Table of Contents and PDF of Introduction by Megan Boler (pps. 1-51)

1. Two reviews of Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times, November 2009, Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies http://rccs.usfca.edu/bookinfo
2. Hamilton, James F. (2008) Review of Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times, edited by Megan Boler, in Social Movement Studies 3,319-322.
3. Neural: Media- Art- Hactivism, online journal since 1993 http://www.neural.it/art/2008/11/edited_by_megan_boler_digital.phtml
4. Michelle Stack, University of British Columbia, Canada, Paideusis, Volume 17 (2008), No. 2, pp. 99-102 Review of Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times by Megan Boler (Ed.),Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2008
5. Feminist Review Connections: Monthly Online Reviews http://feministreview.blogspot.com/2008/10/connections-brittany-shoot-and-allyson.html
6. Online Information Review, David Stuart,  vol. 32. No. 5 pps. 689-90. October 2008.

i presented new material on ‘truthiness, dissent, and  an ‘ontology of truth’ (moving away from epistemology and towards understanding the forces behind ontology of truth–sounds fancy, but in the talk was able to show and tell with great examples: joe wilson ‘you lie,’ TDS clips, Bushin30 Second vids, etc)… using the work of jacques Ranciere (disagreement, police order, what counts as noise/audible/heard) and Nietzsche to make sense of how, in our sshrc interviews with digital dissent bloggers and video-makers, these folks struggle with truth:truthtelling:lies of media and politicans.  i break it down  to analyze moral truth, epistemological truth, truth as productive force..(and what about rhetoric? someone asked afterwards) .  many thanks to etienne turpin and kelly ladd as i prepared…and super thanks to dr. caroline bassett who offered a provocative response to the keynote with excellent suggestions.  looking forward to writing this up, hopefully with turpin, for CJC or ctheory or shorter version for first monday…

http://ir10.aoir.org/?page_id=99

Tonight Thursday October 15, 2009 on The Agenda on TVO will commence with a 15-minute 1×1 interview with Lawrence Lessig, on his essay “Against Transparency” in The New Republic.

Followed by a panel discussion on Digital Activism with Dr. Megan Boler (University of Toronto), Evgeny Morozov (Foreign Policy) and Andrew Rasiej (Personal Democracy Forum),  and Ms. Leona Hobbs from Social Media Group.

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009, 5 PM to 7 PM
Fountain Room, National Arts Centre, Ottawa

The panel will be webcast live on our website.
Web participants will be invited to submit their questions online.

Opening remarks by
The Honourable Steven John Fletcher,
Minister of State (Democratic Reform)
Wael Abbas, renowned Egyptian journalist,
blogger and human rights activist

Megan Boler, Professor at the University of Toronto,
author of Digital Media and Democracy

Micheline (Mika) Lévesque, Program Officer at Rights & Democracy, and project manager for supporting Democratic Voice of Burma’s
underground journalists

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009, 5 PM to 7 PM
Fountain Room, National Arts Centre, Ottawa

Simultaneous translation.

Free public event by RSVP: [ http://www.dd-rd.ca/seminar2 ]www.dd-rd.ca/seminar2
[ http://www.dd-rd.ca/site/media/index.php?id=3036&subsection=news ]http://www.dd-rd.ca/site/media/index.php?id=3036&subsection;=news

The panel will be webcasted live on our website.
Web participants will be invited to submit their questions online.
Details available on the day of the event at http://www.dd-rd.ca/seminar2 ]www.dd-rd.ca/seminar2

]]> http://www.meganboler.net/2009/10/04/panel-october-7-new-media-and-repressive-regimes/feed/ 0 http://www.meganboler.net/2009/05/21/how-canadians-feel-about-sharing-information-online/ http://www.meganboler.net/2009/05/21/how-canadians-feel-about-sharing-information-online/#comments Thu, 21 May 2009 15:49:35 +0000 adam http://www.meganboler.net/?p=737 Delvinia is a Toronto-based company that helps other companies understand the internet and make it a better place. In order to be useful to their clients they study online culture, and recently they released research into how Canadians use social networking sites and how they feel about sharing their personal information.

Personally, their findings give me a little hope because people seem to understand that blindly sharing their info isn’t a good idea. Still, there is room for improvement as to communicating the reasons why people shouldn’t put all their info online.

Another reason that people should be hesitant to share their lives online is that social networking sites don’t delete photos even if the user thinks that they have.

Delvina’s study can be downloaded here.

SOCIAL NETWORKING
Highlights about Canada’s view towards Social Networking include:

- 83% of female Canadians aged 18-30 feel digital technology allows for easier social connections, compared to their male counterparts at 76%.

- Only 6% of NGen and 4% of Gen X report visiting recent media darling, Twitter, in the last month. The same as other, less talked about social networks including Hi5, DIGG and Tagged.

- There is a significant difference between how frequently Canadians visit social network sites vs. post content. YouTube experiences the greatest difference between views and posts – for example, while 83% of NGen visited YouTube only 6% posted content. While 59% of Boomers visited the site, only 4% posted content.

(1) Unique web-based methodology: First, we are developing an innovative and experimental web-based methodology: rather than conducting the traditional “confidential” interviews, we interview female videobloggers within the very medium they themselves have chosen for public, creative, and political expression: YouTube. We will develop interview questions in a You Tube video post (filmed and posted by Kelly Ladd, under the supervision of the Dr. Megan Boler) and the female videobloggers will respond through their own YouTube channels and videopost responses. Thus the research conversation will be (a) immediately transparent and open to the public; (b) “answers” will remain under the participants’ “ownership,” thereby creating a new model of open access and transparency of research process too often hidden by traditional ethics protocols. Participants will control their own confidentiality concerns by filming their own responses and choosing how and what they wish to publish on YouTube.
(2) New research directions regarding women’s online practices. Through an online survey of 300 women vloggers and through our in-depth interviews, we aim to explore vloggers’ insights regarding
• diverse expressions of gendered identities,
• online audiences and cross-gender dialogue and response,
• our Open Access Research Design using their platform of choice, YouTube
• women’s under-representation within web-based communities

(3) Making Research Public through Digital Media: Our final aim through our “YouTube Research Channel” is to enable and invite public comments and response. Though this open and transparent process we aim to engage scholars, students, and wider publics in research that is usually “black boxed” and not made public until years after the research has been conducted. Our project will demonstrate how innovative social tools such as YouTube can be effectively used for social science and humanities research to engage subjects as collaborative peer experts. Our innovative approach to posting interviews through online YouTube videos and having participants respond via videoposts, in turn commented on by the public, allows for a truly open access, collaborative, and public research process.

Researcher Vlog:

>

Vlogger Profiles:

nutcheese

Style: Improv

Joined: March 11, 2006

Videos Watched: 20,301

Subscribers: 5,320

Channel Views: 177,693

Age: 32

Influences: Q-tip
Similar To: Your mom

Potty humor makes me laugh.

City: San Francisco
Country: United States

nutcheese is one of the most “subscribed to” lesbian vloggers. She has a “diary style” vlog. Her largest collection of videos chronicle her difficulties in living in a “ghetto” in San Francisco, there are 28 “Ghetto Videos”. Her videos feature everything from interviews with her alcoholic, screaming neighbor and her joy at seeing a new carpet installed in the hallway.

atree3

Style: VLogging

Joined: June 02, 2007

Videos Watched: 4,949

Subscribers: 693

Channel Views: 24,154

Age: 78

Country: United States

atree3 has a very eclectic collection of videos. A large number of her videos are dedicated to quilting. She meticulously chronicles quilt making and offers quilting advice. atree3 is very outspoken and her videos are often about sex and ageism.

powderpink

Joined: July 30, 2006

Videos Watched: 11,993

Subscribers: 3,044

Welcome to my little piece of the Tube.

Name: najah

“I’m nothing special. Just your everyday sistah. Jack of all trades Master of none. I would like to say that I have definitely lived and learned so feel free to drop in a get a little bit of my insight on things”

“So your gyrl is on a weight loss mission.I’ll keep you all updated {{{If you care}}”

powderpink’s vlogs are very personal. Her vlogs are about everything from work to her struggle with weight loss and her relationship with her girlfriend. Her largest collection of videos is called “Cocktail Conversations” where she and friends converse over martinis. She also vlogs while in the bathtub in a segment called “Bathtime Babble”.

BeanerLaRue

Style: Parody

Joined: December 14, 2007

Videos Watched: 47,159

Subscribers: 11,856

Channel Views: 257,156

I’m a professional actress in stage & film
A trained singer & dancer who also
Models & performs burlesque

BeanerLarue makes videos satirizing media figures — for example OctoMom. She collaborates with other highly trafficked users, most notably olgakay and xgobobeansx. The videos have a moderately high production value and BeanerLarue is utilizing YouTube as way to get increased exposure as an actress.

Tobie2

Style: VLogging

Joined: April 18, 2006

Videos Watched: 17,747

Subscribers: 721

Channel Views: 24,543

“If we elimate the extremes, we run the risk of becoming them” SLD

Tobie2 is an outspoken lesbian vlogger. Her videos, while often parodic and sometimes very personal, are always concerned with gender representation and gender divisions online. In one video she addresses the difference in online presence of gay males vs. gay female vloggers. Her catchphrase “Welcome to my hair” has caught on among other vloggers.

three recent media appearances:

January 16, 2009 The art of Obama, Dave McGinn

http://www.nationalpost.com/arts/story.html?id=1185377

Jan 13, 2009 INAUGURATION HYPE: Buying into Obama, Andrea Gordon

“It’s all part of an era of rampant consumption, viral online marketing, cheap mass marketing”

http://www.thestar.com/living/Shopping/article/569834

January 16, Global TV News Hour
The Presidential Inauguration

http://www.globaltv.com/globaltv/ontario/video/index.html

video for canadians

via boingboing

Just witness some of the major respected U.S. news outlets including the Chicago Tribune as part of the Tribune Company filing for bankruptcy, the San Jose Mercury News as part of MediaNews facing deep cuts, The Denver Post facing the axe, and eminent news feeds like Reuters forced to join with online upstart Politico Network while print, broadcast, and cable news shrink their news staff and news rooms, putting thousands of journalists out of work…

perhaps the fate of newspapers will be to do good not through informing citizens but warming them, as in this story of making coats for homeless people with shredded newspaper lining.
One Man’s Vision for Newspapers’ Future, as Insulation

Keep up to date on the latest through this useful index of NY Times news stories on the fate of news and technologies:
Times Topics: Newspapers

All I know thus far is that they claim they closed due to a lack of volunteers, but social media site Reddit has a submission implying that there is more to the story involving the Canadian Human Rights Commission.