Last week, Heads of State from over 100 countries met in Copenhagen to negotiate an International agreement to tackle climate change in what has been described as humanity’s last chance to deal with the crisis.

As millions watched in hope, citizens’ organisations launched an unprecedented global effort to influence the summit, and ensure a fair and binding treaty.

The ‘ tck tck tck ‘ campaign, an alliance of over 200 organisations working together for climate justice has created a unique campaigning platform, to mobilise over 100, 000 people on the streets of Copenhagen, and a further 15 million people around the world in a range of actions from candlelight vigils to flash mobs and street marches.

Describing the approach, Campaign Director Ben Margolis explains how they have used a combination of offline action and online coordination mobilise strategically with targeted campaigns: “On December 12^th we launched a global day of action called ‘The World Wants a Real Deal’, over  3000 candlelight vigils were organised in 139 countries. If it wasn’t for digital media our efforts may have gone unnoticed, but we were heard loud and clear and images of citizen action were broadcast across the world.”

To capture images from local events the campaign set up a flickr photostream, all partner websites contained an email link where event organisers could send photos, which were automatically added to the photostream.  Teams of digital campaigners in various time zones would then tag and sort the photographs according to media relevance, country and picture quality.

While photos provided a useful resource, video content was also seen as crucial for securing press coverage. However the campaign team faced the triple challenge of collecting video, accessing suitable formats finding capacity for professional editing.

To address this, tck tck tck subscribed to a new online service hosted by ‘Citizen Global’. This web-based service allowed the team to create a collaborative online studio including the necessary tools to edit, mix and remix clips at broadcast quality. Individuals and partners were able to upload video content directly to a climate change project space, where staff and volunteers could also edit and process incoming content and issue it for distribution to media networks through RSS and other forms of syndication.

”Within a matter of hours, 526 videos were uploaded to Citizen Global and over 12, 000 photographs were received on our flickr photostream. We were all quite astonished, we could never have collated this much content in such a short time without these tools, we received hundreds of incredible videos we could then use for advocacy”, explained Sam Mclean, a digital campaigner for partner organisation, Avaaz.org.

(To see an example of what can be produced see The World Wants a Real Deal Video )

In order to promote these digital assets, tck tck tck harnessed the power of social media releases (SMRs) using a web-based tool call ‘Pitch Engine’. This allowed any supporter or partner to produce their own press release instantly co branded with tck tck tck; this release could be indexed by Google within hours and posted to twitter, digg and other social media sites, linking to relevant digital assets on flickr and Citizen Global. Journalists could access a suite of content to support their stories whether they were reporting locally, nationally or internationally. Bloggers supporting the campaign were also able to use this content in their posts and generate ‘chatter’ which is often picked up by mainstream media.

“This was the first time we used this strategy. Our goal was to deliver a powerful message and it was of course very risky. We effectively relinquished control of media production and messaging, but our reach and influence increased significantly and we provided people with the logos and a broad template” Said Karina Brisby, Head of Digital for partner organisation Oxfam.

SMS text messaging also played a role. The Clickatel service allowed tck tck tck partners to communicate with each other, organise flash mobs and respond rapidly to developments at the summit. In one instance where negotiations were ignoring the needs of Small Island States, vulnerable to climate change, the campaign team were able to organise a flash mob using SMS to contact accredited civil society delegates inside the conference centre.

‘Google sites’ allowed organisers to develop a knowledge hub with contact details, key documents, schedules, location maps, news updates and meeting minutes as well as a rapid response list serve.. “The Google site provided an instant intranet for partners and organisations to work together in our advocacy efforts and share intelligence. This had a significant impact on our ability to respond rapidly to developments within the summit and deploy resources as needed” explained Jean-Marc Mangin, Executive Director of the Global Call for Climate Action (GCCA).

Looking under the hood of civil society campaigning at Copenhagen, it is clear that a new form of advocacy is emerging, mobilisation has moved beyond national campaigns, global challenges have necessitated a new form of citizen action, where digital technology is enabling people to act together across borders. Organisations are developing the capacity to respond rapidly and build targeted campaigns to influence change.

As the dust settles on a Summit and hope of a fair and legally binding climate deal fades, perhaps new hope lies not in the capacity of world leaders to find solutions, but in the power of the new global activism. Was Copenhagen simply a moment in the political calendar, or the birth of a new and powerfully equipped citizens movement?

For mothers of children diagnosed with autism, Jessica’s experience is a grim reminder of how devastatingly draining autism is for families who have to cope with its hardships day-in and day-out. An estimated 1.5 million people in the United States have autism, and according to the American Centers for Disease Control, the disease affects 1 in 110 children across the nation.  

 Autism is a form of developmental disorder that affects information processing in the brain by changing how nerve cells and their synapses connect and organize.  Individuals with this disorder are challenged with impaired social interaction, limited communication, and restricted and repetitive behavior.  The families of those affected face daily struggles in performing the most common and mundane activities, from going grocery shopping to going to the movies or a restaurant. Not to mention the emotional and financial toll that comes with countless hours of treatments and therapies, even once those affected reach adulthood.

 As statistics rise, so do the number of organizations and businesses that help families deal with the disorder.  One such organization is Autism Speaks. 

Autism Speaks is dedicated to raising public awareness about the effects of autism has on families and society, and to funding global biomedical research of the causes, prevention, treatment and care of the disorder.  The organization advocates for the government and the private sector to hear concerns and be decisive to address autism as a global health crisis.

Founded in 2005 by Bob and Suzanne Wright, grandparents of a child with the disorder, Autism Speaks is a young organization that has made great strides to achieve its goals and serve families dealing with autism.  Its biggest advocacy successes are reflected in the passing of bills that aid the autism community throughout the country.  “Fifteen states now have insurance coverage for autism, and we are pushing the federal government to commit the dollars that the Obama Administration promised they would give,” says Mark Sirkin, Chief Community Officer at Autism Speaks.

The organization’s accomplishments are due to a dedicated staff, a myriad of events and advocacy efforts, and its visibility in online social networks.  Autism Speaks started its online outreach immediately after its inception, and established its presence in social media a year ago, and now has pages in Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Ning.  The organization leverages the medium to both provide information and cultivate donor support. “The primary audience is people directly affected by autism, like parents, families, people who have autism themselves who are able to communicate with us.  We use social media for fund raising purposes as well,” says Sirkin. 

Social media has enhanced Autism Speaks’ reach and advocacy endeavors, as well as broadened the scope of its audience and donor pool.  “Where social networks have a huge utility is in how you organize all that stuff,” says Sirkin referring to the many advocacy activities the organization sets up, like walks and state and federal initiatives. “I think the power of Twitter and Facebook to coordinate, organize and mobilize people to go do something is pretty incredible,” he notes.

With close to 67 thousand fans on Facebook and around 4,000 followers on Twitter, Autism speaks is able to manage a growing constituency and an increasingly new donor demographic.  “Facebook has been a huge opportunity for us to extend our reach into the network and find new fans, new donors, new walkers and new families that are looking for our services,” explains Sirkin.  “We are also adding a lot of younger donors because of social media,” he says.

Even with the extent to which conversations enabled by online social networks contribute to Autism Speaks communication strategy, direct E-Mail communications are still immensely valuable for the organization to promote its causes and service families.  “It is really important, way more important, to get someone’s E-Mail address than it is to click the follow up button.  I believe that the social network conversation is really the first part of the funnel to try to get E-Mail addresses, so we can cultivate relationships even further,” explains Sirkin.

For such a young, small non-profit, Autism Speaks has managed to turn up the volume on public outreach, and leverage social media networks to increase its conversations with the public at large and garner new donors.  Autism Speaks and Twitts its way forward.

The Iranian anti-government movement took an innovative step that revealed the capabilities and potentials of new media in social mobilization.  This new phase of movement began with Iranian men posting pictures of themselves on social networks such as Facebook wearing women’s headscarves as a political statement after the arrest of a student protester, Majid Tavakoli. The day after his arrest, an Iranian news agency (Fars), which is close to the Revolutionary Guard, published a picture of Tavakoli dressed in women clothing and a headscarf.  Fars reported that the man had been caught wearing an all-covering woman’s Islamic dress in an attempt to hide himself and avoid arrest.  The news agency concluded that such actions were a “permanent stain on the illegal student movement.”

Majid Tavakoli was arrested after his speech on December 7^th, a large student-led protests where he explicitly denounced Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, and urged students to reject his dictatorship.  In the Web campaigns calling for his release, Iranian oppositions have posted hundreds of photos online of men in women’s clothing to mock what they say was a government attempt to humiliate the activist and discredit the opposition.  Many of them accused authorities of forcing Tavakoli into women’s clothing and photographing him.  Others claimed that the pictures might have been digitally manipulated.

The online backlash underlined the power of an image in the cyber-based political participation.  Many of the published pictures were whimsical self-portraits.  Iranian men wore the similar scarf that they believed Mr. Tavakoli was forced to wear implying that there has been three decades that all women in Iran are forced to wear such clothing.  Needless to say that the green color that has become the opposition’s emblem appeared in the most of the pictures.

Such online campaigns captured a fundamental shift in Iran’s political culture.  Pictures were meant to be shameful and humiliating.  With eyes downcast, they were published by the state to portray that a protester afraid of his imprisonment simply denies his manhood.  However, it backfired when hundreds of Iranian men published the similar pictures of themselves with the statement that: “We are all Majid.”

Given a close relations between the news agency and the Revolutionary Guard that engineered the fraudulent presidential election in last summer, the news agency action is interpreted as an attempt by the authorities to prove to the public that the opposition leaders are “less than men” who are lacking courage and bravery.  This is an old practice by the government which goes back three decades, at that time the government published a picture of the first president of the Islamic republic, Abolhassan Banisadr in woman headscarf. Though the authenticity of the picture has never been proven, state media at the time used it as evidence that Banisadr attempted to escape the country in a gutless way after his ouster in 1981.  Fars agency juxtaposed the photos of Tavakoli alongside with Banisadr’s. However, this time with new generation of Iranians the decision was subject to fail.  Iranians updated their facebook status with a prevailing statement: “Majid is multiplied, not humiliated.”

Today Iranians from both genders have questioned many of the gender codes that firmly enforced by the authorities over the past 30 years.  The Islamic Republic within two years after the revolution began to restrict the public sphere and introduced a sexual morality policy in which women were forced to wear hijab. An official gender policy and culture were first instituted, symbolized by obligatory head covering for women.  Soon after, the Islamic government expanded gender segregation in public space and criminalized sexual contact outside marriage.

It is worth mentioning that it is not just Iranian new generation who has been questioning the government moral codes, the authorities have been violating their own law.  Very often when Iranians who are residents of other countries arrive at the Iran’s airports, they have to provide their facebook account logging username and password along with their passports.  In this respect, a security agent at the airport feels free to exempt himself from the state sexual morality codes, and gets access to account of the arriver including private photos.  This is the way that the Islamic regime maintains its security.

Here I provide a video from youtube that includes some images from the online campaign of “Majid is not humiliated, he is multiplied” along with a dialogue between two Iranian Columbia professors about the characteristics of the Green movement:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hcu5v3hxEg

In July of 2007, El Universal launched Doblevía, a section in which all the content, including photos, is provided and written by its readers. The print section has its own space on the web version of the newspaper so users of the site could also participate and communicate more directly with the newsroom.

This effort, launched before the El Universal site had a major makeover that allowed it to be even more interactive, had never been seen in the country. It was also the first section that integrated the web and the print newsroom within the newspaper.

“The participation of readers in the newspaper is part of a long tradition that started with El Correo del Pueblo (People’s Mail), a section that publishes readers’ complaints about a number of issues that go from the malfunction of public services to high food prices,” says Alejandra Romero, editor of Doblevía.

The section allows readers to submit movie, music and TV reviews; publish photos of their pets and places they have seen; tell how they have been victim of crimes; add a caption to a weekly caricature; and give their opinion about the topic of the week.

According to Romero, the content is manly sent through email and ElUniversal.com. “However, there are still people who prefer to send us handwritten or typed letters and, occasionally, we receive a fax.”

Although Venezuela is the second country with the largest Internet penetration in South America, it only represents 27,09% of the population, according to governmental statistics of the first trimester of 2009. Moreover, only 5,69% of the almost 28 million of Venezuelans are Internet subscribers.

Yet, Doblevía has been very successful in interacting with readers, both online and in print. Comments sent through the website are reviewed before being published. “Because of the editorial line of the newspaper and the political situation in Venezuela, we have to be very careful with what is published,” says Romero.

Since 2005, when the Venezuelan Penal Code was reform, media can be sued for what it publishes even thought it has a disclaimer that clearly states that they are not responsible for third party opinions.

When readers complain because their comments were not published, Doblevía’s team sends them an email explaining what participation rule was violated. “For example, we can’t published comments if the person hasn’t register with a full name and last name, if they have a pseudonym, or if they use bad words or insults to public figures or other users. Yet, we give them the opportunity to send a corrected comment or, if the problem was with the name, we explain how to change the registration,” explains Romero.

Because each comment has to be reviewed and photos have to be uploaded, every time a reader submits content or sends an email he receives an automatic message saying that Doblevia has received it and it will be shortly publish.

“However, most readers prefer to wait and see their contributions publish in paper rather than having them publish first online”, says Romero, as she explains that many times readers write and ask her to keep a copy of the edition where their article or photo was published because they were not able to buy it that day.

“Recently, a man who I had asked to send me a photo with a higher resolution because the one he had previously sent didn’t meet the requirements, came to the newspaper with a pen drive so I could choose one that we could publish,” says the editor of Doblevia.

So far, the most popular sections are the pets’ photos, the social events photos and Escapes, a subsection in which readers tell the story of a recent trip. According to Romero, also Medical Zone, in which a reader sends a medical question that is later answer by a doctor, has been a hit since 2007.

Doblevía has also given readers to contribute to the making of the anniversary edition of the newspaper. In April of 2008, when El Universal turned 99 years old, readers selected which Venezuelans—who live abroad and have had an impact in the world—were to be profiled on this special edition.

“People sends us thank you notes once their photos and comments have been published and some have become regular contributors,” says Romero.

As the interaction in the print version of El Universal grows, Doblevía also continues to create more spaces in the web site. Since 2009, the journalistic team—composed by to editors, a reporter and an intern—is now in charge of managing all the users participation in the online version.

“We keep Doblevia and what we call ‘participation’ separate, but it is managed with the same principles,” says Romero. This includes creating daily poles and topic questions, approving comments as well as sending the home page headlines through Twitter and Facebook.

Romero explains they answer each comment sent through the social media tools. “We try to be as quick as possible, especially with Twitter users who are faster than Facebook ones.”

The difference in the tools used is based on the difference in both audiences. Where as the eluniversal.com users are technology savvy and spend hours on the Internet, some Doblevía readers are more relaxed and have other channels to contact the newsroom.

In the near 30 years MTV has been in operation, it has played a tremendous role in shaping popular youth culture.  In addition to the videos, popular culture and reality TV shows, the network has a long history of promoting social activism through innovative campaigns.  The channel has covered political, social, and environmental issues and used its vast network of resources to get the messaging across.

One such campaign is the “Staying Alive” campaign.  It was initially launched in 1998 as a TV program to raise awareness on safe-sex and HIV/AIDS issues.  At the time, Bill Roedy, current Chairman and CEO of MTV Networks International realized that the original MTV generation grew up without any formal HIV/AIDS awareness education.  Roedy’s extensive work with UNAIDS had him recognize the importance of addressing this topic as part of global youth citizenship, and the impact the education can have on youth health and sexual identity.  Since being launched, Staying Alive quickly became one of the world’s largest awareness and advocacy campaigns for HIV/AIDS.

After almost 6 years of success, the MTV Staying Alive Foundation (SAF) was founded in 2004.  As the TV program team met with various teens and young people to film documentaries and PSAs for the campaign, they quickly saw the dearth of ideas the youth had and their lack of resources to materialize these ideas and projects.  From there, the foundation was built on the philosophy of connecting youth at the grass-roots level to provide resources and tools for causes around HIV/AIDS awareness.

Paul Dien, Director of Strategic Partnerships of the MTV Staying Alive Foundation says they realized as a grant writing organization that SAF “can do more than just give [grants], we can also help inspire the youth.”  The foundation’s mission is to “encourage, energize, and empower young people who are involved in HIV/AIDS awareness, education, and prevention campaigns.”  Staying Alive Foundation fulfills on this mission through small scale grants of up to $12,000 to youth and adults below 28 years of age.

With MTV’s pervasive brand presence and ample resources for messaging, SAF has a powerful platform to pursue its objectives.  In addition to MTV’s traditional media resources, the organization uses various new media tools such as Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, and Mashable to build online ubiquity.  When asked what differentiates SAF from other HIV/AIDS awareness organizations, Dien says that SAF is a multi-platform organization that has a strong online and digital presence as well as marketing savvy from staff members’ years at MTV.  Dien also acknowledges that leveraging the MTV branding helps to “cultivate compelling stories to the audience.”

As an example, SAF has appointed two celebrity ambassadors, Travis McCoy and Kelly Rowland to further the organization’s efforts.  The use of celebrity representatives provides yet another avenue for SAF to reach mass audiences on awareness about HIV/AIDS.  As part of his ambassadorship, McCoy mentions his involvement with Staying Alive in his Tweets, and has over 900,000 followers on his Twitter account.  Despite any potential capital resource constraints as a non-profit organization, the use of social media in this manner is highly cost effective, as it serves as a cheap, quick, and expansive communications tool.

Another innovative approach incorporating new technology was a campaign called “Stand By What You Say” from 2008.  The aim of the campaign was to encourage and empower young people to speak openly about sex and HIV/AIDS in an effort to reduce stigma and discrimination often associated with the disease.  The campaign was a groundbreaking cause-related social networking campaign utilizing voice powered technology.  People were prompted to call a number and leave a voice message which would then be converted to text.  This text would then be posted on an online blog to further community engagement and discussion.  Upon leaving a message, callers were subsequently asked to make a pledge to the Staying Alive Foundation.

A campaign like “Stand By What You Say” breaks the mold in the manner in which people make donations to charities, as well as how people share sensitive and personal topics on a large scale without fear of embarrassment or retribution, while simultaneously fostering open dialogue.  The campaign demonstrated that youth and young adults could involve and educate others to change attitudes about the AIDS epidemic and safe-sex measures in a cutting-edge way.

SAF’s work is promoted with no political agenda, and much of its educational resources- TV programming, video, and literature are rights free.  Taking this approach helps the foundation promote its objectives to as broad of an audience as possible, and fosters a sense of community through active information sharing.

Aside from the MTV Staying Alive Foundation, Population Services International’s YouthAIDS is the most comparable organization active in this space, with efforts to educate youth about HIV/AIDS through the use of media and pop culture.  What distinguishes SAF from YouthAIDS are its grants to the youth to help launch programs and projects related to HIV/AIDS awareness and education.

As Dien notes, SAF is “trying to do it full-out” in its approach to get the right messaging across to its audience, and it will be interesting to continue to follow the organization while it works with MTV and the cadre of associated brands under the Viacom/MTV empire.

http://foundation.staying-alive.org/en

Breaking the Silence is an organization run by veteran Israeli soldiers who have served in the occupied Palestinian territories over the past ten years.  The goal of the organization, with a staff of ten, is to “bridge the gap of information between what the soldiers see, experience, and participate in during their service, and what the Israeli public is aware of,” explains Avital Aboody, a current staff-member and New Israel Fund/Shatil Social Justice Fellow.  It doesn’t take much to realize that this organization probably does not have a ton of support in its home country, as a majority of Israelis have shifted to a more conservative political stance since the second Intifada began in 2001. 

The staff of Breaking the Silence claims that they are not particularly media savvy and not unique in any way with regard to utilizing social media tools.  According to Aboody, the “primary goal of using the website is reach as many people as possible and to enhance our ability to raise widespread awareness.”  While most non-profits prioritize raising funds through their websites, Breaking the Silence is not all that concerned about funds, which it receives from various foundations and donor governments.  The organization’s goals, instead, are “increased awareness and transparency between the public and the military,” says Aboody, and Facebook, in this light, has lately been a key to their success.

With a Facebook group and profile in place, Breaking the Silence has been able to “maximize our ability to communicate with our allies around the world,” says Aboody.  So far, she exclaims, joining Facebook “has been very very successful and has allowed us to attract a lot of new people to our events,” including tours of the occupied territories and lectures about the daily actions of the Israeli military.

As a politically active organization in a region of the world where tensions are deep and war has occurred every decade since the late 1940s, Breaking the Silence must rely heavily on its ability to find remote allies to strengthen its power base at home. Aboody explains how the organization has recently faced “efforts by the government and an NGO-monitoring organization to censor our information to keep us from ‘breaking our silence,’ but media tools have been helpful because we can quickly elicit the support of like-minded groups who are willing to stand behind us and vouch for our legitimacy.”  As they see it, they can’t be all over the world at all times with a staff of their size, but with Facebook they can easily make their message seen and heard by many more people than they were capable of reaching beforehand.      

It may sound like the days of “grassroots” advocacy (picketing for hours and staking out on the streets for days to get petitions signed) are just about over.  Do activists no longer see the value of face-to-face interactions, opting instead for YouTube, Facebook, or Blogspot to engage the public with their message?  Are they spending more of their time navigating the Web than they are actually changing the world?  While this might appear to be the case for Breaking the Silence, the organization’s staff-members do not report feeling like they spend more, or much, of their time for that matter navigating social media sites.  Because it’s so easy to keep up the Facebook group page and profile, and the website designer manages the website, most of the staff are spending the majority of their time continuing the one-on-one interactions with people on the ground.  They continue to take people on tours of the territories, hold lecture series, and interview veteran soldiers about their years in the Israeli Defense Forces. 

The internet is just part of the process of engaging with the public; it is not the process itself.  If anything, for the passionate employees of non-profit organizations who want to make the world a better place, social networking sites like Facebook are simply a more efficient and effective way of continuing the legacy of grassroots advocacy and inching that much closer to their desired goals, and they still get to find out this weekend’s party line-up and what their friend’s cousin ate for breakfast while they’re at it.

“Latin America has a long tradition of monopolies and cronyism in the media and  independent spaces are hard to find, even today,” says Daniel Eilemberg, one of the directors of Reporte Virtual, a new documentary reportage digital platform that aims to offer a fresh look at the political, economic and social situation of this region.

Launched in 2008 by Eilemberg and his longtime partner Isaac Lee, Reporte Virtual attempts to be a site of civic participation, in which people can feel free to tell their stories through video documentaries, without editorial or economic constrains, and providing coverage to the issues that conventional media are ignoring.

The website, as well as the documentaries, are both in Spanish and English allowing them to have a wider audience and also more diversity among people interested on participating with Reporte Virtual. And although there are several video sites, many of them specialized documentary, Eilemberg assures that none of them allows users to use others´ material as Reporte Virtual does.

“We believe it is a good time to give the audience another vision of what they usually receive from traditional media,” says Eilemberg, who wants to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the Internet, as it is lowering access costs and increasing network capacity.

Originally from Colombia, Eilemberg who now lives in Miami, has extensive journalistic experience and not surprisingly has find in new digital platforms alternative solutions for gaining media independence. Aside from Reporte Virtual, Eilemberg and his partner are developing an online news site to break through the barriers of censorship and media control in Mexico to be launched early next year, and that will be replicated in other countries of the region.

Interestingly enough, it was the editors´ own fascination with documentaries what triggered Reporte Virtual. “In 2008 my partner and I made a documentary for National Geographic, telling for the first time the true story of Operation Checkmate conducted by the military intelligence in Colombia (the rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and other Colombian soldiers and police lasted into captivity by several years now in the hands of the FARC),” remembers Eilemberg.

The experience was so enriching that they decided they wanted to continue through this path. “The documentary is a very good format for short stories at a low production cost but with the highest journalistic standards, which allows us to tell the stories that the media in Latin America are not telling, either by pressure from the government or private interests.”

Freedom of expression constitutes a problem all over the world. According to Freedom House´s Freedom of the Press index that assess media independence in countries, in 2007 freedom of the press decreased significantly on a global scale continuing with a six-year downward trend. The small improvements that took place in some countries were eclipsed by a “continued, relentless assault on independent news media by a wide range of actors, in both authoritarian states and countries with relatively open media environments.”

However, in the case of Latin America the region has a long story of obstacles for media opening. Violence against journalists, authoritarian laws and policies that chill assertive reporting, and the oligarchic ownership of the media, mainly television, have diminished free press in the region. Furthermore, according to Freedom House, an “independent watchdog organization that supports the expansion of freedom around the world,” the region’s conditions put it under a partly free press category.

www.freedomhouse.org

This is what pushed Reporte Virtual´s editors to build the site and try to give voice and space to those who are interested on reporting their country´s situation.

For the time being, the editors are producing almost every original documentary to show what they are doing and invite others to replicate it, although they had received some material as well. These videos have got great coverage by the media and allowed them to bring attention to the site. “The next step that we are hoping to take soon is to offer all the material we have of each video (the full interviews and all the raw material) and allow people to use it as they see fit to create new versions of the documentary, with its own point of view,” explains Eilemberg.

When this happens, the selection criteria should not be too harsh. The editorial board that comprises journalists, documentarians and filmmakers will choose the best documentaries that had been sent to the site, considering factors such as the quality of content, the relevance of the story, the veracity of what it is been said in the documentary, and the production quality before determining which videos will be uploaded. But the main objective is to democratize the process of storytelling giving the user the full context, which seems like a pretty innovative concept.

In order to incentive participation, Reporte Virtual offers a $2,000 price to the best piece each month and it´s offering to award the best documentary of the year with a production incentive of $20,000.00.

For the moment, Reporte Virtual remains under construction but they are now in talks with several TV channels to produce mini-documentaries for them, and show the best that have been sent so far. “We also believe in having an open platform and today you can take any of our videos and “embed it” on your own site. We are also on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter so we can get to a broader audience.”

If they achieve to become the civic engagement space that they are aiming at, they might indeed begin to democratize expression in a region where empowerment has been so vertical for centuries.

At 29, Ms. Cowan-Vieira boasts a resume well beyond her years.  She is a graduate of NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service and Howard University, and has worked in event production and public affairs at MTV Networks, as well as in production on the Campbell Brown show at CNN.  Currently, Ms. Cowan-Vieira spends her days at the Harpo studios in Rockefeller Plaza as a producer on the relatively new Dr. Oz show.  And sometime in between all of her full time jobs and master’s degree, Ms. Cowan-Vieira founded Project Set.  With a background that blends broadcast media expertise, public policy and management, and strategic partnerships with major nonprofits, Cowan-Vieira was uniquely positioned to start the organization.  “I knew a lot of talented people in film and television that wanted to give back to the community,” she said.  “Also just working in media, I personally saw the need for greater diversity.  I realized that – given the right opportunity – a lot of kids could flourish in the industry.”

Part of Project Set’s mission is to help underserved youth develop a heightened awareness of the mass media’s influence on culture.  They do this through a ten-week intensive curriculum, during which time select high school students attend weekend workshops and seminars that teach them how to dissect messaging and think critically.  Project Set takes on 12-15 students per year to participate in the program; students are interviewed and chosen based on their interest in media, school performance and overall need.  At these Saturday sessions, the students also work on independent projects, learning how to write scripts, produce segments, edit clips, market content and finance their work from media professionals that have included MTV’s on air talent and New Line Cinema’s Senior Vice President of Production and Development.  Past sessions have taken place at various corporate offices and public school facilities where the media equipment is all donated.  “By connecting our kids to media professionals in the field, we are exposing them to what’s out there and showing them what’s possible,” Cowan-Vieira said.

Putting youth behind the mic/lens/camera is an interesting trend in traditional broadcast media.  National Public Radio’s show Radio Rookies has earned accolades for its work to train youth from under-resourced NYC neighborhoods in radio production.  The topics for the Rookies’ segments are chosen and produced by the kids themselves, under the guidance of more seasoned producers.  Like those of the Project Set students, subjects range from living in poverty and personal obstacles at home, to education and the environment.  About the process, Radio Rookies’ Senior Producer, Kaari Pitkin, told the NY Daily News, “This is about youth development and media production together.  The shared experience gives them a deeper appreciation for each other, and as a group they become strong.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by many of the youth media organizations working to empower underserved populations through media literacy programs.  And in what may prove to be another chance to further elevate the cause, Project Set has been selected as one of the organizations to participate in the Chase Community Giving Awards on Facebook.  As a registered 501(c)(3) organization with an operating budget of well under $10 million, Project Set definitely qualifies to enter the giveaway of $5MM, of which 100 charities will receive $25K, five charities will receive $100K and one charity will receive $1MM.  Just how her organization was chosen, however, remains a mystery to Ms. Cowan-Vieira, who mentioned she is working on a grant with Chase.

If awarded one of the prizes, Project Set, which only has a fulltime staff of four, would be able to take on more kids and amplify resources for equipment.  The award could also help to maintain the organization’s website, which is in dire need of updating (at least to showcase the student-produced projects), and boost their social media presence (they are on Facebook but that’s about it).  In response to critics who say the move is Chase’s ploy to regain consumer support post financial crisis, Cowan-Vieira said, “I understand that view, but ultimately I have to ask, is it better that Chase does this or nothing at all?  In that sense, I think it is beneficial to small groups like us.”  After a pause she added, “Plus the world is too interconnected.  It’s naïve to think that raising capital can be so pure when on a global scale so much capital is held by so few anyway.”

This powerful video narrated by Ms. Scarbro features maps that illustrate the destructive process of mountaintop removal mining and propose a promising alternative – wind power.  Appalachian Voices, the environmental organization who maintains iLoveMountains.org, is increasingly developing multi-media maps to communicate the scale of mining operations, reveal local to global connections, and illustrate the social and environmental impacts of mining. From town hall meetings to international forums – mapping has become a vital communication tool to in the fight to protect Appalachian mountains.  

“We wouldn’t be we where are today without it [mapping]. For twenty or thirty years the coal industry has been able to hide what it does to the mountains and communities in Appalachia. With these maps, we can zoom in and show what the destruction looks like.  It gives a sense of identity to the places where mining is happening. People are able to see and hear what mountaintop removal looks like,” says Stephanie Pistello, National Field Coordinator of Appalachian Voices.

Maps on iLoveMountains.org communicate the scale and scope of mining operations in Appalachia by relating it to familiar cities and regions. For instance, on the ‘National Memorial for the Mountains‘ page, Appalachian Voices overlays an image of the 10,000 acre Hobet mountaintop removal complex in Boone County, West Virginia onto Google Earth maps of cities such as Manhattan. These maps communicate the tremendous extent of the environmental destruction surrounding Appalachian communities.  

What if Manhattan were a coal mine?

Google Earth maps are featured in nearly all of iLoveMountain.org maps.Google Earth created their maps through satellite images which are make available for free in accessible formats.  Appalachian Voices technology team looks to the Google Earth Outreach team for tips on using the technology. In turn, Google Earth showcases the work of Appalachian Voices to demonstrates how the technology can be used for social change. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.

While this technology is impressive, Appalachian Voices technologist, Benji Burrell, points out that the tool should always be connected to a goal, “An important thing we keep in mind as an organization is: What does it take to win? Then what tools can we use? We measure success by how many legislators we’ve gotten to co-sponsor our bill or by how many people come to our lobby day. Mapping is just a tool to get where we want to go.”

Since federal legislation is a key part of the strategy to end mountaintop removal, visual communication is playing an increasingly important role because those could can influence change are not necessarily surrounded by the devastation mining has caused. In local and national organizing, the iLoveMountain.org maps have helped to empower citizen activists and influence legislators.  Lisa Abbott, the Director of Organizing for Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, emphasizes, “We often use the county maps that show a county’s history of strip mining and its percentage of poverty. We ask, ‘If coal mining really brings prosperity, don’t you think it would have done that by now?’ They have really helped our members speak more confidently to their legislators…. One member’s presentation with maps helped persuade a legislator to come visit Kentucky and do a flyover of the mine sites. These maps have helped to turn a few legislators into believers and strengthen the resolve of the legislature.”  

This historical map of poverty rates superimposed over mining density clearly shows that mining does not bring economic prosperity to the region.

What is the technology used to develop these powerful maps? Mr. Burrell describes the process of making the map shown above, “To make the poverty maps we took census data, colored counties by values given in census data exported into Google Earth and created 3-D view.”  While Mr. Burrell maintained that the Appalachian Voices technology team uses Global Information System (GIS) less and less, they still use it to simplify and map complex data, sometimes gathered through FOIA requests, census information, or publicly available government databases.  The vast majority of the maps are a combination of Google Earth maps and video, photo and graphic design, developed with basic tools such as Photoshop and inDesign.

As of 2000, there were more than 600 sludge impoundments across the Appalachian coalfields. These sludge dams contain toxins such as mercury and lead and threaten community drinking water supplies.

Maps have become a powerful tool in holding coal mining companies accountable. Ms. Pistello recalls the impact the maps had on her, “I can remember the first time I saw the map of sludge dams. I was surprised by how many there were and how close they are to communities. Some of them the EPA doesn’t even know about it.”      

Located on the west side of Coal River Mountain, this sludge impoundment is built to hold 8 billion tons of coal sludge, a by-product of washing coal.Photo: Vivian Stockman

Appalachian Voices uses video and photo gathered on airplane flyovers of mining sites.  Southwings, an Appalachian aviation non-profit, donates free airplane flyovers to support environmental justice efforts. The aerial view of the mining sites which shows the actual extent and scale of the destruction has even surprised people from the region.

Maps make it possible to visually communicate relationships and reveal connections that can guide action. The ‘What’s Your Connection?’ tool on iLoveMoutains.org connects players in mining industry to those in the utilities companies. Ms. Pistello explains, “We can zoom out and make a connection where the coal from this community goes and how it gets to you. By being able to show that connection we are opening up possibilities. We can show all the players, such as the utilities and corporations’ the Board of Directors, funding extractors.  We can put pressure on these players and propose alternatives. For instance, in New York, you can sign up for 100% wind power through Con Edison. This tool helps make possible a coal free future that doesn’t involve mountaintop removal.”

According to 45-year-old Jason Yu (this is an alias, as requested by the interviewee), who is a teacher and also a new member of the organization, the only goal of CIA is to help as many as possible gays and lesbians find their own kind, and join their own “tension-free” social circle.

“I had had enough of the isolated days, when I had to hide my sexual orientation to my colleagues, friends, family……even to myself! This is not a joke – I even tried to tell myself that I was a heterosexual and got married. You simply couldn’t imagine the torture. Eventually my marriage turned out to be a failure, yet I dare not tell my parents – or anybody else – the true reason behind the surface.

“Thanks to the Internet tools of this era, I am able to find a way to reach the group I truly belong to. – About six months ago, I learned from my student about how to surf the Internet, and accidentally ran into a gay website. There I met a nice ‘comrade’ from the CIA, who introduced to me this whole new world! I could never imagine one day I would make so many gay friends, in front of whom I need hide myself no more. And because of my painful experience, I particularly feel it is necessary I join the CIA and help out other gays and lesbians who are still struggling in the nightmare I used to be in.”

Embodied in Jason’s words is a bitter fact: although homosexuality, as a long-existing natural phenomenon, is widely understood and accepted in western countries today, sadly it is not quite the case in China, where homosexuals are still reluctantly “tolerated” in the best situation. In fact, homosexual behaviors only became arguably “legal” in the country as late as in 1992. And it was not until 2001 that the Chinese government finally crossed “Homosexuality” off the list of mental illness symptoms. And even legally gays are equal with all other citizens, due to historical prejudice and discrimination towards this group, as well as the dominating Chinese tradition of “carrying on the family line”, in real life they are still considerably marginalized by the mainstream society.

Examples are abundant. In 1999, Fang Gang, the author of the book “Homosexuality In China”, was sued, and in the first instance judgment, people saw the official statement “homosexuality is abnormal”. In December 2001, the first Chinese Homosexual Film Festival was discontinued by the government in the middle of its screening with no clear reasons. Last but not least, the 2006 Oscar-winning movie “Brokeback Mountain” was never granted permission to enter cinemas in China – while most of the other winners were quickly introduced into the market.

In short, gays and lesbians in China are never fully recognized their basic human rights, and are very likely to be humiliated once their “special” sexual inclination is discovered. According to Sociologist Li Yinhe, currently China has a homosexual population of 39 to 52 million. Among them about 38% once suffered from assault, blackmail or unfair treatment (such as separation from partners resulted in family interference, or being laid off only because their sex orientation), more than 60% constantly felt lonely and depressed, over 30% seriously considered suicide, and 10% committed attempted suicide.

“It is therefore quite understandable that Chinese gays often hide themselves carefully. However this self-containment is very likely to cause high mental pressure, which craves for an outburst. ” Jason notes.

“I am glad that we can provide an outlet. The virtual world of Internet enables everyone to maintain one’s privacy, and therefore provides us with conditions to establish our own community. On the Internet, both helpers and helped feel safe and relaxed in the community. As a helper, I never ask the real name, location or any other personal information. All I do is  leaving a message on board or in a chatroom, offering my QQ number, and encouraging anyone who has puzzles on homosexual issues contact me.”

The “QQ” Jason aforementioned is a very popular tool similar to MSN and Skype, which boasts 900 million accumulated registered users in China to date, and just realized a simultaneous online users of 91 million a few days ago. Other platforms such as Tianya Chatroom and Gay58.com are also frequently used. The grand number of base users  guarantees high demand for services Jason and his fellow members provides. According to Jason, the CIA members have helped hundreds and thousands of gays since its establishment four years ago. Jason himself has introduced over 50 lonely gays into the gay community.

“Great feeling of achievements!” Jason declares. However he also points out some shortcomings of CIA’s network mode.

“So far we can only reach people within the Internet. However statistics show that only one fifth of the population are netizens. So I am really worried about the bigger number who are left outside the web –  just like me six months ago. How can we help these people, who have no access to the Internet? What is more, what we are doing now is only hiding underground and creating a secret communities of our own, which barely has any impact on the broad mass in the mainstream society. If we ultimately seek to realize equal legal and social rights with heterosexuals, we need to do more.”

Jason is absolutely right. To gain the recognition of the majority of society, hiding at corners will never help to achieve the goal. However in my opinion, secretly uniting gays on the Internet can be a good start. Then what the CIAs need to do next is to get themselves more organized, open-up (at least partly) to  the mainstream society, and start dialogue and communication with it. Arts and performances could be good bridges between the two sides,  while other forms such as blogs, novels and movies can also make gays’ voices heard, their minds understood, and eventually their deserved rights attained.