New links for February 23rd
Written by Noah Flower on Monday, February 23rd, 2009
Filed under News
Headlines: Same-sex marriage movement looks to ‘Obamify’ * The Digital Activism Survey 2009 * Online Advocacy Guide * Seed Salon: Albert-Laszlo Barabasi + James Fowler (summary and commentary after the break)
Same-sex marriage movement looks to ‘Obamify’ – Obama’s best practices are already being picked up explicitly by the gay marriage movement, the failure of which in the Prop. 8 campaign was partly attributed to its lack of attention to the new modes of organizing: “Obamification… would involve pairing new media technology with old-fashioned, door-to-door outreach – two tactics that were not used well in the unsuccessful opposition to Proposition 8 in November, according to a report by Marriage Equality USA, an Oakland-based organization that supports gay marriage. The strategy means ditching scripted phone-bank calls and TV commercials that Marriage Equality say “lacked heart.” Instead, gay families – and their friends and sympathetic clergy – would be encouraged to get out of the state’s big cities and knock on doors in places where they have little support, such as the Central Valley. It would mean allowing supporters more leeway to tell their own stories.”
The Digital Activism Survey 2009 – An international survey of the people who use digital tools for activism and advocacy, by DigiActive. The results should be interesting — watch this space.
Online Advocacy Guide – A short, practically-minded how-to guide for using online tools and social media for advocacy. Covers four areas in particular: Mobilising and Coordinating, Documenting and Visualizing, Informing and Communicating, and Bypassing and Accessing.
Seed Salon: Albert-Laszlo Barabasi + James Fowler – Barbarasi, a leading network theorist, converses with a prominent sociologist (Fowler) about the impact of networks on both the sciences and society. They describe how both the technology and theory of networks are causing academics to rethink the boundaries around their disciplines, and how the resulting new body of theory is the root of many of the new practices that are being taken up throughout the practical disciplines.
1 Comment to New links for February 23rd
The interview with Albert-Laszlo Barabasi and James Fowler blew my mind, from what to do with all the data that can be collected on relationships now to genes to facebook. What a great conversation. I can hardly wait to share with my coworkers, especially those who are science oriented.
February 25, 2009