Could The Riots Have Been Prevented?

One of the documentaries shown on the BBC3 series ‘Our Crime’ was about the August 2011 England riots. Now i know it was quite a while ago but watching the documentary made it feel like it was just yesterday it all happened. The documentary was interesting as it showed different people in different situations and how they felt when it was all going on. I was on holiday so i was watching this all on the news. I remember captions like ‘ London's burning’ and it literally was. I remember seeing videos and getting loads of blackberry broadcasts and thinking back now i see how technology really helped to keep the world informed. I was doing more reading into the riots and also found out that some charities and organisations felt like the riots were linked in with the fact that the amount of money charities were given to organise youth groups and events for the youth in the community were cut .The different charities mentioned that if they had a bit more money then they may have been able to prevent the riots in some shape or form. Facebook and twitter on the other hand seemed to organise a clean up of the riots with their different facebook groups and tagged operation called #riotcleanup which seemed to appeal to most of the younger generation and also was like more of a positive act to make them feel part of the community rather than them destroying the areas they have grown up in .I guess the aim of the event was to make them feel like they were also doing something good for their community.

Facebook The Jealous Network

No way!! Facebook has bought Instagram. What?! How can this be, like this is just so random. This move made by Facebook has just caused a whole lot of controversy. There are a lot of mixed feelings floating about. Word on the streets in that the reason why Facebook bought Instagram is because they were scared of losing their reputation. Facebook is mainly about sharing photos, and Instagram just came out of nowhere and created this mobile photo sharing experience built on emotion and shared experiences.That was Facebooks aim which Instagram seems to be better at doing. It became so popular that its registered users doubled and even tripled when it became available to Android users. With this in the air it seemed like Facebook needed to make a quick move in order to protect their future from being destroyed, so they decided instead of trying to compete with them which would end in a loosing battle, to join forces and buy the company for double or even triple its worth. Now to me that seems like a sign of jealousy. You know Facebook wanting to be constantly in the lime light. They were liked but not loved and that seemed to get under their skin. The twitter world on the other hand was shocked when they received the breaking news as they had also tried to buy Instagram just a few months before facebook. Twitter being their main rivals were not impressed as they felt like their own idea once again had been swept from under their feet due to facebooks jealousy issues. A few apple users also had their input as they were frustrated at the fact that their iPhones, Macs and Ipads were becoming less exclusive as other companies were able to access the same apps. That could be seen as them being selfish as others were over joyed that they could share photos with their android user friends and are waiting for instagram to move to blackberry so all their long lost friends can also jump on the wave. Its evident instagram is going to blow and be very successful so facebook were only right to take action and be a part of the movement instead of be against. http://gigaom.com/2012/04/09/here-is-why-did-facebook-bought-instagram/

“We are a generation that film everything even our crime” Steven Mackintosh

Just as i was talking about BBC3 the other day and their short film on the honey trap death and how amazing it was. This evening BBC3 did it again. This time with an even more hard hitting story on innocent people who had been attacked and ended up dying. Its effect was so great to the point tears could not stop flowing down my face. I don't even consider myself as an emotional person and if it got to me like that it most definitely had an affect on the rest of its audience and that was evident though twitter and facebook that evening. BBC3 have recently started a new four-part documentary series called ‘Our Crime’. “It uses youth crime as a lens and it presents the effect of modern technology on society. It doesn't aim to analyse a connection, and it doesn't make the mistake of saying there is a definitive link, but it does give us an insight on youth crime that simply wasn't possible before video phones, social networking, and Internet messaging.” Julian Benson The series producer Jo Abel does not know how smart he really is. Like it did not register to me how advanced and powerful technology has become until i heard the opening sentence of the series. “We are a generation that film everything even our crime”. We are so oblivious to this technology that without it, I'm sure the majority of us will actually be lost. Sometimes i get the feeling that people feel its more of a right than a privileged for us to have the sort of technology we have. Soon I'm sure it will even get too advanced for some of us, yes even us in the younger generation. I already feel old when i find it difficult to use my iPhone and its new apps. The fact that people are able to freely upload anything they want online, down to even committing crimes is just scary. What is the world really coming to. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/julian-benson/our-crime-new-bbc-series-_b_1396983.html

Is It Really America To The Rescue, Again?

So just yesterday was the day, where the billions of viewers who watched the Kony 2012 invisible children trailer were supposed to go out and cover the night. What happened is the question. Did the event get cancelled because when I walked around the streets of Leicester it was not covered by Kony posters or Kony Graffiti. In fact I think the birds were the ones who covered the night since there seemed to be an increase of bird poo in town. Now the day after the Kony campaign was released everybody on twitter and facebook was determined to find Kony and “cover the night” on 20thof April. Days after that, different theories and criticisms about the campaign starting rising making everybody question the real motive behind the campaign. The main criticisms going around are that “The campaign misrepresents reality – in other words, it distorts the truth for its own ends” They are saying that since America discovered that there is oil in Uganda they needed a way to get access into the country. So making a campaign focusing on the children in Uganda seemed to be the next best way to go about things. The campaign reinforces the idea that ‘the West’ (or just America really) must ‘save’ Africa where people are helpless victims of Evil Men. This is where the idea of America being the centre of attention comes in as they want to be seen as the heroes once again. The video emphasises that we must get the attention of the American leaders but says nothing about the African leaders. Why is that? Surely the Africans should be the first to be informed about such a problem if they did not know about it already. Why must they find out that America is coming to the rescue through social networks like twitter and Facebook? Because of this the idea of the campaign being misguided is more believable. There are other human rights offenders worse than Kony, why did America start with him if they really wanted to save the world. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/polis/2012/03/09/why-i-think-the-kony-2012-campaign-is-wrong/

Make The Invisible Visible

A few days ago there was a release of a video. This was not an ordinary video. I remember being at home getting ready to drift to sleep when on twitter a new trending topic arose. ‘#StopKony’ now i was confused, all over the time line people we are talking about this ‘Kony’ person and how he needed to be found and stopped. I finally asked a friend who is Kony ? and he gave me a YouTube link to watch. When i watched the 30 minute clip i was in complete shock. There was a number of emotions going through me. Confusion , anger, helplessness the lot. The clip was basically a video informing us about a warlord called Kony in Uganda who is going around kidnapping children tuning them into young soldiers. Not long after the video was released it surprisingly had received 21 million views in the short period of time . The charity behind it all ‘ Invisible children’ must have been over the moon since their basic mission was accomplished. The way the clip was presented out apparently had ‘slick Hollywood production values’ and that is why it was an instant viral success dominating all online social networks for the time being. It is said to be ‘one of the fastest ever take-offs on YouTube’ This campaign seemed to heavily depend on social media. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more in order to get this Kony guys face known. It travelled though these media social networks first before it even got onto the news. This alone shows how technology is changing and becoming so advanced. Without the social network i doubt the video would have received as many views all so quickly. If this were a few years back i don't know how the campaign would have progressed but i know it would be much harder for them to get the level they are at now.

Hey My name is Drusilla welcome to my PR page.
Here I will be talking about different current  issues that are currently taking place at the moment and I will also be looking at them more from a PR point if view. I will also be looking at the different on-line and digital cultures and their effect on society today also
I hope you enjoy, feel free to join in with the discussion and leave comments