Mediamum » Media & Journalism

A time to die or blood on your hands?

mediamum — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 02:53:01 +0000

This week, men are being sent to their deaths. Yep, there was more than one, but most people are talking about just one man. Troy Davis.

This man, convicted of killing an off-duty police officer, has had multiple stays of execution. But today he was supposed to go to his death – as the jury and courts decided he should.

Now, I’ve said it before, so I’ll simply reiterate – I’m pro-life. I don’t believe anyone should take the life of another person, and my view on abortion is the same as my view on killing any person, guilty or innocent – doubt or no doubt. So my response to this is obvious. Whether he’s guilty as hell or innocent, there is no time to take a life.

It’s been interesting to watch others’ reactions, though. And thanks to Twitter, I’m able to see a full range of conversation with lots of thinking (and non-thinking) people who want to be a part of the conversation. Some believe filling in a petition will work and if they just get another 1000 names, they can stop it. That’s like saying we’ll get a petition to get the court to stop DUI fines. It’s not going to work, but the sentiment is appreciated, no doubt and perhaps it will raise a flag to politicians as a platform for the next election – but I doubt Troy will be saved that way.

There are people who do not believe in the death penalty at all. So they have it easy for once (like me). But most of the reaction appears to be hinging on the fact that they believe there is doubt in the guilty verdict delivered on the man, and in fact they believe he is innocent – something that they’ve decided themselves, with the basis being that people who testified have recounted. (Of course, the fact the man is going to die might have something to do with it? It’s tough to clear a conscience of sending a man to death even if your testimony was factual, I’d suppose.)

One person even said that even if he was guilty, the fact he only killed one person is enough to not send him to death. It should only be for serial killers.

I’m dumbfounded. It would seem that for many people there are levels of guilt. There are times when someone should die, and times when they should not. And the states of the USA which implement the death penalty have judicial systems which recognise the call of the people. That’s called democracy.

Yet these people who are rallying for Troy Davis, who were not in the courtroom – have not (I would guess) read all the court documentation, let alone understood it – are ready and willing to stand up and second guess the very judiciary they themselves have implemented and the one that they said should deliver these verdicts? The judiciary that supports the basic rights, freedoms and decisions the democracy of their country stands for?

And what of the victim?

According to the courts, Troy Davis killed Mark MacPhail. (By the way, the fact that the Sydney Morning Herald describes Davis’s sister’s breast cancer battle and wheelchair is inappropriate). The police officer’s wife and children were left behind, and believe Troy Davis should serve his fate. His wife was in the courtroom during the trial. They know as well as anyone – and better than most – the real story. They’ve lived it for so very long.

If you believe there is a time to die for anyone, in any circumstances, you must also believe there is a system which can implement that time. Pulling the rug out from under it in individual cases shows that you don’t really believe in it.

And should you ever put anyone to death if you ever have doubt in any case?

I think not.

May all involved rest in peace.

Pic: Image by Amnesty International

Coles, you’ve possibly made the most nauseating and best ad ever

mediamum — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 18:39:53 +0000

The thing that changes for me over the summer is an increase in television watching. I basically go from watching a maximum of an hour a day of hulu to watching a couple of hours of normal tv. That’s a big increase.

Being in Sydney for a good portion of this summer, it was like being a kid in a candy store as far as tv was concerned. Ads were everywhere. As usual, some were fantastic; most were forgettable.

And one of them made my jaw drop. It was terrible. Pure horror. The Coles campaign where prices are going down down with big red hands to the murdering strains of a ruined Petula Clark classic was a shocking milestone in Australian advertising. Apart from the fact I was consistently waiting for the lead woman’s apparently impending wardrobe malfunction to materialise (buy her a larger shirt, stylists! Those buttons are screaming!), the Aussie accents are so pronounced it was awful and brilliant all at once – with the final “Look for the big red hand, Austraylya!” I hated it but I hate to admit I also loved it.

Then one day when they were giving out the big red cardboard hands at the local Coles I was actually rushing to get there. But I missed out. And had to look at a whole heap of kids walking around the shopping centre with the hands – taunting me. Little buggers. I wanted to trip one over and take it.

So yes Coles, well played. You’ve made 30 seconds of terrible ad into something that has me referencing the Down, Down tagline in normal conversations. Yep, right down with my faith in my own good taste. And now I’m back in the US, I’m having a hard time getting rid of it because nobody knows what Coles is anyway. So I’m thinking of Coles and there are no Coles here at all.

PS: I am not kidding about buying a bigger shirt. Thank you.

Judge for yourself: Do you love this ad or do you find it nauseating? And in advertising does nauseating equal fantastic?

No related posts.

Sydney IVF’s powerful birth story rebranding campaign resonates with women

mediamum — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 16:02:41 +0000

IVF is a topic that most people are lucky enough not to have to encounter. You know what it is, but not the details of it, and hopefully you’ll never have to experience what emotions and physical invasions are involved in it.

It’s easy to say you have a view on IVF if you’ve never had to use it. I’m a lucky, lucky woman. I never had any problems at all with fertility, but my story is one which others don’t share. Many women go through agony in having children. Pregnancy and birth can be harsh and unfeeling reminders of the cruel truth that nature has no understanding of what is fair.

And that’s why IVF exists. It’s not something that can be advertised with coke ad sing song voices. The market is one which doesn’t celebrate needing the service, yet has a very real and deep emotional connection to it at the same time.

And like all aspects of pregnancy, birth and parenting – it’s complicated.

So when Sydney IVF began its new campaign to rebrand to Genea, the brief would have been complex and challenging. The below ad is the result. I have friends behind the scenes, who tell me that this is a very real birth, recorded with real people at every step. The website also features images that are real people, real births – and they’re absolutely beautiful. I love the ad, and Charlie (my 11 year old) thought it was “better than all the other crappy ads” – so that’s a pretty cool recommendation. I really also love the way a natural birth is connected to IVF. Because it’s about women, families and the powerful connection between successfully birthing a child and empowering ourselves to believe we can do it – and ultimately, I think that’s what IVF seeks to offer women who have had challenges in getting there.

What do you think?

*Images used in this story are directly from the Genea.com.au website.

How to Tweak the Tweet, and why you should

mediamum — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 14:46:18 +0000

The difference between a natural hazard and a disaster comes from the effect it has on people. More and more everyday people are turning to social media to find out what is going on within their area and community of friends as well as their traditional information sources such as mainstream media. Through the work we’re doing at Project EPIC at the University of Colorado at Boulder, we are focused on using social media to help collect and organise information in a way which will allow people to find out what is happening during a time of crisis.

Of course, one fantastic aspect of social media is the social part – it means you can ask specific things in it and get a response, and it doesn’t matter what kind of social standing you have. It also means people can come together to put little bits of information in, and create a really reliable, up to date repository of information that others can search on. Social media makes ‘crowdsourcing’ possible, relevant and, particularly in crisis events, timely.

At our lab, we are working with volunteers, official agencies and everyday citizens to create easy-to-use tools that everyone can contribute to. Whether they are willing to pitch in for a few minutes, or a few days, everyone’s help means we can organise the information in social media more quickly – ultimately if you take a few minutes to volunteer to use the tools you already know how to use, then you could actually save lives – or at the very least, take some panic out of the event for the people involved.

Twitter

Our current tool is a format most people are familiar with, even if they don’t use it themselves very often. Twitter has a massive number of users, all around the world. However with hundreds of thousands of tweets being put out every minute, gathering information from them about a hazard event, and then showing it in an easy way to citizens and authorities is a difficult problem.

We use a system called Tweak the Tweet (TtT). Using TtT is easy – start by opening your twitter account, and then do a search on the hazard event (for example, for hurricane Irene, enter the word Irene.) All the tweets dealing with the hurricane will come up. Choose one of the tweets, and then go to your ‘What are you doing’ window, and rewrite the tweet in the format that our TtT computer will pick up when it scans the tweets coming through.

First, write the event hashtag #Irene

Then, identify what the main part of the tweet is dealing with, from the selection of general topics we use. These are: shelter, power, location, road, need, offer, damage, evacuation and so on. Please note that sometimes a tweet will need to be separated into more than one TtT tweet, so that it contains just a specific piece of information. Sometimes general tweets coming through the stream contain more than one thing (eg: “The shelter at 20 Riley street in New York has space for 200 people and pets” could be more than one TtT tweet when it’s rewritten.) Use that word (shelter, power or whichever you choose) as the second hashtag. Consider it to be like a heading. Then straight after the hashtag, write in the information related to that heading. Then you might have a secondary hashtag, which offers a little more detailed information. This tends to be a location, or contact details (we use the heading hashtags of #loc and #con to save space). So, you might have a tweet that is looking like this:

#Irene #Shelter Shelter now accepting up to 200 arrivals, including pets #loc 20 Riley Street, NYC

And then push send. That’s it! Our computers will be able to ‘read’ your tweet, whereas it couldn’t ‘read’ the original one. The computer uses the hashtags to organise the information into cells in a spreadsheet that is updated in realtime as these tweets come through. Then the information in the spreadsheet is translated and mapped, so that the general public can access information local to where they are heading or where they are – or where they know others are. The ‘back end’ of our spreadsheet (all the coding stuff) is shared with agencies and other volunteer organisations such as Ushahidi and Crisis Commons, and they work with us in combining the twitter data we’re collecting with other efforts they have.

Finally, we are also able to include images in these maps. If you’re using your own cell phone, turn on the geo location and just take the pictures and upload them to twitter with the #Irene #photo hashtag, and they’ll be added too. Alternatively, you can use the #location tag and put in where you’ve taken the image from.

The magic is that you don’t have to sign up – there’s no formal boundary to entry, and the learning is super easy. Don’t be worried about ‘getting it wrong’ – we all do – but we have people who are watching the tweets come in and are cleaning them up as they get added to the spreadsheets. It also doesn’t matter if you’re putting through information that might already have been entered – if it’s a double up, we remove the second one, depending upon whether time has passed etc. and the information might be new. Even if you can help out with TtT for a few minutes a day, or a longer commitment, the help makes a huge difference, both to people directly involved in the event and also those who love them but are far away.

Mums and moms all hate laundry, even though we tweet about it

Religious groups prove billboard advertising is still powerful in Sydney

mediamum — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 22:45:46 +0000

Years ago in the middle of Sydney a pub and church played duelling billboards. A good natured, often humorous exchange where the priest of St Barnabas Anglican church on Parramatta Road and Broadway and the publican of the Broadway Hotel played off each other – respectfully. Sydneysiders knew to look for the billboards each week, and a book was even created celebrating the most memorable billboards. It was friendly, inclusive and led to greater awareness and understanding of the place of religion in everyday Sydney – until the church burned to the ground in 2006.

Today a new religious billboard competition has sprung up.

One of the billboards creating debate

Sydney’s fastest rising religious group is Islam, so it should not be surprising that the often seen billboards with Christian messages are seeing a competitor in those purchased by the Islamic group, MyPeace. Seeking to introduce everyday (religiously uneducated/unaware) Sydneysiders to the content of Islamic belief, stating “Mary and Prophet Jesus: Read about them in the Qu’ran” and “Jesus: a prophet of Islam,” and an invitation to find out more. These statements are two very basic and fundamental aspects of the Islamic faith, yet strangely offensive to many fearful Christian believers simply because it challenges their own faith’s views.

One of the billboards was defaced, and complaints registered with the Advertising Standards Council, crying out for the billboards to be taken down, saying they are an abuse of freedom of speech (which isn’t a law anyway in Australia) and yes, someone even said it scared children (sigh). Thankfully, however, they remain.

And now Australia’s answer to Pat Robertson, the Rev. Fred Nile has joined the debate by saying he intends to put up his own billboard. The Sydney Morning Herald (if you click through, it’s the story under Arnie) quotes Nile as saying “We are responding with facts and truths and Jesus has nothing to do with the Islamic religion whatsoever.” (Sorry Fred, that’s just wrong.) Nile’s intended billboards actually step over the line, and attack the Islamic faith (something that MyPeace’s billboard messages did not do): “Jesus Christ is Divine. Mohammed was a man.” And “The Koran denies the truth that Jesus Christ died on the Cross of Calvary.”

Poor Fred Nile and his supporters – they need an advertising agency, or a swift kick. Whichever one. They do not see that you attract more flies with sugar than with vinegar. While MyPeace’s billboard messages are simple and striking, Nile’s billboards will do nothing to create a more inclusive, educated public. I think the organizer of MyPeace, Diaa Mohamed, is being extremely generous in responding to Nile’s intentions with the suggestion they debate the divinity of Jesus Christ in a public forum – now that’s something that would be a step above the inclusive entertainment of the publican and the priest.

Media innovation – a key to success?

mediamum — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 16:02:30 +0000

There are stacks of flaws in proposed business models for traditional journalism as it attempts to move into a new sphere. All of them are cloaked with a decent dose of assumptions – that people prefer traditional media, that people will pay for content, that they are the only entities producing good ‘quality’ journalism. So on and so forth. None of the models offer any kind of real innovation. A new approach.

But while I definitely hold this view, it’s interesting to look at how other areas of media are using innovation (or not).

It’s fantastic to see an extension of television shows beyond the traditional scope of merchandising. When stars and plot lines move into other media and other shows, it adds a layer of creativity that makes the show a little more punchy for the audience. These move beyond the unbelievable movements of characters between soap operas, and instead create unexpected and fun ties between shows you might watch and media you are involved with. Some examples:

Cougar Town and Community

A recent Community plotline featured Abed’s fascination with Cougar Town. The story was that he’d been taken out to be an extra on the show (nobody had seemed to notice his absence for a few days, which is not unusual). Well, a few weeks later, an episode of Cougar Town featured a scene with Abed in the background! (I’ve added it here…. but keep reading below for more)

Supernatural meets Twitter

On the episode of Supernatural which saw the Winchesters and Castiel appear in a tv show called Supernatural (confusing, I know, if you don’t follow the show), Castiel likes to tweet – and Misha Collins’ twitter stream that night included the tweets from the show! Talk about effective crossing over. Misha’s tweet stream then returned to normal.

Dr Kutner from House’s death on Facebook

When character Dr Lawrence Kutner from the popular House tv show killed himself, the show’s staff created a Facebook memorial page for him. Included on the page are farewell notes from the main characters in the show, and even a selection of informal photographs of the deceased – all in character.

Each of these actions by tv writers shows an innovation that is sadly lacking in most media – including the blogosphere. I’d love to see creative people behind media production of all types do more risky, inventive things which cross boundaries, and cross media.

The invisible Women in Tech

mediamum — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:22:45 +0000

I’m pretty tired of the women in tech ‘debate’. Why? Because I think we fail to appreciate how women are demonstrating their tech involvement in a space they are creating themselves. Women are in tech, in huge numbers – they’re just not seen unless they are in traditional tech roles that involve a cubicle and 9-5 work day, and that shows how limited the debate really is. Let me explain.

I’m proudly a woman in tech. I am a researcher, a PhD student in the ATLAS Institute at CU. I hold an RA appointment in the Dept of Computer Science’s Project EPIC (Empowering People in Crisis), which looks at how social media tools can empower all stakeholders in crises such as natural disasters. I am absolutely behind every woman in a tech field, we need all of them.

I’m also a mum blogger. I own and respect the tag. And that makes me a woman in tech in another sense.

Telling stories is something women are fantastic at. And it’s in the telling stories space where you’re going to find some incredibly tech-savvy women, all demonstrating their expertise. In fact, that’s where a massive number of the women are in tech.

You might look down your nose on ‘moms who blog’. Many, many people do (including some – many – moms who blog). But let me tell you, over the last few months, even though I’m engaged with mom bloggers every day, I’ve been humbled by the number of moms who have extremely good technical, real computing know-how, building not only the technologies but also the brands and relationships of their media enterprises. An enterprise that might begin with a blog, but expands to video and podcast content as well. They are learning what makes great businesses in the tech domain while they have the rubber to the road and are doing it all themselves. These are women with training in some technical areas, either professional training or self-taught. They are networked and engaged. They are entrepreneurial – it takes real guts to create content, put a brand on it and push it out there. And they are accomplished. (Yeah, they are.)

Recently, I was invited and became a member of a local group of social-media-savvy moms. Not all are bloggers, but all are switched on, professional, creative and so darned impressively tech knowledgeable, I’m learning every day from them. (Yes I am. I have so much to learn.)

Most people choose to forget that moms who blog usually had some kind of professional or paid position before becoming mothers. And they were great at that job. So why is it so hard to believe that just because a woman has children she loses her professionalism? Sure, many women become bloggers as a hobby, but most look for something more pretty quickly. They’re surrounded by other successful women who are making something of their blogs, or who would love it if that opportunity arose (it’s there, you just have to embrace it). Nobody will retire on the money they make, but many find a continued realisation of their professional value and worth through their blog.

Yes, dear friend, mom bloggers are women in tech. They might not be in the spaces you speak of, nor do they fit your picture of a power woman in a cubicle blending in with the guys in a technical space that somehow, for some limited reason, you think is valuable. But there are a stack of accomplished women building brilliant companies, brands, dare I call them – startups (yep, I said it). They have networks, and collective intelligence like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

They’re teaching each other. They understand what they’re doing. And if you’re not watching, they’ll use it to take you on.

Television and kids? Let’s start with the news

mediamum — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 16:40:03 +0000

“It’s a horror movie right there on my tv.

And it’s shocking me right out of my brain.”

Horror movie… Skyhooks.

Charlie has decided he wants to watch the news on television.

This is a pretty big deal for us, because nobody else in the house watches television news at all. Ever. When I was young, Roger Climpson on Channel Seven was our standard 6pm news broadcast and I’d kind of watch it while arguing with my brother or getting ready for dinner. However, it was a routine. It turns out watching television news, for me, was all about passive loyalty. A habit rather than a conscious decision.

When we moved to the US, where I knew none of the channels or presenters, watching the news was something of a novelty. But it wore off quickly and for more than the last two years now, nobody in this place watches the news on tv.

The fact my 10 year old wants to watch the news would be applauded by many. Yet I’m concerned. He understands the difference between obvious fiction and obvious reality. To him, the news is obvious reality.

He does not yet have a solid grasp of the detail of geography, different political and cultural issues, and ‘reasons’ given for wars and conflict that are reflected and alluded to in news reporting.

He is, however, passionate about the environment, respecting others, and doing ‘what’s right’.

I can already see a lot of extended conversations arising from him watching the news, and more of a problem is that I simply don’t have final answers.

So last night we sat down together to watch. (There was no way I’d let him watch the news on his own – Family Guy, yes, but not the news. And I hate Family Guy – I banned it, but this was recently overturned by a mutiny. Anyway, that’s another story.) After 15 minutes or so he turned to me and said “Mum, there’s a lot of bad stuff that goes on in the world today isn’t there? Was there this much when you were a kid?”

It was a good question. It might seem like there was less bad stuff, but maybe I was just not sensitive to the amount of it because it was just noise. It was routine. It was in the background of everyday life.

In the paper today, tales of war and of waste. But you turn right over to the tv page – Neil Finn, Don’t Dream It’s Over

Before long the news was finished and another news program began. Incredibly, with exactly the same stories of the previous program, just told by different reporters. When one of them used a trite throw-away pun sentence to lead into a story, it became too much for me. I told Charlie we were turning it off, and he didn’t mind at all.

I wonder if he’ll want to watch it again. I wonder if the stories will be different. I wonder if it’s possible to teach a child of this age that the full story can’t possibly be covered in a one minute, thirty second story – even if you follow that thread in tv news for the entire length of the situation (eg a war). He wants more answers than that. He wants news that’s relevant to him, that he can comprehend, that educates him. All our children deserve it.

Wouldn’t it be great if the major news stations created a version of news for younger viewers instead of the same level of reporting all the time?

When media do more harm than good

mediamum — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 15:26:41 +0000

The earthquake in Christchurch this week saw mass media pick apart a city like the vultures they have too often become.

The beautiful city and its people had suffered an incredible event, but they needed support to tell their stories – not “professional journalists” coming in to tell them with an extreme horror movie agenda, often using these people and their experience as an excuse to celebrate their own love of their own ‘my novel will be brilliant’ prose (I’m looking at you AAP).

Does the public need these type of headlines?

Headlines such as “Buried Alive” and comparisons to “Apocalypse Now” and “9/11″ are purely aimed at sensationalising something that does not call for it. It’s insulting to think that readers need this kind of verbage to get a sense of the devastation. It’s insulting to those in Christchurch to have their situation taken from them by drop-in visitors seeking to out-do each other with (often inaccurate) statistics of death and destruction. Layer that with journalists going into zones they know are unsafe and you’re impacting emergency services personnel and police having to deal with journalists instead of those who were doing nothing wrong. Oh journalists, you’re not the heroes here – you’re morons.

And then let’s consider for a second the graphic video. The film taken by camerapeople from mass media outlets, and fed live to a public who calls out “enough, already.” The woman who says “go away” and “don’t film me” to the cameraperson as she is carried from the collapsed building should have her wishes respected – but no, not if you’re from a mass media outlet who thinks they are above everyone’s wishes. Many people don’t like being on camera – it’s stressful and scary to most of us, especially when you think that the world could see you. And that doesn’t change just because you’ve been in a tragic emergency situation, with blood on you and dirty clothing. And it certainly doesn’t change for the families of victims pulled lifeless from buildings – people who are without defence from you. These are images nobody needs. (I am not going to link to any of this footage here simply because even though the mass media feel it’s okay to show and re-show and re-show again this footage, I do not.)

It definitely makes a pariah of the media who wait around for family members to be given the worst news, just so they can film the family’s ravaged faces when the pain becomes known. I’m guessing nobody wants to be on camera when told of a death of a family member – the excuse of a ‘news story’ is pathetic.

The old reasons for mass media performing any of this kind of coverage are long past. Today the subjects of the intrusive lens are equipped with their own tools of media. They can and do tell their own stories. They are online, not under a big masthead (that could be fixed, big obnoxious media, by the way), but their stories are there. They have all the emotion, but incredibly, they have more balance than the stories created by mass media. They are personal, and that’s what makes the resonant connection with the audience – not some overstated extreme emotional ploy.

Yes, I was a journalist for a long time. I then worked with journalists for a long time. I have a Masters degree in Journalism. I totally get it. I know it from the inside. “If it bleeds, it leads.” If you’re broadcast, asking people “how do you feel” is primarily the way you get them to display raw emotion for the camera or the microphone, and you get ready to do the close up – because that’s gold.

It makes me sick. Physically ill.

No wonder I jumped ship. No wonder, like a reformed smoker’s views of those who continue to light up, I am passionately opposed to what you do – especially when it could be so much better. You could be serving the people (both the victims and your audience) instead of toying with them. There are very few daily examples of good journalism. I would say more than 95% of existing news reporting is abysmal – inaccurate, narrow and lazy. If time is not on your side, then why not produce a quality weekly newspaper roundup instead? But no, that’s not going to happen.

You are doing a disgraceful job. In your efforts to one-up other networks and get stories done fast, you’ve forgotten what good reporting actually is. You’re not serving anyone. You’re intrusive, disrespectful, often incorrect, overstating of the facts and just plain rude. To say ‘this is a story that needs to be told and we are the ones to bring it to you’, yet come out with tales that are just horrific and unbalanced rather than factual is testament to the fact you are unfeeling pariahs waiting to re-victimise those who are already suffering. Then playing it on high rotation – the same horrid footage over and over again – shows you delight in the pain.

So I invite you, dear reader, to get the real story behind this tragic event instead of hitting the junk food aisle of mass media news reporting. Visit some blogs, vlogs and personal stories of the people of Christchurch, and watch as they demonstrate the courage and determination to come through this. Read as they remember those who did not survive. Understand it in the way they want to tell it. Give them the respect they deserve by hearing the story they want to tell. Give them more respect by leaving them a comment – even just a thank you for sharing. I guarantee some of these will hold your heart.

Here are two to kick you off, but please feel free to add more in the comments below:

Nathanael Boehm at Pure Caffeine talks about how he survived, and what he did immediately after the quake. He’s been interviewed by mass media, but I believe him telling his own story is far more powerful and real.

Ruth Gardner at Real Ruth is updating regularly as she navigates life after the quake. Her sentence about feeling strange having traffic going the ‘wrong way’ up what she knows is a one-way street is something we can all feel the impetus of. Of course, now just seeing traffic go that direction must simply be a reminder of the reality of life following the quake.

Why Aussie mum bloggers shouldn’t ‘win’ payment for K-Mart posts

mediamum — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 01:04:12 +0000

Yesterday I received an email through the Aussie Mum Bloggers network, inviting me (and every other Aussie mum blogger) to write a post here on Mediamum.net about how to get the best value out of $20 at K-Mart. If I did it, and sent the link in, I would be in the running to be one of 20 people to win… a $20 K-mart giftcard!

K-mart's offering a carrot. You deserve better.

Now, I know that blogger relations in Australia is a bit of an unknown quantity. Many Aussie women probably feel a little flattered that an offer is being made at all. It’s tempting to jump at it without considering it too much.

But, much like when you were a teenager dancing at Sweethearts at Cabramatta and some guy with a mullet and a Holden said “let me drive you home,” take a minute to think.

Think about what you’re worth.

And if you have a hard time with that one (after all, some of us let that guy with the mullet take us home. Ahem.)… then think what your readers are worth. Even if your readers are less than 10 a day – heck, 10 a month. What are they worth?

And if your blog and its readers are worth more to you than $20 a post – and that’s if you ‘win’, then give it a miss. Truly, if you say you’re only doing it this time, then what’s to make any company think you’re worth more in the future?

You’re building audience, readership, and value. You want people to return to you every time you post, and read what you say. You want to engage with people – build relationships and resonance. I don’t see how morphing those goals into some convoluted contest where you win payment for space allocated to a company that should be paying you for it in the first place actually fits in here.

K-Mart, this space is worth far, far more than $20. In fact, if you like, I’ll sell you some advertising space – after all, that’s what you basically want here. I’m insulted that you think $400 is all you need to pay for a minumum of 20 advertorials on blogs. My brand is worth just as much to me as yours is to you. Some respect is justified. You need to begin treating mum bloggers and their communities with some real respect.

Teaching New Media Literacy

mediamum — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 06:17:13 +0000

I was delighted to have presented at the Colorado Learning and Teaching with Technology conference at the University of Colorado yesterday. This was my second year at this conference, and it was incredibly well attended. As usual, some of the best moments came in the smaller discussions and conversations had over the lunch break.

In Australia, the curriculum in K-12 includes aspects of Media Literacy. In the US, each state has a different set of required things to be taught, and many don’t include media literacy at all. That’s just plain scary.

Today’s media is pervasive. It’s no longer identifiable as something separately held within the bounds of a newspaper or tv set, that you access to inform yourself as you go about your day. Instead today media is everywhere. It’s in your pocket. It’s part of who we are, our culture and identity.

On top of that, we are no longer just receivers of media. Today we create it. Critical analysis is not enough. We must equip ourselves and students, and our own children, with the tools and savvy they must have in order to be responsible creators, receivers and engagers with media in all its forms. As the Daily Camera quoted me from my presentation today on its front page, banning media forms doesn’t make people media literate. In fact, I believe it does the opposite.

I thoroughly enjoyed the session and the response was eager. If you’re an educator or a parent – or a college student – this is a presentation I hope you get some value out of too, so I’ve decided to add it here on my blog as well as on the conference wiki. Please feel free to use it as if it were under a creative commons license (ie just give me credit when you feel it’s due). And of course, your comments, responses and input are worth their weight in chocolate.

Should some brands stay out of social media?

mediamum — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 00:04:55 +0000

The ongoing antics of Nestle as it continually trips itself up in all forms of social media (Facebook, viral Greenpeace videos) have led me to ask if some companies should just stay out altogether.

Even Satan or Lex Luthor would have a better time on social media than Nestle. There are legions of people wanting to embrace evil.

Nestle Killer-Asesino Facebook page, one of many opened in response to Nestle's social media attempts

But Nestle doesn’t even have them on side. People are not saying that they’re willing to accept a company that has substantial long-term crappy business practises – because Nestle doesn’t admit to them. And that’s saying something.

For a company that is top ten worldwide in almost everything – size, employees, number of countries it operates in, number of brands it holds… no other consumer goods company has as much worldwide impact as Nestle…. and no company can boast as much obvious distrust from vocal consumers who have long-held issues with the company, and now have a means to share them with a new generation, and in new regions.

What doesn’t Nestle get?

The problem for Nestle is not just at the ‘I don’t like the company/product’ level. The issues are not just opinion. If it were, then they could be dismissed by many as trivial, personal or simply without foundation.

Instead, social media offers more than just opinion sharing. It gives every person with a web connection access to hard factual information, statistics and documented history including legal processes. The information is as deep as the user wants to go, and it’s all just a click away. Companies can’t hide it. That’s the nature of the web.

Getting it right

Chiat/Day’s Pepsi Refresh Project understood that there is something that resonates between a brand and the consumer, and that connection reaches far beyond the product.

Instead of using social media to focus on products, use it to focus on global issues – issues you and other multi-nationals contribute to, profit from, and can make a difference in. Involve the social web in gaining insights into how to fix these problems. Work with people, not against them. People want you to succeed when you demonstrate a commitment to things that affect their lives, their world.

If you spend part of your exhorbitant ad spend on social media that demonstrates real involvement with the community rather than talking about your products, you’ll begin to build some social capital where you have none.

Frame the conversations – it gives you some control. But ensure you’re framing them in spaces you’re willing to go, and that people will support you in.

The one where I’m saving the print newspaper industry

mediamum — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:44:34 +0000

The web is all about transparency (dirty secrets), so here you go. I’m standing up.

“My name is Jo.” (Now you say, “Hi Jo.”)

“On Sunday I signed up for a subscription to the print version of The Denver Post.”

I’ll wait if you need to read that again, because I realise that coming from me … it’s hard to comprehend.

Background (excuse): I was at my local fine grocery outlet, King Soopers, and as usual on Sundays, there was a guy giving out free papers and asking people if they’d like to subscribe to a masthead on a dead tree. I usually ignore this guy, because the only value in a tangible paper-based newspaper is the coupons, and one of my friends religiously saves her coupons from her newspaper because she doesn’t use them, and gives them to me. Ergo no need for coupons, no need for the newspaper. Usually.

Occasionally I’ll buy the Sunday paper if there are a good number of coupons that week, so I can double up. I figure it’s worth the $1.50 to get over $300 of coupons. (Of which I’d use at least $20 or $30 worth.) I also do electronic coupons, but they are usually different.

Because of social media, I knew there were quite a few great coupons in Sunday’s paper – so on the spot I decided to put up with the guy’s spiel, so I could get a free paper rather than fork out the $1.50.

Local news is really important

He started with a pitch on a full subscription. I dodged that by telling him I never read the paper during the week (which is true – I read it online because I feel an obligation to. It’s kind of like maybe they’ll throw me out of Colorado if I don’t read their local news. Oh and there’s that whole j-school factor where they bring up something in the news in classes and I’m all, ‘well in Australia we’re worried about the internet being filtered – is that what you mean?’ I realise I kinda need to know that Governor Ritter can’t ride a bike without breaking a few ribs but it’s all okay because he’s getting better. That seems to be key here.).

The subscription pusher instantly changed to the pitch for weekends only. I was ready to throw in another excuse as soon as he took breath. “You can get home delivery of the Saturday and Sunday Denver Post, for just $3 a month.”

Three bucks. A month. (My mouth fell open but words did not come out. Which is kind of epic.)

A month-to-month subscription, cancelling at any time.

Here’s the sweetener

Not only that, he was giving away a $5 King Soopers card “if you do it right now.”

So I signed up. I really did. I made a committment to killing more trees in the name of (coupons) old school news formats. And hereby I am a proud linchpin to saving newspapers in print. All you traditional print journalists can add me to your Christmas card list.

My oath

As long as they keep having coupons, and the price stays the same, I’ll keep my subscription. A cynic would say that’s not a long-term commitment. But I have faith (stop snorting).

So that’s how I’m saving the print newspaper industry. You have my $3 a month. Retire well.

The one where I’m crowdsourcing stalkers at SXSW

mediamum — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:14:18 +0000

Dear SXSW attendees:

I know you’re all excited. You’re going to spend a whole heap of time being all geeky and fun, and drinking and stuff. Talking about startups, design, innovation, music… ooh I’ll bet you’re all tingly.

My husband is one of you. He’s kid-at-Christmas excited. He loves Texas and had a ball there last year. As a startup geek guy, he can’t wait for a whole week of indulgence.

Good on him. I hope he has a great time.

But now to the point of this post – apart from his blue eyes and salt-and-pepper hair, my husband has an Australian accent.

I have seen the way females respond to a male with this shrimp-on-the-barby quality. It’s a little over the top. During SXSW women go a little nuts for startup guys – add the accent, and it’s all downhill for the startup widow wife.

Unlike some other (better known) startup guys who think it’s okay to flirt and carry on while away from home, as long as they “don’t go home with anyone at the end of the night,” (I’m not naming names, but you freaking well know who you are – and people do talk about you, by the way), it’s not going to cut it with me.

Stop whining, woman. What’s the point?

I’m not going to SXSW (someone has to stay here and look after the kids and write a thesis), so… I’m running a Where’s Waldo-style competition on my husband for attendees of SXSW. Let’s call it my little contribution to citizen journalism.

Ooh, a competition from a mom blogger? (Who’d have thought, right?) But how do I WIN?

This is Jed. Print it out. Keep it handy. (Note the wedding ring.) Some call it stalking, I call it love.

All you have to do is find my husband, Jed (gorgeous guy – see the pic – with accent). Take pictures of him, and post them on whatever social network you use (Brightkite, Twitpic, Flickr, whatever). Tag them ‘Jed’. You can then tweet me the link (@Mediamum), or post them in the comments for this post. Each entry will get a number, and I’ll draw a winner using the Random Generator tool. The winner will get a $25 gift card from the place of their choice. The more pics you take, the more opportunities you have to win.

I love my husband. If I squint a bit, he looks like Mark Harmon, and that’s something too good to lose. I’m sure you understand.

Thanks, and I hope you rock the world at SXSW. (Don’t make me come down there.)

*Jed has given his blessing for this competition to happen. He thinks it’s funny. That will be the case unless everyone there starts taking his picture. Then I’ll be the one laughing.

**Do not chew me out for being a loser wife. I love mah man and no biaitch is gettin’ in mah way (hair flick). That said, he has my blessing to drink and talk and stuff. Just as long as his hands are in plain view at all times.

The merits of tweeting an abortion. (Yes, really.)

mediamum — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:15:16 +0000

An American woman named Angie Jackson has decided it was a good idea to share her experience of aborting her pregnancy with the world, via YouTube and Twitter.

A mother of a four-year-old who goes to the trouble of outlining the reasons why she decided on an abortion with RU486, Angie says her social media posts are her attempt to “demistify” the process, and let everyone know that for her, the whole abortion thing “isn’t such a big deal.”

Here’s the video of her saying she is “having an abortion (insert dramatic pause) right now.” (Don’t worry, there are no gunky parts, which is not what the Sydney Morning Herald would have you believe in its reporting of the story, with the warning the paper placed at the beginning of the video.)

She also twittered the entire process. You can see the community response by searching the hashtag #livetweetingabortion. And there is even a twibbon. Yes, just when you thought all the really terrible twibbon ideas were had, this one leaves nothing to the imagination.

This is a story with so many news hooks in it, a news editor would begin planning a long lunch. Front page … done. Abortion, methods of abortion, social media, social media plus abortion. Oh, and atheism. Check the mainstream media stories on this, and you’ll see it all – surface level crapola about all the obvious news angles, lots of sensationalist eye rolling and no depth.

Look at the blogosphere reactions and you see some insightful commentary. Feministe, for example, reminds us how many women go to get abortions all the time, and how veiled our usual discussions of the subject are.

Deep breath.

Now, I personally switch between being pro-life and pro-choice (knowing that my choice will always be pro-life, no matter what, for me, but recognizing others may not feel that way. I actually have trouble with this whole stance – if I feel so strongly about it, then why am I not ready to instill my thoughts on others? I do it with breastfeeding, don’t I? And for some this means I can’t be a feminist. Feminists are not Sarah Palin. Feminists are not pro-life. People look at me and don’t think feminist. Oh really raised eyebrow? But I digress.) This is not something I throw around a lot, because as Feministe correctly states, it’s a heated debate that I don’t choose to enter. However, I have my views and I respect other people their rights to theirs. I am kind of okay with that, but I don’t know if I always will be. But for now, it’ll do. Until you judge me and be really nasty and call me names, and say horrible things about the size of my arse. Then you’ll push me over the edge and I won’t share my Aussie accent with you any more. And we all know who loses in that equation.

While I disagree with Angie’s views on the subject, I think her decision to speak about it in a very open conversation is a great one. (It’s okay. I’ll wait while you pick yourself up off the floor from shock.) I believe everyone should endeavour to hear every side of a conversation, especially views that don’t mesh with their own. Especially when you have a passionate belief on one side.

In fact, to take it even further – I wanted to hear what she had to say, even though I knew her decision would not have been mine. And I think other people should be brave enough to do that without a knee-jerk reaction (‘jerk’ being the operative word).

So instead of looking at the mainstream media stories reporting the incredulity of using social media to talk about such a politically incorrect subject, I think we can all learn more from reading and seeing personal stories about the subject, from all sides. Only then can we be truly educated and tolerant – if not understanding – of each other. Each to their own.

How to make a quick family video with Windows Movie Maker

mediamum — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 16:32:35 +0000

When Max leaped across from Sydney to join us for three weeks in January, we took lots of pictures. As mums do.

I promised myself I’d get them organised, and create a nice montage. As mums do.

Now we’re halfway through February, and the planned montage didn’t happen because other things got in the way. As they do.

Max enjoying the view.

I decided I was being too much of a perfectionist. I just needed to do it. So this morning I opened the new Windows Movie Maker, and plugged in a series of pictures we took as we hiked the Flatirons.

The pictures included views, close ups of snow, crappy ones of trees, some that were out of focus and even one of Max’s jacket that he’d thrown aside as he climbed the final part of the Flatiron, knowing I was coming up behind. (Even teenagers on hikes think mum will pick up after them.) All of them combined were a memory for us.

For the first time ever I clicked on the Auto Movie feature.

Auto Movie allows you to choose some music to go in the background, from the selection already on your computer.

It then crunches it all, does the transitions for you and so on. You can then watch the result, go in and make a few changes if you would like to, and publish directly to YouTube or DVD, or just save it on your computer.

From the moment I opened Movie Maker to the time I was watching the finished product was within about 40 minutes – much faster than if I’d painstakingly put the whole thing together myself. As I had always done before.

As mums, success is about recognising when you can give a little in order to get things done, rather than be a perfectionist at everything (and let’s face it, rarely are we completely happy with what we produce even after days of working on it). That said, I think Movie Maker did a darned fine job. I like to think I could do better than a automated system, but you know what, just quietly? I think this is probably proof I’m no James Cameron.

Windows Movie Maker has always been a favourite of mine. It’s intuitive, easy (ie obvious) to use for non-techy people, and produces very respectable results that you can easily adjust if you’re unhappy or just want to tweak things.

Windows Movie Maker opens the realm of possibility for my 9 and 12 year olds to make movies without paying for lots of equipment or training. In a world where we want to encourage people to have a voice and create content, ease of use and access for people of all ages and technical abilities is the most important factor. Movie Maker gives that to you. Others don’t.

I hope you enjoy watching the little montage. And I’d love to see your own efforts!

Pew Report dispels the Digital Native myth

mediamum — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:18:01 +0000

While many people align technology adoption and use with age, the facts show it’s not all that easy to stereotype the creators of content in the online media.

Today’s Pew Report on Teens and Social Media amplifies a very real issue in the US. Our teens and young adults are engaging in “new” media, but on a very limited level.

The majority of them are not creating new content.

In fact, the number of them who blog themselves (just 14%) or even who comment on blogs, is dropping.

Many of us celebrate the new democracy offered by the Web. However, when so few of our young people are engaging beyond watching viral YouTube videos or speaking within a small realm of personal IRL friends (or believing that’s who they’re talking to) on the small stage of their individual Facebook accounts, we have a problem. Democracy isn’t served unless people use their voices.

Picture Credit: Creative Commons cartoon by @gapingvoid.

Access is one thing. Content creation intended for a public audience is entirely another.

I’m around a lot of students every day. When they’re asked who has a blog, from a room of 150-200 students, only a handful of hands go up. In a Journalism class.

What are they waiting for?

We need courses that teach young people (and everyone else) that they don’t need a university degree to have a voice. And that every voice deserves to be heard. We need to show young people how to use the simplest of tools – the mobile phones and cameras they all hold – as citizen journalists, not just for sexting (they figured that one out all on their own). We need to show them how easy it is to set up a blog, and just as importantly, how to get people to read it.

Our young people need to be encouraged to be brave, honest, and opinionated – in a public forum. We need to respect their right to speak, and engage with them when they are used.

Until then, democracy is not being served.

Unmoderated reader comments are a news fail

mediamum — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 02:44:27 +0000

Some mainstream media have incorporated the fantastic ability of the web to allow reader comments to stream live.

Apparently, the misguided professional believes this is a wonderful way of operating public journalism, which seems to be so popular right now. Really, we’re demonstrating our real connections with our audience.

Unfortunately, when reader comments are opened on every story, and allowed to run rampant, your brand (yes, journalists, you’re running a business which means you have to market yourselves) is ready to be decimated.

Reader comments can turn a decent 300-word professional piece into a free-for-all featuring the most unbalanced, extremist morons in the universe whose opinions get quoted and requoted across those pages of reader comment and through wider social media, completely dissolving any semblance of decent journalism.

Including reader comments is simply not necessary on many stories, especially as the stories are developing. They should not be included on stories that obviously invite the freaks of society to come out of the woodwork. Those people who use every opportunity to make accusations that are political or racial and have no relationship to the story. You know, the freaks that are on talk-back radio (and who should stay there).

Nor should reader comments be on stories that include painful information relating to families who not only have to live with their tragedies, but also have to suffer the narrow-minded opinions of people who treat them as fair game – in media they are ALL going to read.

Professionals – if you wouldn’t include it in the copy because it’s conjecture, non-factual or simply not a good reflection of your masthead’s position in the market, then don’t give it voice anywhere else – including in the reader comments.

Just to finish (and to act as proof), here are some stellar reader contributions live from today’s online press:

“i hope this guy fries…put a bullet in his head and save us some money and rid us of this moron…shame on him…and hope he goes to hell;” (Denver Post)

From Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, on a story about a ghostly picture taken in a cemetary, “It shows how labor has continually been re-elected for 12 years, because half of Sydney are truly gullible fools who will believe anything.”

And finally, from the UK’s Daily Mail, on a story about a swimming pool banning nudity in its showers: “any child that hasn’t seen a male naked, has been let down by their parents.”

Classy.

Why save the Denver Post?

mediamum — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:26:16 +0000

As I predicted right here on Mediamum.net in March 2009 when the Rocky Mountain News folded, Colorado’s the Denver Post is now also in trouble. Its owners are asking for bankruptcy protection.

They’re still not humble.

I’m hearing professional journalists and academics in journalism blame all sorts of things for this situation:

1. Falling ad revenues (you know, that’s a failure of the business model that the traditional media organizations have held onto like a liferaft with a hole in it). The Washington Times reports advertising revenue has fallen 40% since 2005, according to the Newspaper Association. It’s the advertisers’ fault.

2. Reader ADHD. People just aren’t interested in “real” news any more. They’d rather read about Ashton and Demi than Haiti. It’s the reader’s fault.

3. Too many people don’t respect the value of newsprint. Everyone is too ready to go online for a format of news that suits them. It’s the internet’s fault.

I’ve heard it all. Except for the truth. It’s the newspapers’ fault.

When the Denver Post runs stories that are simply repetitious of ones posted days earlier, like this one on skiing and helmets, it’s not professional.

When the Denver Post lets its reader comments run along with no moderation on the LEAD story yesterday (I’m not kidding) about a Colorado evangelist’s wife who is trying to forgive him over various indescretions, it’s not professional. (That’s right, The Denver Post thinks you should be happy to pay for this crap.)

My point is, that unless newspapers wake up, get humble, and realise they are creating content for an audience that has a discretionary choice across many formats, they will continue to close – and until professional journalists and editors start creating and moderating content worth paying for across these formats, they deserve to close.

The bells have been tolling for a long time. Take your fingers out of your ears.

2010, the year of the Active Voice Blog

mediamum — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 16:15:18 +0000

As more bloggers, blogs and readers enter our universe, companies begin to more fully recognise the power of their voices. These companies approach us all with opportunities to “work together” and it can be tough to navigate that landscape.

Take a step back. Look at your blog with a reader’s eye.

Just as you were taught in school the difference between writing in active voice and passive voice, so I am identifying that there are active voice blogs and passive voice blogs.

Passive Voice Blogs

These blogs do product reviews, and only really publish reviews that are positive (the negative ones are never published). The words and images are similar to those you’d find in a tv commercial – happy, smiling and always shiny. Unfortunately, they’re a dime a dozen. These blogs have a readership built on passive brand loyalty with readers who are focused purely on winning competitions, not on entering only their competitions. They could be getting lots of traffic and lots of attention, but the hard truth is that as soon as ‘something shiny’ comes along – another blog with four more competitions that day, or something half decent’s on tv so there’s no time to visit the blog, they’ll lose readers in a blink. Passive loyalty links with passive voice. There is no active preference.

Make no mistake though. Typically, a Passive Voice Blog is one that takes a lot of time and effort to maintain, but lacks real attitude and commitment in the content. It still requires continual monitoring, content creation, etc. And you might think people are actively choosing your content because they keep coming back – this mistake is made by lots of companies, too. What you actually have, however, is a parity product. Something that can be exchanged for any one of a multitude of others. For a blogger, that’s dangerous.

Active Voice Blogs

An Active Voice Blog has a voice behind its content that is strong and committed. It might run competitions etc, but there is a vein of character behind every competition, and every relationship. The blogger recognizes the value of her blog, and reflects that in her relationships with the companies she works with. There is a differentiator that makes the blog individual. A selling point that makes the blog and blogger memorable. Active Voice Blogs have a presence of the blogger that the Passive Voice Blogs don’t have.

Typically, the readers of the Active Voice Blog are more committed to the blogger and blog than those who visit the Passive Voice Blog. An active voice blog will also have an actively blog- loyal readership. An active readership will choose to visit the blog and interact with it even when something shiny comes along trying to distract them. The readers will visit, even when it might be inconvenient to fit reading the latest post into their day.

I can see 2010 as being the year of the Active Voice Blogger.

Being an Active Voice Blogger is hard. It’s difficult to tell companies that their demands are not suitable for you, to do the research and ensure your brand will be complemented by the relationship – even if it’s just for a day-long event, or a single competition. It’s hard to have opinions that you’re prepared to stand up for. But this year, I believe those are the blogs which will find new levels of respect with the companies seeking a voice to work with.

You have a blog. That means you have a voice. But are you an Active Blogger?

Sydney Morning Herald blames bloggers for incorrect Haiti image

mediamum — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 22:23:31 +0000

In The Sydney Morning Herald’s role as gatekeeper/the fourth estate, those paying for its content deserve a standard of professionalism that is better than those it does not pay for.

Is a t-shirt necessary to tell the difference between professional journalists and citizens? You can buy this one at www.zazzle.com.

That’s the idea, anyway.

The Sydney Morning Herald, however, doesn’t understand how to work online. One key aspect of journalism is the newsgathering process. Professional journalists are supposed to be well versed in newsgathering. They are fully trained and have a wealth of resources and contacts in their reporting toolkits. They gather and filter information to create news pieces that hold reliable information for society.

That’s why today’s decision by the Herald’s Jessica Mahar to write a story denigrating “bloggers” for posting pictures online that were not actually of Haiti’s current quake aftermath, but of other incidents is a dumb move. The subs have titled the story, ‘Bloggers jump gun with wrong photos.’

I’ll start lightly. The fact that the Herald has run one of the “fake” images again is a poor editorial decision. Unprofessional, however, is the decision to not identify the source of the image at all. (The caption reads Photo: -) Additionally, the lack of any links at all from the Herald’s story when many would have been appropriate is a red flag to me.

Extended quotes from a random computer science guy named Miguel Rios? No identification of who he is other than his name, or where his affiliation is. Why not link to his Linkedin profile or something? (Like I just did.)

Mahar chose to use inflammatory quotes from Rios calling for some checks and measures to be put in place by a respected entity to ensure this kind of mistake doesn’t happen. Mahar is kind of saying “look, social media can hoodwink you – this is why you need us professionals.”

The embarrassment, dear, comes from the fact that I believe the only reason this story was created was because the Sydney Morning Herald stole the “fake” images in question without any transparency of where they were sourced from. They didn’t check it out and the plagiarism was only discovered when the images turned out to be false. This makes the headline here incorrect. It wasn’t the bloggers who jumped the gun. It was the professionals at the Herald.

And of course, the fact that the readership of the Sydney Morning Herald pointed out the inauthenticity of the images “almost immediately,” according to the Herald’s own online editor-in-chief is something that makes even more of a mockery of the situation – and of the professionals who can’t or won’t see and accept responsibility for their own errors.

Here’s a tip: American news organization CNN is doing a far better job in newsgathering using online sources. While CNN could do better by linking more, its coverage of Haiti using the personal stories and images collected across the Web offer a better level of transparency than that offered by the Herald.

Islam and the media – without media.

mediamum — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 05:24:02 +0000

The Islam and the Media conference, held by the Center for Media, Religion and Culture at the University of Colorado at Boulder (January 7-10) was a huge success in bringing together leaders in thought and practise on religion and media. But you wouldn’t know it if you’d been watching mainstream media.
At a time in our history that international front pages and lead stories are obsessively dealing with some aspect of Islam, it’s interesting that of all the mainstream media reporters on religion who were invited to attend the conference or interview any of the delegates decided it was not enough of a priority. Surprising when the topic is hot, and when local media simply had to come to campus on any one of three days (including the weekend) to talk with any of the world leading scholars (including Elizabeth Poole) on Islam and its representation in popular and digital media.
If I were a reporter with a beat, I’d not only be sure to be on top of the content, but the least I’d be doing is reporting on key influencers in my area.
Perhaps if there had been some events at the conference that reinforced the moral panics international media have aligned with Islam, we would have seen a greater presence of professional reporters – but they would have been reporting after the fact, by their own choice.
Should religion reporters have reported on this conference? Attended it to find out how their media is conveying ideas and representations of Islam?

Image courtesy Library of Congress

Unveiling the panic of Islamaphobia? Or does it serve traditional media to maintain and pander to the ignorance of the people who pay for what might or might not be newsworthy?

Were the Christmas miracle mother and baby "saved" from epidural?

mediamum — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 16:02:26 +0000

Ah the miracle of medicine, look how much you’ve done for women and babies. Birthing in the Western World is no longer fraught with danger, thanks to your hand.

Or is it?

Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The oh-so convenient Christmas miracle story splashed internationally across mass media headlines of a Coloradan woman and her baby dying through childbirth and then “inexplicably” being revived held readers spellbound. It was the perfect gift for editors – as a front page, it sold papers.

But media did not report the facts – they just told a good story.

In birth, medicine has moved beyond monitoring women and fixing stuff that goes wrong to getting in there and making birth a “medical procedure.” Whether a woman is likely to birth successfully without intervention or not is not considered when offering everything from epidurals to c-sections to “patients” who are armed with the gift of choice, but not the gift of a full education about the side-effects each of these interventions carry.

Do they know that as soon as you introduce one intervention, the likelihood of more being required is exponentially higher? Epidurals lead, often, to more intervention. Why? Because blind freddy can tell that if you can’t feel your body, if you muck around with its ability to do the work it was naturally trying to do, then it’s going to be more likely to repay you in kind. Epidurals are not headache tablets for birthing. Too many women believe they are. Too many women give their birthing up to medicine with no reasonable or rational cause. They’re missing out on the most powerful experience of their lives – and often recovering from major abdominal surgery. Society is also paying through the nose for these unnecessary surgeries. Over 30% of American women now have c-sections. Before long it will be the “normal” way to birth.

Media did not question the fact that Tracy and Mike Hermanstorfer were being “prepped for childbirth” in a medicalized setting with pitocin delivered and an epidural being inserted, and that apparently coincidentally Tracy’s heart stopped after the epidural. (There is real research into the side-effects of epidurals… this link to the American Pregnancy Association states more than 50% of American women have epidurals – but if you read to the end, the very real possibility of cascades of intervention and medical trauma directly related to the epidural, including severely lowering heart rates of both mother and baby are basically outlined. And that’s if they put it in correctly.)

Henci Goer reported on this story yesterday, for Lamaze International. She outlines the details of potential medical responsibility in the trauma endured by this family. Additionally, in ABC News’s video interview with the doctor and Hermanstorfers, the cascade of intervention is described – but the reporting does absolutely nothing to question further about those interventions.

Traditional media are failing us in reporting on birth. We are so accepting of medicalised birth that media do not question medical responsibility in this family’s trauma. Instead, it celebrates the “Christmas miracle” that sells its papers – and the UK’s Daily Mail even went so far as to credit the doctor for bringing back lifeless Tracy. Again, the business model gets in the way of good journalism. Find the quickest story that sells the paper and pulls a heartstring, not the story that takes research and investigation.

I know many religious people have already adopted this story, calling it God’s hand at work. Others will say “thank goodness she was in a hospital (where our human-made gods are) – what would have happened if she were at home?”

What indeed.

Why my research is in Twitter

mediamum — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 00:53:32 +0000

“Twitter’s a fad.”

“The young kids use Twitter because they don’t want to have a real conversation.”

“Twitter is destroying society.”

“How do you know they’re real?”

“I really don’t care that much about what you’re doing all day.”

I’ve heard it all. From all types of people.

The only people who truly understand Twitter are those who are using it regularly, and have overcome the barriers to acceptance that it inherently presents as a tool of technology.

Academics don’t get Twitter. Including many of those doing research into social media.

Twitter represents a new way of communication. After lifestreaming on Twitter for over two years and researching it for over 12 months, I understand the nuances of the communities on it, and have watched it morph as it has moved from being a geek tool to a plaything of the mainstream.

I’ve seen people pretend to be people they’re not. Consciously and unconsciously. Romances, flirtations and breakups. Proposals, business endeavours, connections – and their destruction. Lonely and socially inept people have connected with high flyers and leaders. I’ve watched as people going through the most intense pain of their lives have dared to share emotion and feeling that they’d never divulge to their closest friends in a physical sense. I’ve seen Twitterers decide, recently, that “in real life” friends and online friends really are the same thing. For many, normal people, physical presence does not matter any more.

In 2010 I’ll be completing my thesis in the communities of mombloggers on Twitter. I’m particularly looking at some individuals who have had things happen to them that we just don’t talk about in society. People who are judged through horrid newspaper reporting that does nothing more than enable the middle class and other everyone who doesn’t fit their beige lives. People in pain. Who perhaps with Twitter have found reason to keep going, found some sense of support they didn’t have available “in real life” – and through whose journey the rest of the community is learning more about things that often get swept under the carpet. Death. Abuse. Homelessness. Why some women hate others, and appropriate responses to companies and those we don’t understand.

It’s hard.

My big wish for my work in 2010 is that I can somehow do some justice to the women in the communities of Twitter, and give them the opportunity to be heard and appreciated. I can see the opportunities and topics for my PhD dissertation being unveiled, without my pushing them.

I know it won’t be easy when some decide to be contemptuous.

But I’m ready.

I'll pay for content when there's Twitter with penguins

mediamum — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:57:27 +0000

Usually, I don’t consciously pay for content. I say ‘consciously’ because if I click on a link and there’s a paywall, I won’t do it. I also don’t subscribe to any newspapers or magazines (online or in ‘dead tree’ format). Basically, the quality of the content I’m seeing doesn’t make me want to pay for more of it.

Mr Murdoch does have the right idea. Getting people to pay for content is definitely a way forward. But News Corp. is missing the biggest opportunity they have. It’s a global organization, and while about 1% of their content producers are the best in the world, they are still.. the best. Why doesn’t News identify that globally based 1%, and put it in a paid-for format? At a really, really high price?

If Mr Murdoch thinks that I, or anyone else, will pay for the other 99% of his writers who are complete crap, then he’s mistaken. I’d rather read the far more professional blogs, with the diversity of opinions and transparency News cannot offer.

After freelancing, creating content for a few different publishers it also appears that organizations don’t like to pay their contributors. Waiting six months for a payment on any work done is not a viable business model. I don’t know why some people think it’s all hunky dory. And it’s been this way for many years.

So I don’t pay for content, and I’m wary of accepting any freelance job at all these days. Because I simply don’t like waiting to be paid when my time is better spent on more pressing things.

But my kids? That’s another thing entirely. I currently pay for three social network memberships. And while I’m a member of about 15 social networks, none of these payments are for me. They’re for my kids. My kids totally expect to pay to get access to information, community and technology. They’re growing up with a pay-for-it frame of mind. At the moment it’s a mum-pay-for-it model, and I’m fine with that because the quality of content accessed by my kids on networks like Club Penguin is really worth $5.95 a month. It’s a vibrant community, with great quality stuff. If organizations continue to treat them this way, by the time they’re my age they’ll be paying for content, and believing they should.

But a key part will be getting rid of the 99% of crap for adults and creating something worth subscribing to. We need a Club Penguin for grown ups.

Sidebar: For the “something shiny” HCI people: Twitter with penguins. Now we’re talking.

NestleFamily, breastfeeding and social media

mediamum — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:43:28 +0000

I have a great amount of data from the recent NestleFamily twitterstorm. Luckily, I was able to see the storm coming. As a few of the attendees began tweeting about meeting up a few days prior to the start of #NestleFamily, I could see that there was going to be some fallout. My interest had been piqued a few months earlier with the Nestle “What’s for Dinner” junket that received some backlash (which I was a part of, albeit briefly).

Even though I was prepared for it, I doubt anyone saw the enormity and longevity of the community’s outrage. The tail of it is still going. This was a key happening on Twitter, and it had far more impact than the Motrin Moms speedbump. I would argue that Twitter’s community has morphed again as a result. Focus on the types of junkets mommy/daddybloggers who call themselves “PR friendly” accept, and what it says about who they are doesn’t happen in a vacuum. There were real responses from the community. Many negative. This great post by cynematic discusses this responsibility further.

My research

I manually copied thousands of tweets using the #NestleFamily hashtag. I also created an online survey that people were invited to complete during the twitterstorm. I’m very excited to have that data. The 66 completed responses are authentic, grabbed at the time it was all happening, and the qualitative survey responses are about as true to real emotion as you can get – people were telling me what they were doing at the same time as doing it. That’s not easy to get when questioning people about their about online activity. When I write it up it will be a chapter in my thesis, and probably a paper/conference presentation as well. I’m going to write up a short version of the results and post it here on my blog soon.

The most positive outcome has been the amazing work done by Annie, aka @PhDinParenting, who took the opportunity to ask some very pointed questions of Nestle. Nestle has been responding to her questions, so good on them. And Annie has posted their responses in the best, most transparent means possible. She then adds her own analysis and research, with links that are exhaustive, informed and inspiring. It is her work that represents the future of real journalism. It’s why I say that the future of journalism is social.

My question to Nestle

I kept largely out of the limelight on this twitterstorm so as not to taint the data I was collecting. I did, however, want to find out Nestle’s views on the dismal rate of breastfeeding in the USA. Nestle promotes its substitute milk in the USA, and with the USA’s very low rate of exclusive infant breastfeeding at 6 months of age, I wanted to find out what they thought about it all. I submitted the question as follows:

As a premier substitute baby milk manufacturer and marketer in the USA, I’d like to know what your opinion is about the fact that the rate of exclusive breastfeeding in the USA lies at just 12%, when the WHO says it recommends 100% exclusivity for the first six months.

Your Nestle site states that WHO is the “gold standard” so I’m assuming you would agree this statistic is troubling.

Why do you believe this statistic exists? Do you think it can change? And if so, how?

It took a few weeks (I think Nestle lost my question, and then located it when I enquired again about their response), but their response is here:

Thank you for contacting us. We apologize for the delay in our response and we appreciate your patience.

At Nestlé Nutrition we support the positions of the American Academy of Pediatrics and WHO that exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of age is best. The most recent statistics from the 2008 CDC Breastfeeding Report Card (2006 data) show that the national average from exclusive breastfeeding is around 13.6%, which is below the Health (sic) People 2010 goal of 17%.

According to the CDC Infant Feeding Practices Study (IFPS) II (http://www.cdc.gov/ifps/ , there are many reasons why mothers might stop breastfeeding, ranging from difficulty with sucking and latching to worries about producing enough milk. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/122/Supplement_2/S69#T2

We believe that optimal infant health is truly the goal and we advocate for more infant feeding support and education for mothers, regardless of whether they breastfeed, formula feed or both.

We are encouraged by the improvements reported in breastfeeding initiation and duration and will continue our efforts to educate and encourage mothers to give their babies a healthy start. That includes providing education and resources for her, and if she cannot or chooses not to breastfeed, or chooses to supplement her breastmilk, we provide high quality, iron-fortified infant formula-the only safe and healthy alternative to breastmilk.

Robyn Wimberly RD,LD.
Nestle Nutrition Contact Center

So there you go. I have my own thoughts on this response. The final paragraph, to me, is just disgraceful – it’s written very poorly. It seems to be saying that Nestle’s substitute formula is the only “safe and healthy alternative to breastmilk.” I know that those words “safe and healthy” are definitely not something I agree with. But I’m a breastfeeding advocate, ex-journalist and PR queen, and am used to spin. I have done the research. I know what I know and have made up my own mind. The US Government has initiated the Healthy People plan, but where breastfeeding rates are concerned it is failing – and it doesn’t reflect the WHO “gold standard” referred to on Nestle’s own site. There are holes all over this response. The last paragraph made me wince. I think Annie does a brilliant job of dissecting these responses and calling out the holes. I’m not going to do that here. I recommend you read all of Annie’s work, and if interested in more, you can read my short research blog piece on Breastfeeding in America, see the Ignite presentation, or email me for the full papers to see how the numbers stack up. And then make up your own mind.

So what does all this mean?

Now, I know that this storm has ended up being thrown in the “too hard” basket by many people on both sides of the fence, as well as those who sit on top of that same fence. Statistics are being used pragmatically. Manipulation of data is rife. There’s aggravation, and it becomes personal for many who feel attacked by even discussing it. For many, it sucked the ‘fun’ out of Twitter.

But the fact is, this milestone proved the resilience of the microblogging community. It’s opened a conversation that will bind the community even more solidly. It’s given us a view of people that we didn’t know before. People to both connect with, disconnect from, and understand better, even if they disagree with us. If Twitter were really nothing more than messages about eating candy and frozen dinners, then this storm wouldn’t exist. People have taken it upon themselves to get better educated about something they might not have known about before. They were provided links and questions. They had the opportunity to follow up, and go deeper into the issues than they have ever been led by mainstream media, and Nestle ended up without the buffer of media to spin their messages to.

Key Learnings

For the community: Mainstream media is no longer an excuse for not knowing about stuff. The depth of information you have is up to you and your attention span. That’s a hard responsibility to own. In Nestle’s case, I congratulate anyone (including some attendees) who tried to find out more information or followed it up, no matter where you ultimately sit on the ‘issues’. I challenge those who simply sought an easy path and blindly continued tweeting Nestle-friendly inane statements on Twitter, without addressing any of the twitterstorm. It won’t, in the longer term, help your credibility in the community. The really influential people in this equation can be easily identified. And that’s awesome.

For companies: You don’t get to own your messages any more. Social media represents a revolution, not an evolution. It’s another tool in your promotional strategy, but you have to be ready for the real conversation. The one where your comments get called on. The one you don’t direct. And you will never have the last word unless the community deems it to be okay.