Content submitted by Mary tagged with "activism"

Don't Cry for Us, Thomas Friedman

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 12/10/2007 at 1:07

Columnist Thomas Friedman is worried about the politics of the Internet generation. He wrote the following in the New York Times on Wednesday in an editorial entitled "Generation Q."

I just spent the past week visiting several colleges...and I can report that the more I am around this generation of college students, the more I am both baffled and impressed....

I’ve been calling them “Generation Q” — the Quiet Americans, in the best sense of that term, quietly pursuing their idealism, at home and abroad....

But Generation Q may be too quiet, too online, for its own good,

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Hide Your Cell Phone: Digital Activism is Criminalized in Egypt

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 02/09/2007 at 11:11

In June, Egyptian blogger Abdel Monem Mahmoud was released after spending 46 days in prison on charges of belonging to an illegal organization, creating and possessing images destructive to public order, organizing secret meetings with the aim of disturbing public order. But now Global Voices Advocacy reports that he's under threat again. Monem has been writing about the torture he underwent while in police custody in 2003 and the Egyptian doesn't like it.

This time a journalist at Al-Ahram newspaper, Ahmed Moussa, is being used as a proxy in the persecution of Monem, a sad case of citizen journalist vs.

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The Goal of my Activism

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 04/08/2007 at 21:42

I've never written a post about my goals as an activist, so if I sound foolishly idealistic please forgive me.   I am interested in digital activism because I think it has the potential to change the world.  But what kind of change am I interested in? What is the end goal of all this activism?

In short, I want to live in a society where people can live the lives they choose, not the lives that are dictated to them by circumstances of birth, ethnicity, social class, or gender.  This is a simple humanist vision, yet we have not yet

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Activism with your Friends

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 30/07/2007 at 5:44

why Facebook makes the activist in me smile


For the lofty academic goals of pure research I have recently been joining online social networks, specifically Facebook, Change.org, Care2, and LinkedIn. The only one I became attached to was Facebook and actually, I am embarrassed to say, I visit the site every day.

My affinity for Facebook is a bit of a surpise to me. My original reason for signing up for these networks was because I am interested in the possiblity of online communities for activism. I'd really like to see people using online social networks

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Old News is Still Good News

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 07/06/2007 at 16:47

Last week, on June 2, the Egyptian blogger Abdel Monem Mahmood was freed from prison. That's him with the huge grin and the peace sign on the far left in the photo. As I've been working of the Free Monem campaign, this is very exciting for me.

Now I'll be working on follow-up, helping the Free Monem network become durable so these activists can quickly collaborate when other Egyptians bloggers are arrested.

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What is the LEAST effective form of activism?

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 11/05/2007 at 16:35

I'm currently translating Bligoo from Spanish to English. I just finished translating the poll creation instructions, so I thought it was as good time as any to make my first Friday Fun Poll. Take a look at this comic from Slow Poke Comics and then vote for the least effective form of activism:


Results:
  • leaving an angry comment on a blog: 50 % (2 votes)
  • wearing a revolutionary t-shirt: 25 % (1 vote)
  • playing music at a political protest: 0 %
  • making a dramatic spectical where no one is there to witness it: 25 % (1 vote)

Total votes: 4
This poll is closed. It was available for 100 days, since 11/05/2007 .
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Paris Hilton Digital Activism

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 09/05/2007 at 19:25

I'm about to make a confession that I may come to regret. So far in this blog I've been writing about serious things like social technology and the future of politics. Well, I'm about to break with that tradition and write about something completely different... celebrity gossip!

You may not know this about me (and hopefully you don't) but I love - I mean LOVE - celebrity gossip blogs. I read them every day and they bring me no end of joy and entertainment. There. I said it. There's no going back.

Of course, usually I don't feel the need

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Politically, We Are Still in Web 1.0

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 20/04/2007 at 16:29

I am a member of MoveOn and its younger siblings Avaaz (global "MoveOn") and Step it Up ("MoveOn" against global warming) and I think they are all great. I can sign a petition or donate to run a political ad or even call my Congressman, and I've done all three actions for these organizations.

Still, I don't think this hub-and-spokes model of political activism shows the full political potential of the net. The promise of Web 2.0 is that we can all be content creators yet, for all its success in involving citizens in politics, MoveOn and its siblings are

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