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Natalie C. Rodic - My Blog
Natalie C. Rodic - My Blog


Hear a mosaic of languages and people reading The Declaration
About this commitment: Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

http://tigurl.org/y66b54
World Voices Project Is A Mosaic of Recordings of people reading the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights in their native language.

It is being presented right now in New York City's South Street Seaport but will soon travel to other spots in the world.

If you thought you could only appreciate the concepts found within this declaration, this sound installation might make you change your mind. It is like music.

You can hear it and learn more by visiting the website:http://www.worldvoicesproject.org/

~gNatalie

July 31, 2008 | 5:05 PM Comments  0 comments



MIXING IN THE SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

In preparing to attend the Ypulse Mashup in San Francisco this week, perhaps I was overly hopeful that there would be a well-rounded sharing, comparing, and contrasting of best practices between the private sector and the non-profit world in addressing the issues of youth media and marketing to youth. While there was a socially-conscious awareness element to many of the presentations, the emphasis was clearly on selling products. I mean, it is all selling, I understand that. Whether we are selling soft drinks or awareness on the importance of conserving water for future generations, we are all selling something. And while those of us in non-profits can learn a lot from those in the private sector that have funds to invest in marketing and advertising and who have staff with extensive training in it, the converse is also true. The private sector has a lot to learn from best practices of the non-profits who make so much happen in the realm of youth media with so little resources and little or no budget for marketing. This blog is a response to the observation that the audience at the conference was clearly wanting more in the way of the socially-conscious piece of the greater discussion. In numerous panels there was a question from the audience on how the corporate entity that was presenting planned to incorporate helping causes into their work. The movement of the private sector wanting and needing to support altruistic causes is on a rapid upturn, which was mentioned occasionally here and there. But cases where this is happening was not amplified in this conference.

The socially-conscious piece wasn't entirely absent though. Even while MTV is no struggling non-profit, at least a good portion of their work is focused on increasing awareness and action on social issues as well as civic enagement and social responsibility. The presence of Ian Rowe from Think.MTV and Carl Brown, a member of the MTV Street Team '08 added that element of what youth of today are capable of achieving in the realm of civic participation and also how digital media is capable of empowering them to make change. Socialvibe.com was also present, an organization who has created an innovative way of merging consumerism with good causes on an aesthetically-pleasing web platform.

There were a few other panels that I attended which touched on holistic approaches to using media for positive social change as well as the societal implications of participatory media and emerging technologies.

In the panel: "Totally Wired Hip Hop: Reaching Urban Youth", the overall message was that urban youth are often misunderstood and often avoided out of the fear that they are unapproachable. MC Hammer made the point that there are rappers in almost every community who want to give back to the community and are willing to comply with cleaning up their verbiage for young audiences. In discussing why rappers use profanity and harsh language, he pointed out the fact that this is what they are exposed to from an early age. He revealed that the solution for urban angst and relief from conditions of growing up in poverty and surrounded by violence is to address the conditions which the rappers are coming from and to give at-risk youth the tools to make content to share their stories. Great point, but then I had to wonder why smaller non-profits like Bay Area Video Coalition or YouthOutlook, who were present, weren't on the stage to say, "Agreed! That's why we've been doing what we're doing for quite some time now. And here is what we have found..." There was definitely a lack of voices from the experiences of the non-profit world who are focused entirely on the civic participation and positive social change angle.

The conversation in the panel "Are Girls the New Geeks" was a great contribution and a boost to the conference's socially-conscious factor. Nancy Gruver of New Moon Girl Media, a leading figure in the world of empowering girls through media creation mentioned that boys respond more to competition while girls respond more strongly to expressing themselves. While the word "geek" has up-to-date held implications of socially inept indivdual who were more comfortable interacting with code than with real live humans, girls are re-defining this term (along with the advent of all these social media tools). It was stated in this panel that girls are by and large the stronger content creators on the web today. Even as a mini case study, the last contest we ran on ymex.org, 100% of the user-created content that was submitted to the World Population Day Media contest was created by girls, mostly aged 17 to 19. The question posed early on in the panel was, "What is making girls such avid digital media creators?" The answer given was that technology has given girls greater access to sharing the creativity and expression that has always inside them. I am not sure if the case could be made that this is the same for guys because unfortunately there weren't any on the panel. It would have been interesting to have a teen guy present or perhaps even a director from a guy-oriented website like Loop'd. To have a guy perspective on the girl topic would most likely make the girl theories uphold under challenges from the guy perspective. It would have added dynamics to the conversation (and perhaps less male members of the audience would have dropped out).

Lastly the panel on Preventing Cyberbullying inevitably touched on socially-relevant matters. Linda Burch of Common Sense Media raised the all important question to all participants: With most of the mainstream media, the news, [and politicians] emphasizing cattiness and humiliation, how do we flip that around into positively-focused, civically-engaged citizens? Hemanshu Nigam, the Chief Security Officer for MySpace.com raised the point that cyberbullying is simply bullying and that old adage the bullying "is simply a part of growing up" needs to be sorted out. "Is it really a part of growing up?", he asked. The issue of bullying has been brought to light in the digital world but we as a society need to tackle it as an on- and off-line issue, simply as an overall important issue. Denise Restauri of Alleykatzz.com pointed out that bullying happens online stronger because its anonymous. You have to be popular to bully others on the school yard, but online you can bully anyone. Further good advice, words-to-the-wise were "self-reflect before you self-reveal; don't say something online that you wouldn't say in real life".

Despite all my criticism kudos to Anastasia and YPulse for even bringing together such a mixed-up mashup of representatives from many different worlds and creating a space for some really dynamic conversations. The worlds of the private and non-profit sector are wildly different and although we're constantly looking for crossovers and ways to work together, the models and means are quite different and don't always strike a balance. But the attempts should continue in order to find a sustainable future and a balanced environment for the youth of today and tomorrow.

July 18, 2008 | 5:23 PM Comments  0 comments





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