May long shenanigans with the girls!

Hot on the heels of wrapping my second MACT spring institute came another annual tradition in my life - May long weekend with "the girls".

Context for those new to my blog, each May long I get together with my younger sister and two other girls as we all used to be English teachers in South Korea. We each take turns hosting a May long weekend and this year it was my turn.

True to form there was a lot of laughter over the weekend. We all try to stay in touch pretty regularly but between work, school, kids, families and distance it isn't always easy to get the four of us together.

Highlights from this year include: the never-ending marathon of Criminal Minds (so soothing for my school frazzled brain), people watching along Whyte Avenue and wardrobe malfunctions at Cook County Saloon (not us thankfully).

Thank you always Mel, Kelly and Meg for traveling and for making the weekend fun. Next year it's back to Saskatchewan!

And then it was over (MACT 2012)

We all knew it was going to happen sooner or later but this year it just seemed to happen sooner. After three weeks of intense highs, lows, laughter, tears, thought provoking conversations, a-ha moments and plenty of wine and beer, MACT spring institute ended.

Thank you Ann Curry and Kate Milberry for sharing your expertise, stories and advice on research and social networking - you made the three weeks so amazing. Thank you to each and every one of my classmates - you have made the experience so much fun along the way and I count you all as my family now.

Congratulations to all of the 2011 cohort as we take off for the summer and get re-energized to tackle our final projects in the fall. To cohort 2012 we wish you luck and I for one look forward to seeing you again next spring to discuss your research posters with you!

** Special thank you to Greg for the fabulous photos taken at Yellowhead Brewery on Friday.

My research and life for the next year

Anonymous MACT 2011

Cohort 2011 - miss you already!

Can social media spark and maintain the next revolution?

In his article Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted, Malcolm Gladwell probes the emergence of Twitter and Facebook as tools to mobilize the masses for protest. He believes that really Twitter and Facebook are just tools and they can not create or start revolution like the organized sit-ins in the Deep South of the U.S.A. in the 1960s.

An interesting discussion erupted in class today when we discussed this article, one that everyone seemed to participate in. At first when I read this article I went back to look at the date on this article ~ because I felt that it was written before the Occupy movement. I was right (it was written in 2010), and while Gladwell wasn't privy to some of the events that happened this past year, I understand what message he was trying to convey in this article.

Yes social networks have a plethora of tools to choose from today to help stay in touch. And yes these tools have been used to motivate the public to join in something that they believe in. Gladwell argues that these "revolutions" or social movements that are organized via Facebook or Twitter have no lasting impact unlike Rosa Parks sitting at the front of the bus.

This is where I beg to differ - I think that while the tools may have changed, the reasons for being involved are still the same. In fact my classmate Amanda put it best, "It's not about the social tools, it's about the social movement. The reasons why people want to be a part of something have never changed." I agree with her - the desire to be involved in something that will make a difference has always been a part of people's DNA. Today we just have different ways to mobilize and educate people.

I see where you're coming from Mr. Gladwell but I don't agree with what you're saying.

Independent media and citizen journalism

The Independent Media Centre (IMC) is not a new concept - empowering citizens to share their own news, as they see it, in real time. The IMC has gained attention and fostered partnerships around the world  based on their coverage of the 1999 Seattle World Trade Organization (WTO) meetings and citizen protests.

In her article The Independent Media Centre: A new model, Dorothy Kidd examines the circumstances around the birth of IMC, the ongoing events that IMC has been involved with and the components (technological and human) that keep the organization running and thriving.

Kidd acknowledges in the article that the IMC was not the first independent media network to stand up in the face of big corporations or to support neo-liberalism. What makes IMC unique is the breadth of their reach, the diversity of the volunteers that participate, the countries and organizations that are involved and the open source technology that is used.

The central premise of Kidd's article and the modus operandi of the IMC is for the public to not just fight the media - become the media. The hope behind this comment is that maybe citizen journalists can interrupt and change the patterns and behaviours between producers of media and the audiences who consume it.

Unfortunately when you take on big corporate on a global stage, it also opens you up to criticism and hostility from exactly those people. Big corporate and governments have interests to protect and their own security measures that have been employed in attempts to scare and/or shut IMC down.

Being a provider of open access and openly sourced media for people has it's pitfalls - the IMC has had their system hacked and had it populated with hate messages. As such the IMC has had to begun to monitor their networks to reduce the number of trolls. Monitoring networks has met with resistance from within the movement because they don't like gate-keeping tactics being used.

So the two questions I leave everyone with from this brief lesson on the Independent Media Centre are these:

1. This article was written in 2003. How would you see the advancements in today's technology helping or hindering the IMC cause?
2. Kidd mentions the resistance to network monitoring and gate-keeping of information within the IMC. Do you see the IMC being editors or librarians of the information they share with their networks?

Slave Lake: One year later

Tomorrow the community of Slave Lake marks a sombre anniversary. It was one year ago that a wildfire rolled through their community, destroying most of the buildings and infrastructure and forcing many families scrambling for cover.

I remember a year ago sitting at my computer writing a paper for COMM 503 and watching with horror as my Twitter feed filled with photos and panicked pleas from shelters and organizations as they mobilized to help the displaced population.

I blogged about Slave Lake last year, the tragedy and horror that I witnessed the night of the fires. But in the days following the fire, I remember classmate Dianne tweeting locations where others could drop off clothing and personal hygiene items. I remember my co-blogger Felicia mobilizing her social network on Twitter and Facebook, collecting enough items to fit in a shipping container to be sent to the families in Slave Lake.

Out of so much heartbreak and tragedy I saw people come together, whether they knew each other or not to help others who needed it. That is really the power of a social network to me.

Crowdsourcing my abstract - feedback please!

Well bloggy followers I need your help. Below is my abstract for our research poster presentations next week. Deadline to have this in is 9 a.m. Sunday morning. It is now 11:16 Saturday night. Nothing like leaving it until the last second. I'd love your feedback please and thanks!

Making connections: An evaluative study of the role of social media in alumni engagement

or

Using Linkedin as a tool to foster alumni engagement, affinity and participation within a higher educational institution

Andrea Lauder

The School of Public Health (SPH) at the University of Alberta was formed in 2006 bringing together the Alberta Centre for Injury Control Research (ACICR), the Centre for Health Promotion Studies (CHPS) and the Department of Public Health Sciences (PHS) under the umbrella of one faculty. Alumni from the centres and department have expressed feelings of disconnection from SPH. As such, in the past two years SPH has dedicated resources to help build affinity, strengthen relationships and foster engagement, communicating that all alumni are part of the SPH family.

Literature indicates that certain social media platforms can help facilitate communications and engagement with those tied to higher education institutions. The purpose of this evaluation study is to examine alumni engagement through social media, focusing on the professional platform Linkedin. Applying Rogers theory of diffusion of innovation, this study will incorporate a census survey sample and semi-structured interviews to evaluate if the social media that SPH is using is engaging alumni in a satisfactory way.

Findings from this study will provide insight into the views of alumni and create the basis for further research in how they engage and communicate with their alma mater using today’s technology.

Globally networked movements

Occupy Wall Street, Anonymous, the Vancouver riots of 2011, the on-going student protests over tuition hikes in Quebec. What do these all have in common? For one these are movements spanning across Canada and around the world. Secondly they document specific events that have defined who and what they are, drawing attention worldwide.

In Jeffrey Juris' article Networked Social Movements: Global Movements for Global Justice, he references Manuel Castells, a well-known researcher of networks of power. According to Castells, the information age has helped cultivate groups of communal resistance "that have arisen in opposition to economic globalization, capitalist restructuring, and the disruption caused by global financial and cultural flows...Beyond creating alternative cultural codes, however, activists are generating new networking forms and practices that allow for the production of global webs of resistance, while providing diverse models for building an alternative, more directly democratic and globally networked society" (p. 345). 

I can't help but think about Castells' thoughts and how it applies to some of our most recent networked movements. Occupy and Anonymous have really been reaching out to audiences through social media to draw attention to their situation and motivate the masses in support.

The Vancouver riots captured delinquency as it happened, and eventually the photos and videos posted to online accounts like Twitter and Facebook were used to incriminate and charge those who had committed the crimes. Even at the moment there are ongoing blog posts, tweets and media stories being filed about the tuition hike protests in Quebec.

These movements are loose and uncoordinated, lacking true leaders. According to Castells all militant actions and protests are forms of symbolic communication (p. 346). I know I personally have come down pretty hard on the different movements and specific events, mostly because I was viewing them through my personal lens. What Juris, Cleaver, Kadushin and Castells have done is make me appreciate the different contexts that these movements have grown and thrived from.