The New Media Diva

Water may not be the sole cause of conflict, but if solutions to the current water crisis aren’t found, water scarcity may add strain to already tense international situations says Tobias Siegfried of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Listen to podcast here.

Words can’t express the sheer horror that gripped my innards when I clicked on the FT this morning. The site has been redesigned, and…and…I just…

I just can’t even make the right words come out.

I can’t even verbalize how nauseous this page made me.

No. Literally. Remember in school when someone upchucked and the janitor would come and sprinkle that pink sawdust stuff over the barf?

The FT site is that same pink. I know. I’m making a weird psychological connection.

I think they tried to make it the same color as the hard copy. But something ain’t right.

I honestly can’t look at it. I think I might hurl.

No. Seriously.

I need to find my special place and heal.

Here’s an idea…Coke for Condoms: an idea to combat Africa’s HIV/AIDS problem.

From the group’s Facebook page:

In Africa 44 million bottles are sold, every single day.

More Coca-Cola is sold in Africa alone than condoms are used in the entire world.

“How about distributing condoms in Africa by asking Coca-Cola to team up with the UNFPA and a condom company and ask them to supply a condom with each bottle?”

Sure the marginal price, would go up, but what price can we put on human lives? And I’m sure us in developed countries like the in the Western world could foot the bill by paying the extra 1p or so on each Coke that would surely subsidise the cost per bottle in Africa?

This can really help the people who need it most! The Coca-Cola Company will only do consider this initiative if we in numbers band up to have our voice heard!

Simon Schmid and John Smith are looking to crack the 2000 member mark in their FB group. They have an NING page also. I’m not really sure which one is the main one, I think the FB page is.

I just have a question: What about kids who purchase Coke products? Maybe the UNFPA shouldn’t supply a condom with each bottle, but perhaps get Coke to join in on handing out condoms during special community programs?

But I’m just thinking out loud.

In any case, probably the crux of this is to get Coke to join in on the effort to fight AIDS/HIV since the drink is popular. So, want to help Coke for Condoms break the 2000-member barrier on FB? Join their group!

Perhaps folks will have a lot more to smile about when they have their Coke!

Update: I changed the title of the post to the correct name of the campaign. What a difference a conjunction or a preposition can make!

Image: chicco:) on flickr

We’re still discussing critical incidents that prompted a change in our industries in my MA course. This is in preparation for a paper (or podcast, or whatever way we want to present this information) that’s due the first or second week of January.

I. Really. Need. To. Get. That. Date. Straight.

To refresh your memory, and mine, here’s the direction of the paper:

I will specifically look at the failed Democratic presidential primary campaign of former Vermont governor Howard Dean in 2004 and ask if this campaign affected (changed) how the media reported on political campaigns.

Background: In 2002, a little-known governor by the name of Howard Dean started his quest to become the Democratic Party presidential nominee. Using money raised and political support from a large base of internet users, Dean waged his campaign. By the end of 2003, Dean had been deemed by the media the “Democratic frontrunner.” But, interestingly enough, the more the governor inched his cybercampaign into the real world, the mainstream electorate showed they were not as impressed as his internet-based supporters. By February 2004, Dean had suspended his campaign.

In my opinion, members of the media mistakenly looked to Dean’s internet base, and reflected that support on the mainstream population.

For my paper, I will look at the following points:

- Did Dean’s failure change how media examined candidates and weighed their support base?

- The impact of Dean supporters branding themselves citizen journalists on mainstream media. Did these people foment the positive coverage Dean received at the beginning of his campaign? (1)

- The relationship between the public sphere and the internet sphere during campaigns. I’ll also touch on the theory of pluralism.

Last week, I had to identify the critical incidents associated with my subject. Here are the ones I listed:
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