Write across media

The Kony phenomenon

When my 12-year-old friend Maya sent me an email with a link to Kony 2012 (a simple but impersonal 'check out this video on YouTube' and URL) on 12 March, I thought her laptop had succumbed to a virus.

But Maya was standing up to be counted, just like hundreds of thousands of other children and young people. In a blog post titled ‘9 marketing lessons from Kony 2012’, Sean X Cummings observes that one of the most telling statistics from the YouTube data in the first days of the Kony 2012 campaign was that the video was most influential with girls and boys aged 13-17. 

‘This was a bottom up campaign that started with children, to influence the “culturemakers”, to influence their parents, to influence politicians,’ writes Cummings, summarising this phenomenon as a ‘demographic influencer cascade’.

Social justice campaigners in Australia are now attempting to take advantage of the spotlight shining on child soldiers.

A new experiment in online broadcast media, 3Q – Questions That Count, this week features an interview with Tim O’Connor from UNICEF Australia, during which he warns that Kony 2012 must yield results or risk disillusioning Gen Y. Like me, O’Connor first heard about the Kony video from his 13-year-old nephew.

3Q – Questions That Count is a weekly show broadcast at www.essentialvision.com.au that is the brainchild of Essential Media Communications. The media agency says it’s a new way of telling stories, and presenting opinion poll results, using self-produced broadcast-quality video. Former Triple J reporter Sarah Macdonald hosts the panel-based talk show. Every week, she poses three questions to three guests and then opens up the discussion to the panel.

As well as the panel show, Essential Vision also provides a link to ‘five lessons aid agencies can take from Kony 2012 to promote their own cause’. Interestingly, the original title for this list (a blog post by Maja Rode) was ‘five lessons brands can learn from Kony 2012’. There's no doubt there’s something in this for everyone.

Ten things you can do

The first Australian screening dates have been announced for The Burning Season and we've launched a companion site at www.tenthingsyoucando.com, which has been designed to give audiences who see the documentary some practical suggestions about how they can bring about positive change. The philosophy of this web site is based on the belief that the future does not have to be scary - sustainability and abundance are possible. As one of the proud supporters of the site (and the person who produced it with the help of designer Nathan Betts and web developer Yari McGauley) I sincerely hope it helps us work together to create a future based on renewable energies and operating systems that value and respect the natural world.

Global vote: is capitalism dead?

Even though I am travelling at the moment and away from my daily news routine, I haven't been able to escape the mainstream media images of the Wall Street stock market meltdown. Let's hope that the Phoenix that emerges from the ashes is one majestic bird.

In the meantime, my friend and fellow journalist Kaye Blum has forwarded me an email from her friend Paul, an expat Australian now living in Spain. Paul and his friend Ricky Maard have just launched a web site called Global Votes (globalvotes.net), where they say "anyone with an internet connection can vote in surveys and polls with worldwide implications". On the home page, Global Votes claims to be a "a prototype for a new system of world government of the people, by the people, for the people; a survey method in which all citizens of Earth can express their hopes and requests and have them heard." 

At the moment Global Votes features only one issue for voting, the 2008 US election.  Paul says in his email: "I have long felt that the choice of the so-called 'leader of the free world' is too important a choice to be left solely to citizens of the United States.  After all, look what a bad choice they've made the last couple of times!  So if you feel the same as me, here is your chance to have your say. Even though our vote won't count of course for the official election, if we can get enough people around the world to express their opinion, we hope that the result may have an influence on the voting choices of some Americans."

While the concept of self-selection, opt-in voting runs counter to everything I have learned as a journalist/commentator who specialises in writing about the market and social research industry (which prides itself on statistically representative sampling), Global Votes is nevertheless an intriguing concept and I was reassured by their privacy policy, which advises that any subpoena or attempts by government agencies or private sector organisations to gain access to any information that you give Global Votes will be vigorously challenged.

It is necessary to register to vote and (unfortunately) to see any of the results tallied. I think they should show you the tally before you register. There's something very compelling about seeing figures updating in real time.*

Given the turmoil in the US financial market in recent days, I can also suggest one more topic for Global Votes: Is capitalism dead?

* Paul contacted me in response to this blog (good on him!) and advised:

"The statistics are now up to date and you can view the statistics page without having to vote. Unfortunately the survey program we are using at the moment does not not update the stats in real time, they are updated on a daily basis. We plan to remedy this in the near future. Is Capitalism Dead is a good suggestion for the next vote - we are working on it..."

Where are the midwives?

I know I said I wouldn't blog about anything other than the iPhone today, but there is an interesting campaign currently doing the email rounds, after 60 Minutes ran a story called 'Birth Choices' on Sunday night. The email, from Tara Darlington at Blue Dakini Productions, encourages people to write to Media Watch or the 60 Minutes Mail Bag. Blue Dakini believes the report was biased because it did not include an interview with a home birth midwife. I am not sure how I got on their mailing list but it may be because I run an online store that sells Losing Layla and Birth at Home by Dr David Miller. Anyway, worth checking out if you agree that the 'medical profession' intervenes too much...

You can find out more from Tara Darlington on 0405 456 617.

Fabi the whale travels Oz for Visual Petition

A few months ago my good friend, business colleague and mad keen surfer Russell Green from RUCC Pty Ltd told me about Visual Petition, and asked me for my support. Visual Petition is a global petition for the conservation of marine animals, backed by Byron local and soul surfer Dave Rastovich and numerous other surfing luminaries. Jack Johnson, Kelly Slater, Andy Irons, Wolfmother, Missy Higgins, Xavier Rudd, Mick Fanning, Ben Harper, Taj Burrow and many more have added their names to the growing petition. But they also gave it a face, many faces.

Only a few nights after I joined the petition - and gave it a very unfamous face - another good friend of mine, the fabulous Fabiola, offered to make a paper mache whale for me to take to Melbourne, where I was attending a 40th birthday party - the ideal setting to collect more pictures/signatures. Fabi the whale was born.

Surfers for Cetaceans, the group behind the Visual Petition, will be attending the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Chile in June 2008, where it  will be printing out all of the visual petitions onto three huge banners, to be presented to the IWC delegates and the international media in protest of the dolphin and whale killing.

Fabi the whale has since been embraced by almost 100 people and pictures of her now form part of the 'petition wall', which will become the banners presented at the IWC meeting. You can see part of the petition wall, starring Fabi the whale of course, by clicking on the link below.

View part of the petition wall, starring Fabi the whale

The full petition wall is online at http://www.visualpetition.com/slippages/petitionwall.php