else they’ve done, let me know by adding a comment.

There are plenty more satirical videos of this nature on YouTube - try typing in the candidates names in the search box and then follow links and related videos to explore them for yourself.

What is impressive is the standard of the animation and satire - although many are made by amateur film-makers they are pretty watchable and also clever and funny. They seem to be made by people who are older than the usual teenagers who populate user-generated spaces like these and who have a message they want to get across. The tone is also particularly Australian, I think - there’s no earnestness in these videos though clearly many of the creators feel strongly about their nation and the issues being debated and their irreverent humour and wit is what really comes across. In contrast, the American presidential debate currently taking place online is much more serious and earnest with bloggers - rather than film-makers - taking the lead.

The year of social media

2007 seems to be the year for social media to be taken seriously in the political arena, from what we’ve seen in America and now in Australia. This will be increasingly common around the world and will no longer be “news” in itself. I think that social media has the potential to engage populations in political debate in a fresh way and hopefully, this will mean less apathy and more involvement in the electoral process. In particular, peer-to-peer discussion and debate may prove to be a very powerful way for drawing otherwise uninterested citizens into the issues.

I am also currently exploring the use of social media for political debate in Asia and Africa and will be blogging about that in the future.

What do you think? If you’re an Australian, have these videos made you more interested in the elections and/ or politics?

Share your thoughts and add a comment.

Other resources

For a great review of other satiricial videos about the Australian elections, you can check out Australia’s ABC Radio National’s Street Stories podcast. Their show notes page also gives a list of links to various film-makers featured in their programme such as Shan Jayaweera who uses John Howard and Kevin Rudd puppets.

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This post and others in the category New Trends in International Public Relations is part of my research project for the book of the same name that I am co-authoring with business communications expert, Silvia Cambie. I am focusing on the social media aspects while she is working on the wider public relations issues.

To find out more about my research for this book, see my book wiki.

To see who has contributed to my research for the book, take a look at my Contributors List.

If you can help with my research for the book, please contact me via the book wiki contact link or email me via this blog.