Content submitted by Mary tagged with "sms"

Alternative Media Critical to Malaysian Election

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 04/04/2008 at 14:49


Malaysiakini.com, one of the biggest alternative news blogs in the country.
 

According to USINFO, a publication of the Department of State, alternative media played a key role in the March 8 parliamentary elections in Malaysia. The ruling Barisan National (BN) party received a surprising blow when it lost 58 seats in the 222-seat Dewan Rakyat. Although the BN still holds 63% of seats, it lost its commanding two-thirds majority. The BN has ruled Malaysia for 50 years.

At a forum on April 1, at the University Malaya, columnist Datuk Johan Jaffar noted that alternative media had a crucial effect

(Read more)
Tags:

Thoughts on Joining Twitter

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 31/03/2008 at 11:17

Today I joined Twitter,a service that lets you follow the public SMS dispatches of people you find interesting. I am equally willing to believe that it will be a fabulously useful new social networking medium or a sparkly excuse to distract myself with increasingly hummingbird-like multitasking.  Guess I'll see.  You can follow me at http://twitter.com/Mary_Joyce

 

Tags:

FrontlineSMS is a Finalist in the Stockholm Challenge

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 26/03/2008 at 13:22

 

I'm really pleased that my friend Ken Banks' text-messaging hub for grassroots NGOs, FrontlineSMS, has been selected as a finalist for the Stockholm Challenge, a prestigious competition that rewards the best in ICT for development. Read more on the Stockholm Challenge site.

Tags:

Awesome Digital Activism in Kenya!

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 11/01/2008 at 12:47

Ushahidi is a visual map of human rights abuses reported by SMS (text message).  The site was created by the bloggers behind KenyanPundit.com, WhiteAfrican.com, MentalAcrobatics.com, AfroMusing.com, and Skunkworks and was built by Kobia Interactive.

"Ushahidi" means "witnessing" is Kiswahili and the site allows people to send an SMS to the site which describes an atrocity. The atrocity is then displayed on a map of Kenya using a colored pin and displayed on the home page.  In this way, people can become digital witnesses of the unrest in Kenya.

The violence which Ushahidi is attempting to

(Read more)
Tags:

Activists Protect Themselves with Twitter

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 06/10/2007 at 13:35

Twitter is a multi-platform service that allows users to send "updates" (text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) via SMS (text message), instant messaging, and email. In its most common application, people send Twitter messages via SMS telling what they are doing at that very moment ("eating breakfast," "lots of traffic this morning," "lunch break").  Then people who have subscribed to that feed can then read these messages as they are sent out, allowing them to know what their friend is doing.

The blog Vancouver Social Enterprise Forum has an interesting post about how activists are using Twitter as a

(Read more)
Tags:

Chinese Activists in Xiamen Organize Online

Posted by Mary in ZapBoom on 06/07/2007 at 11:55

A man (center) wears a gas mask to protest a proposed toxic chemical plant in Xiamen

 

Despite the fact that China has the most elaborate system of internet censorship in the world, creative Chinese activists are still finding ways to use the medium for political activism.

On June 1, one million residents of coastal Xiamen protested against the proposed construction of a toxic chemical plant near the city center. Cell phones and the internet made it possible. The Chinese blogger collective Bullog used the internet and SMS to promote the event.

Because the state-controlled media refused to broadcast details of

(Read more)
Tags: