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Digital Activism: An Interview with Mary Joyce

Digital activism is defined by the newly launched Meta-Activism Project as "the practice of using digital technology for political and social change." One of the leaders in the field of digital activism is Mary Joyce, the founder and executive director of the Meta-Activism Project. Joyce is among the most knowledgeable and experienced digital activists in the world. She also founded DigiActive.org in 2007, a volunteer organization for grassroots activists. In 2008, she was New Media Operations Manager for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

As a lead-up to the upcoming event in New York City with Chinese digital activist Ai Weiwei, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and yours truly, I interviewed Mary Joyce about the strategies and success stories of digital activism.

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RWW: You recently moved on from DigiActive in order to create a new organization for digital activism. Can you tell us more about what that will be?

MJ: The new organization is called the Meta-Activism Project (MAP) and its goal is to build the field of digital activism by catalyzing a body of strategic knowledge unique to the field.  Today’s digital activist is in an untenable position: caught between the 100-ton rock of pre-digital strategy and the thousand slippery pebbles of highly-contextual tactical knowledge that focuses on a seemingly endless stream of new social media applications.  We want to build a new body of activism strategy that recognizes the radically different communications infrastructure of the digitally networked world.

I am really excited to announce the official launch of the Meta-Activism Project on ReadWriteWeb! The site – http://meta-activism.org – went live at the end of last week and, though it is pretty bare now, we’d like it to be a central location for people interested in building a body of knowledge about the fundamental mechanics of digital activism.

RWW: We’ve heard a lot about Twitter being used in Iran last year, and the subsequent blocking of social media services like Twitter and Facebook in China. What other countries have social media tools had a big impact in, for digital activism?

MJ: Judging impact is quite tricky in the field of digital activism, as few cases of digital activism are actual successes.  Usually we judge the success of an activism campaign by whether the activists achieved their campaign goal.  However, in almost all of the famous cases of digital activism "success" – the post-election mobilizations in Iran and Moldova in 2009 or the 2008 general strike in Egypt – while activists did successfully mobilize using social media, they did not achieve their campaign goal, be it to overturn an allegedly fraudulent election result or the wide range of social and political reforms demanded by the strike organizers. 

Mary doing digital activism training at Video Camp Goa

The measuring of impact thus becomes extremely subjective.  Digital activism proponents want to count mobilization as success even when the goal is not achieved, while skeptics and pessimists point out that, by traditional measures, most digital activism campaigns are failures.  Though I am certainly a proponent of digital activism, I would actually side with the skeptics here.  In order to really push the field forward, we need to set high standards for digital activism success and not be satisfied with half-measures. 

RWW: Facebook and Twitter are the two most high profile social media tools being used for digital activism. Are there any other Internet tools that have had success, that perhaps people aren’t as aware of?

MJ: I could tell you, but that tool would probably become outdated in a few months, or would prove useless out of its original context.  That’s the problem with tactical knowledge: tools change, contexts change, and activists are forever playing catch-up. 

Probably the greatest factor which determines the utility of an application to activists is scale and "use neutrality."  Scale means that the tool needs to reach a certain critical mass of users before you will have the network effects that will either make it likely that activists will become aware of it (in the case of something like Tor or proxy servers) or, in the case of social platforms, that enough people will be on the platform to constitute a meaningful audience for an activist message. "Use neutrality" means that it can be easily co opted, that its architecture can facilitate a wide variety of interactions and does not dictate the content of hosted files.  YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger are use neutral, LastFM and Bloglines are not. 

Mary at the Women’s Leadership and Technology Conference, Sharjah, UAE

RWW: Over the past year or so, can you describe a couple of success stories for digital activism using web tools.

MJ: Ha! More about measuring success. With the lack of true success, it is no wonder that people are so eager for these stories.  I think the traditionally-defined successes in this field (i.e. when the campaign goal is achieved) are much smaller and less dramatic – NGO meets fundraising goal through online donations (multiple cases), bloggers get a corporation to withdraw an offensive advertisement (e.g. Motrin), a social network lifts a questionable national block (e.g. LinkedIn in Syria). 

In the high-stakes activism campaigns that intend to make dramatic changes at the national and international level, I would say that we have cases of successful mobilization – Iran, Moldova, Egypt – without successful campaigns.

RWW: In terms of China, a lot has been written about the censorship there – both the Great Firewall that blocks certain sites and domains, and the self-censorship that many companies have to do in order to survive. Currently Google is trying to challenge censorship, but we’re not sure how successful even a hugely influential company like Google will be. So what, if anything, can ordinary people do in terms of digital activism to support the freeing up of the Chinese Internet? 

MJ: I am not an expert on China, but it seems like the best strategy for defeating the Great Firewall is to make it obsolete: create so many ways of getting around it that it no longer successfully censors Chinese Internet users.  This means both creating new circumvention tools – more Psiphons, proxies, Tors, FreeGates – and finding new and innovative ways to get those tools to Chinese users.

RWW: Thanks Mary for this illuminating interview. We at ReadWriteWeb wish you the best with the newly launched Meta-Activism Project!

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DIY Democracy: Civic Participation for the iPhone

Have you ever heard someone proclaim that if you don’t vote, then you shouldn’t complain? Well, whether or not you vote, we have the perfect iPhone app to make your complaints heard by whatever government official, agency or otherwise – DIY Democracy.

This handy little government 2.0 app will let you make that wheel squeak even louder, all while informing you of your rights. And for the true civic participant on the go, you can even petition to run for office without interrupting your day.

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DIY Democracy is a location enabled app that, although currently only fully-functional for California residents, connects its users with all the various levels of government. The app is a project of the Prometheus Institute, a public policy non-profit organization.

The app is divided into four primary categories: Rights & Laws, Representatives, Take Action and Public Forum. Each of the first three are separated into the various levels of government, whether local, state or federal.

The “Rights & Laws” section is a pocket reference to laws concerning all sorts of handy things, like due process or search and seizure. The app not only quotes the law directly, but offers a layman’s interpretation. Of course, this is accompanied by a standard caveat that the information is for education only, but they seem to do a decent job of explaining “how it’s generally applied in real life.” In many ways, it’s like having a pocket constitution, but broken down for easy access.

“Representatives” offers a full listing of government officials, from Barack Obama to your local alderman, and each with contact information such as phone number, email address and website.

The “Public Forums” are just that and, while we imagine the types of people that use this app to be the vocal sorts, we’re not so sure a message forum is quite tailored to the iPhone. That said, the forums are also available on the web, but we question their true utility in this instance.

Moving on, the final section, “Take Action”, is the one that really caught our attention. We reviewed an app yesterday called GoRequest, that offered similar capabilities, but this one seems to take it a step further. DIY Democracy brings the various levels and offices of government to you with pre-formatted, well-written letters for the on-the-go complaint. Whether you want to run for office, contest the validity of a law, or simply report a pothole or road hazard, DIY Democracy is set to connect you with the proper authorities.

It does all of this, of course, with your exact location in mind, so when you report that pothole, or dangerously dangling tree limb, the local department of public works will get exact GPS coordinates in addition to whatever other description you offer.

In addition to GPS coordinates and pre-formatted letter templates, you can of course directly attach both photos and video, making options like “Contact Mayor” seem a little less silly. If an issue is urgent enough, get the evidence and send it off to the officials.

We can only hope to see this app come out for more locations than California. While it’s nifty that it goes all the way to the top, we find that being able to directly interact with your local government and report issues as seen on the ground is probably the more likely use for this app.

DIY Democracy is available for download in the App Store.

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Obama’s 2011 budget gives $28.4B to the Energy Dept., scraps fossil fuel subsidies

President Barack Obama has released his $3.8 trillion 2011 budget request, including $28.4 billion for the U.S. Department of Energy to jumpstart green technologies and build a requisite job force. Surprisingly, nuclear would get a big boost. Not so surprisingly, oil and gas companies would have to kiss some of their tax credits goodbye.

The most interesting this about the energy budget request is just how hard hit the fossil fuel industry would be. About $2.7 billion in subsidies for oil, coal and gas would be canceled under this plan. The idea is to discourage their production and use while simultaneously saving money for the government that can be diverted for other purposes. On top of that, the $71 million expansion of the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve would also be called off.

As for who would actually get some money — About $550 million would be funneled into the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation program, intended to secure loose nuclear material around the world. Another $624 million would go to the administration’s weapons operations. Neither of these initiatives fit into the DOE’s green plans.

It’s comforting to know that more than that would be earmarked for clean energy development. In the current budget request, about $108 million has been set aside for grants to wind, solar and geothermal projects, and another $40 billion has been secured for loan guarantees to the same. Another $300 million would go to the DOE’s Advanced Research Project Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) initiative, which funds bold and experimental clean energy prospects. About $144 million would go to Smart Grid research and demonstrations.

When it comes to nuclear energy generation, $793 million would be earmarked for new research, and $36 billion in loan guarantees would go to two new nuclear facilities.

As several other media sources have noted, this year’s budget request for the DOE does not assume any revenue from a carbon cap and trade system — even though the 2010 budget did. Despite Obama’s pledge to pass legislation that would substantially lower carbon emissions, it looks like his faith in carbon trading as a possible solution has faded.

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Have Questions For Obama? YouTube’s Got You Covered

On Wednesday, U.S. President Barack Obama will deliver his State of the Union speech, which will be broadcast live on YouTube’s CitizenTube channel as well as on The White House’s brand new iPhone app.

Google is stepping up its game, as it will also give YouTube users the opportunity to ask Obama some follow-up questions in video or text.

On Wednesday night at 9 p.m. ET, during the live broadcast of the State of the Union on Citizentube, YouTube will be opening up a special Moderator series for citizens to submit their questions.

Evidently, President Obama will not be answering those questions live: the days following the speech, users will be able to submit additional questions and vote on their favorites.

Next week, although Google still has to communicate the exact timing, the top-voted questions will be asked to the president in a YouTube interview from the White House, which will also be broadcast live on Citizentube.

Read more on the YouTube blog and the White House blog.

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New site helps cancer patients network, improve treatments

Navigating Cancer, an organization dedicated to helping cancer patients find the best treatment options, has just launched a new, free web site to help its target audience keep track of their medical records, work more closely with their physicians and find other patients going through the same thing. The idea is to give users the information they need to take charge of their health.

The web site, in its beta version, offers all of these resources — including encyclopedic information on cancer and related topics — for free. Often, as part of people’s treatment plans, physicians will provide them with contacts who have battled cancer in the past. Hearing first-hand experiences from someone else has proved very therapeutic in the recovery process. Navigating Cancer aims to make it even easier to forge these connections via forums on its site. Peer organizations like the Caring for Carcinoid Foundation, Cancer Lifeline and Prostate NET will be running group discussions on the site.

Armed with knowledge from reputable sources like the National Cancer Institute — not regular WebMD or other, more casual sites — patients will have the ability to ask their doctors more informed questions, and inquire about a full range of options so they can make sure they are getting the best care for their specific needs, the organization says.

The other major aspect of the web site, the ability to create and save detailed medical records, fits into the trend toward a more digital medical system. Just as President Barack Obama urges the need for electronic medical records, Navigating Cancer and others are allowing patients to easily keep tabs on their own health data and development.

The Navigating Cancer site lets users enter basic health information, prescriptions, doctors appointments and more so that nothing will go forgotten. On top of that, it includes a Daily Health Tracker that patients can use to record their symptoms and any treatment side effects on a day-to-day basis. All of this information could come in handy at their next doctor’s appointment. Navigating Cancer says that all of this information is kept extremely secure.

The next step is to allow patients and physicians to securely share this information on the internet. That way, doctors can keep an eye on patients and any treatment irregularities without constant checkups. Navigating Cancer is working on integrating these features soon.

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Examining the Political Twittersphere: Obama, Schwarzenegger and Stephanopoulos

During the 2008 presidential campaign, politicians and reporters quickly discovered the power of Twitter. These days, Twitter has become yet another tool for politicians to get the word out about political initiatives and for reporters to reach out to their readers. In October, social media analytics firm Sysomos took a closer look at the political Twittersphere and how politicians like President Obama and California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger use this tool and who they connect with on Twitter.

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Editor’s note: This story is part of a series we call Redux, where we’ll re-publish some of our best posts of 2009. As we look back at the year – and ahead to what next year holds – we think these are the stories that deserve a second glance. It’s not just a best-of list, it’s also a collection of posts that examine the fundamental issues that continue to shape the Web. We hope you enjoy reading them again and we look forward to bringing you more Web products and trends analysis in 2010. Happy holidays from Team ReadWriteWeb!

Specifically, Sysomos’ Alex Cheng, Mark Evans and Nick Koudas were interested in examining who the most followed politicians on Twitter are and “how those within the political Twittersphere behave in terms of their follower/followed patterns.” In order to do so, they created a list of 168 accounts of influential politicians, reporters and bloggers from the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. that comprise the core of the political Twittersphere.

Obviously, we can’t really know if the fact that somebody follows somebody else actually means that they are reading all the updates and the political Twittersphere is arguably a bit larger than the sample that Sysomos looked at here. For this study, Sysomos only looked at accounts that had over 5,000 followers and the team acknowledges that it had to make some editorial choices to keep the study manageable. The fact that the map of all the connections between the 168 accounts weighs in at 16 MB shows the complexity of this study, so some editorial control was obviously necessary.

Here are some of the highlights from the report:

The President

With over 2.33 million followers, President Barack Obama is the most followed politician on Twitter, though he is only being followed by 56 members of the 168-member political Twittersphere. Among Obama’s followers are Al Gore, Portland’s Mayor Sam Adams, London’s Mayor Boris Johnson and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Newt Gingrich also follows Obama’s updates, as does blogger Marc Parent (@mparent77772)

There is probably a reason why relatively few political influencers follow Obama. After all, if you want updates from the president, his Twitter account is probably one of the worst ways of following him and most of the updates on Obama’s account aren’t very interesting. Other politicians like Schwarzenegger and John Boehner also update their accounts far more regularly.

Politicians and Political Reporters

Among politicians and reporters, ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos follows 105 members of the 168-member political Twittersphere Sysomos analyzed, followed by the Newshour (104), followed by John Boehner (98), the Huffington Post (98), and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (92).

Within the political Twittersphere, Schwarzenegger is also the most followed politician and Stephanopoulos is the most followed media personality.

Daryl Cagle, the cartoonist for MSNBC.com, is the #1 media personality that other reporters follow on Twitter.

News Organizations

Besides looking at individual reporters, Sysomos also examined the larger news organizations in the US. CNN’s Breaking News account (@cnnbrk) has over 2.75 million followers, followed by NPR Politics (@nprpolitics) with 1.51 million and Good Morning America (@gma) with 1.37 million. CNN doesn’t really follow anybody back, though, while the NPR Politics account follows close to 117,000 Twitter users and Newsweek (@newsweek) follows 97,000.

The members of the political Twittersphere as identified by Sysomos that are most likely to be followed are the PBS Newshour account, the Huffington Post and the LA Times.

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Surprise! Copenhagen falls flat and it might be America’s fault

World leaders finally emerged from cloistered negotiations, only to have President Barack Obama announce a deal falling far short of even people’s low expectations for the U.N.’s Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Despite the U.S.’s strong presence early in the proceedings, its refusal to depart from its own carbon reduction targets might have killed chances of an aggressive treaty before debate even began.

The deal arrived at postpones an international treaty to the end of 2010 — opening it up to months, if not years more of delay before specific emissions targets can be reached and enforced. This accord has yet to be approved by the 193 countries in attendance, and many top leaders have already jetted out of town. Talk about anticlimactic.

Reactions to the news have been varied — but everyone seems to be dissatisfied with the outcome. While Obama tried to put a positive spin on the announcement, arguing that it was meaningful for nations to be rallying around the issue, period, many fear what this will mean for future efforts to control climate change. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez even inferred that Obama is the devil.

Obama has drawn a lot of fire for his role in the talks, which is somewhat unexpected. When he first said last week that he would be attending the final negotiations at the conference, people started to get excited, hopeful that the U.S. would make magic happen. These suspicions were backed up with the subsequent endangerment ruling from the Environmental Protection Agency, declaring greenhouse gases a threat to human health. It appeared, briefly, that the U.S. had its game face on, even though climate change legislation had stalled in Congress.

But once there, the president made it immediately clear that he would not be departing from the country’s previous offer to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. Other countries, particularly in the E.U. and even China and India were expecting more than this. A lot of the debate in the final days in Denmark centered around getting the U.S. to change its tune, until finally it ran out of gas.

There was a chance, at one point during the closed-door talks, that consensus had been reached for emissions reductions of 50 percent by 2050, with developed nations carrying the burden of decreasing emissions by 80 percent during that time. But those points were eventually pulled off the table.

But what does this mean for climate policy in the U.S. and its impact on green entrepreneurs and investors? The biggest concern is that the Kerry-Boxer climate bill pending in the U.S. Senate will be a casualty of Copenhagen’s failure. Republicans are sure to capitalize on this point to let the air out of the bill, which would set a carbon cap-and-trade system in motion and set ambitious emissions reduction goals. Already, the bill has been postponed till the spring, and it chances aren’t looking good.

If climate change proposals fail both on the world and national stage, the concept of cap-and-trade might be dead in the water as well. Opponents have been very successful in arguing that such a system would hurt already weak economies around the globe, spurring further unemployment. But a drastic shift away from cap-and-trade could take a serious bite out of carbon tracking companies like Hara, Carbonetworks and Picarro. It could even slow smart grid efforts, and initiatives by utilities to clean up their acts. If there’s no impetus and corresponding financial model to cut emissions, few people will.

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10 Ways Social Media Will Change In 2010

This time last year, I wrote about the 10 ways social media will change 2009, and while all predictions have materialized or are on their way, it has only become clear in recent months how significant of a change we’ve seen this year. 2009 will go down as the year in which the shroud of uncertainty was lifted off of social media and mainstream adoption began at the speed of light. Barack Obama’s campaign proved that social media can mobilize millions into action, and Iran’s election protests demonstrated its importance to the freedom of speech.

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This guest post was written by Ravit Lichtenberg, founder and chief strategist at Ustrategy.com – a boutique consultancy focusing on helping companies succeed. Ravit authors a blog at www.ravitlichtenberg.com.

Today, it is impossible to separate social media from the online world. Facebook reached 350 million users last month — 70% of whom are outside the US — and it accounts for 25% of the Web’s traffic, nearly one in five people on the web use Twitter, and 94% of enterprises plan to maintain or increase their investment in enterprise social media tools. The social media conversation is no longer considered a Web 2.0 fad — it is taking place in homes, small businesses and corporate boardrooms, and extending its reach into the nonprofit, education and health sectors. From feeling excitement, novelty, bewilderment, and overwhelmed, a growing number of people now speak of social media as simply another channel or tactic.

So what will social Web bring next? What will “being connected” mean? What will the next experience be for the 2 two billion people who are connected to the Internet? Here are 10 ways what we’ve called social media will evolve in 2010.

Social Media Will Become a Single, Cohesive Experience Embedded In Our Activities and Technologies

By this time next year, social media will no longer be “social media” — it will be an integrated, unquestionable component of your online and offline experience. Last year we spoke of cross-platform integration across media sites. Open APIs and OpenID made that possible, and even LinkedIn announced last month that it too will finally open its APIs. 2010 will be about integration and a single, cohesive experience across platforms as well as across products and devices — Web, mobile, TV, and video — will become near-inseparable experiences.

Users will access content from any device or platform, co-create and mashup their photos, videos and text with traditional content while interacting with each other. Publishers will create new kinds of content for the connected world, and the last years’ lull in good entertainment will finally be lifted. This trend will cut across all of our activities — from playing games to shopping to emailing and texting — nothing will be lost; everything we do will be gathered and streamed together, allowing people to view their world of activities as if it were projected in front of them, open to change, review and input at any point in time from any device or online tool.

Social Media Innovation Will No Longer Be Limited By Technology

With Web technology maturing and the near-elimination of previous barriers such closed platforms and discrete logins, companies will now look to innovate the way they use existing technology, rather than focus on technology enhancements themselves. We will see a move to leverage existing assets — content and capabilities — in new ways, turning information to wisdom and insight to action. Whereas once user research required focus groups and usability tests, companies will utilize the Web’s capabilities to achieve the same. Naturally occurring conversations will be utilized in product innovation and design, and companies will create incentives for people’s attention and engagement while repurposing and analyzing content and engagement in new ways that will deliver valuable input.

Mobile Will Take Center Stage

Worldwide, the iPhone alone accounts for about 33% of mobile web traffic and IDC predicts the number of mobile web users will hit one billion by 2010. As the technological barriers come down, people will increasingly use their phones on-the-go to access social networks, search, read content and find location-based information. Our phones will be used as a central hub and beacon — enabling a slew of new capabilities and experiences.

Expect an Intense Battle As People and Companies Look To Own Their Own Content

2009 marked the year of open Web, and divergence of content, making content available anywhere, anytime, by anyone and to everyone; it was the year content exploded across the web, platforms and devices. The issue Google solved so magically — content find-ability — will become all but moot in the coming years. Instead, content relevance and quality will become the key focus. In 2010 we will start to see convergence as companies take measures to own their own content, its location and its cost. Last month, Rupert Murdoch announced he may opt News Corp out of Google, instructing it to de-index its publications from the search engine and giving exclusive rights to Bing for a fee. This means that content publishers will be able to determine where they make their content available and at what cost.

With the growth of user generated content and the dwindling relevance of search results, people will gradually shift their trust from large aggregators like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and move to searching and finding content at specific locations and, eventually, creating and integrating their own content hub into the rest of their personal digital experience. “People don’t realize that everything they do — on Facebook, Ning, Google and with their credit cards — is being collected, tracked, analyzed, owned and monetized by these companies who provide (so-called) free services. It’s not a healthy model.” Says John Faber, COO of af83, a Drupal development house and co-founder of the upcoming DrupalCon.

Enterprises Will Shape the Next Generation of What We’ve Called “Social Media”

It was easy to forget that enterprises and large institutions are the originators of some of social media’s pillars: listservs, forums, intranets and collaboration tools. As social media became a public domain, enterprises have been cautious participants, predominantly in the product space, with few visionary leaders like Zappos, IBM and Dell. But cautionary they are no more. With a reported average of 25% increase in funds allocation toward social media activities, in 2010 we will see a surge in adoption of social media across product, services and solutions companies.

Having the need and the funds, enterprises will determine the next generation of social experiences. They will push enhancements that meet their needs, specifically around monitoring, automation, alignment with the sales cycle and integration with existing systems, expanding social “media” to encompass the ecosystem of social computing across solutions, and making them actionable for the company. Jive, blueKiwi, Remindo and Sharepoint support companies internally. Most recently, Salesforce.com released Chatter, designed to turn the corporation, and CRM, social. With its APIs opening later this year, “Chatter can become a new layer over its Force platform, already being used by 68,000 customers, enabling companies and developers to leverage the Salesforce infrastructure in a secure environment,” said Bruce Francis, VP corporate strategy Salesforce.com.

Next page: ROI Will Be Measured — and It Will Matter