Key Questions to Ponder While Exploring

• Is the use of New Media impacting humanitarian related news?
• How is it changing the meaning, it at all?
• Is it motivating more people to get involved or just creating the illusion of motivation?
• We can now get information straight from the source (i.e. blogs); how does that change the information?
• What are some other applications of New Media for Humanitarian Efforts?
  

Humanitarian News

There are several places to get the news online, but now there are a few unique destinations to receive Humanitarian related news.

Reuters has a service that provides updates on disasters all over the world. Their motto is "Alerting humanitarians to emergencies".

BlogAfrica is an unedited aggregator of Africa related news.

Global Voices recruits people to blog about relevant areas of the world that don't get mainstream news coverage. Here's what they say about their cause:

A growing number of bloggers around the world are emerging as “bridge bloggers:” people who are talking about their country or region to a global audience. Global Voices is your guide to the most interesting conversations, information, and ideas appearing around the world on various forms of participatory media such as blogs, podcasts, photo sharing sites, and videoblogs.


Globeshakers is a podcast that focuses on people who change the world through technology, social enterprise, and sustainable solutions.

Simultaneous Response and New Media

Many resources are popping up across the web that seek to connect, empower, and inspire Social Entrepreneurs to solve Humanitarian problems. It seems, in the language of Baudrillard, that a simultaneous response is being created.

First, idealist.org is a resource for non-profits to find relevant news, jobs, projects, funding, etc. It's not just one-way, either, as you can post ideas that then get built upon or changed or funded.

Another fascinating venture in this area, is Open Knowledge Networks. There aim is to give a voice to local people, not to be their voice. They (through software) collect and disseminate local content and information to reporters who then report on local issues. This is important because it gives a voice to poor people around the world.

Finally, Social Edge seeks to:

1. Connect social entrepreneurs, their partners and allies to discuss cutting-edge issues shaping the field
2. Foster frank dialogue, mutual respect and a sense of community among all in the sector
3. Promote learning from the best, promising and disastrous practices

Technology's Better Life

Reminding me of the early hopes of Vannevar Bush (and especially his essay As We May Think) are a couple of projects I came across while researching for this blog: geekcorps and MIT's AgeLab. They are both Humanitarian in effort as they are seeking to better the worlds of a specific group of people.

geekcorps is a nonprofit organization that ships technically (i.e. computer geeks) skilled people off to developing areas of the world to work with budding businesses.

MIT's AgeLab seeks to better the world of the aging population through technology. There motto is Ideas + Technology for Quality Living.

geekcorps seems to be expressing an idea of technology or new media as savior and MIT's AgeLab is further blurring the line between humans and technology.

Kress, Van Leeuwen and Humanitarian Efforts

Kress and Van Leeuwen have shown us how meaning is changing and that it can be effected equally by discourse, design, production, and distribution.

This is huge for Humanitarian Efforts because before the introduction of digital, interactive media the meaning of these efforts was limited to those that were there. But now, we can all - through Hypermedia - be there.

And, now that production and distribution are (at least for those of us privileged enough to have money) readily accessible this can be done by one person no matter where they are.

For instance, Sleepless in Sudan is the blog of an aid worker in Sudan that would (without the help of New Media) never have been able to be read freely by so many across the world. In fact, her efforts in New Media (blogging) could get her kicked out of Sudan if the government found her out. But, through simultaneous response she may be getting the encouragement that she needs to carry on.

Hypermediacy and Humanitarian Efforts

A friend of mine recently sent me an email for a fundraiser. It was powerful because it was linked to a website that hypermediated a tragic experience that happened to a young married couple. The hypermediating of the experience reminded me of my own wife and brought new meaning to their experience as I underwent my own experience. The website, though, is a new media haven, linked with pictures, videos, updates, a discussion board, and a place to donate money. The power of New Media is felt through this tragically hopeful experience, which is hypermediated through the Internet.

Another form of humanitarian hypermediation is being done via the One Campaign, which is attempting to motivate people to rid the world of poverty. They send emails regularly urging people to write to their congress person, invite their friends to join, etc. They also hypermediate the tragedy of impoverished nations through celebrities. Watch this video for more information.

Social entrepreneurship

It's hard to study Humanitarian Efforts and New Media without running in to social entrepreneurship.

In fact, if you type this term into Google's search engine over 14 million links appear. To say this field has exploded is an understatement. In my view, social entrepreneurship and the proliferation of the Internet are highly correlated.

The Internet has given us access to parts of the world like never before, thus raising our awareness of the need felt by others all around the world. Also, the Internet connects us even when we're far away, which is useful for social entrepreneurs. And, it allows social entrepreneurs to reach a scalable audience with their issue(s) as well as provides a useful means for raising support. Another key benefit the Internet provides to humanitarian efforts is that it can lead to income in under-developed areas.

In fact, Ethan Zuckerman has been exploring this territory for awhile through various projects - geekcorps, global voices. IT Conversations is hosting an interview of Ethan that is worth checking out for ideas and inspiration for social entrepreneurship.

For more information on Social entrepreneurship, read these bios from the book - How to Change the World - written by David Bornstein.

And, Ashoka has started an interesting concept - venture capital for Humanitarian Causes.