Key Technologies for Media Activists

Do you want to use multimedia, online or offline tools to advance your cause?   Creatively and effectively? To reach the broadest possible audience?

Do you want to create and distribute audio programmes, comic books, posters and newsletters? Set up a website or a blog to champion your issue?

Tactical Tech's "Message in-a-box" is a set of strategic guides to using communications tools for social change, together with a suite of open source tools to get you making your own media. The toolkit is designed for small and medium-sized NGOs, advocates, and citizen journalists to help them create and distribute content for their advocacy efforts while exploring the constantly evolving world of campaigning and communications.

"The guide features case studies from around the world, strategies for using mobile phones in advocacy work, and a how-to section for advocacy organizations considering using mobile phones to advance their causes."

"A code of best practices that helps creators, online providers, copyright holders, and others interested in the making of online video interpret the copyright doctrine of fair use. Fair use is the right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment under some circumstances.
This is a guide to current acceptable practices, drawing on the actual activities of creators, as discussed among other places in the study Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video (centerforsocialmedia.org/recut) and backed by the judgment of a national panel of experts. It also draws, by way of analogy, upon the professional judgment and experience of documentary filmmakers, whose own code of best practices has been
recognized throughout the film and television businesses (centerforsocialmedia.org/fairuse). "

What exactly is the Internet and what role does it play in our movement for social change?

In this collection of essays, May First/People Link techie-organizers explore this remarkable social movement:

• analyzing its growth and character as an expression of humanity's resistance and resilience;
• offering an analysis of how it impacts the progressive movement and how we should impact it;
• taking up Internet issues like access, race and gender, threats to the Internet's independence and freedom, free and open source software, spam, email, security and privacy, dns and other Internet protocols;
• and suggesting strategies for the use, protection and expansion of the Internet's technology.

It's a must-read for every progressive activist who participates in the Internet and a good starting point for the movement-wide discussion that has become essential.

The book features:

• The Organic Internet by Alfredo López
• The Political Techie by Jamie McClelland
• Domain Names by Alfredo López
• The Internet Protocol by Eric Goldhagen
• Technical Architecture Shapes Social Structure by Daniel Kahn Gillmor
• The Email Crisis by Jamie McClelland
• FOSS and Proprietary Software by Amanda B. Hickman

You can download a copy of the Organic Internet on line as a pdf file or purchase printed paperback copies for $7.00

This online internet-speed test is part of the Speed Matters campaign for affordable
high-speed internet access for all, by the Communication Workers of
America (CWA). Test how fast your access really is, and help build the campaign to make sure all people in the US have full access to a decent internet connetion.

Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2007

How the index was compiled

Paris, 16 October 2007

The Reporters Without Borders index
measures the state of press freedom in the world. It reflects the
degree of freedom that journalists and news organisations enjoy in each
country, and the efforts made by the authorities to respect and ensure
respect for this freedom.

A score and a position is assigned to
each country in the final ranking. They are complementary indicators
that together assess the state of press freedom. A country can change
position from year to year even if its score stays the same, and
vice-versa.

This ranking reflects the situation
during a specific period. It is based solely on events between 1
September 2006 and 1 September 2007. It does not look at human rights
violations in general, just press freedom violations.

To compile this index, Reporters
Without Borders prepared a questionnaire with 50 criteria that assess
the state of press freedom in each country. It includes every kind of
violation directly affecting journalists (such as murders,
imprisonment, physical attacks and threats) and news media (censorship,
confiscation of newspaper issues, searches and harassment). Ánd it
includes the degree of impunity enjoyed by those responsible for these
press freedom violations.

It also measures the level of
self-censorship in each country and the ability of the media to
investigate and criticise. Financial pressure, which is increasingly
common, is also assessed and incorporated into the final score.

The questionnaire takes account of the
legal framework for the media (including penalties for press offences,
the existence of a state monopoly for certain kinds of media and how
the media are regulated) and the level of independence of the public
media. It also reflects violations of the free flow of information on
the Internet.

"Don’t wait to be deprived of news to stand up and fight for it"

Investigate, expose and support

Reporters Without Borders:

defends
journalists and media assistants imprisoned or persecuted for doing
their job and exposes the mistreatment and torture of them in many
countries.

fights against censorship and laws that undermine press freedom.

gives financial aid
each year to 100 or so journalists or media outlets in difficulty (to
pay for lawyers, medical care and equipment) as well to the families of
imprisoned journalists.

works to improve the safety of journalists, especially those reporting in war zones.

Before taking action, Reporters Without
Borders researchers, who each handle a region (Africa, the Americas,
Asia/Pacific, Europe and the former Soviet bloc, Middle East/ North
Africa) or a topic such as the Internet, compile reports of press
freedom violations. After checking the information, the researchers and
the organisations’ correspondents send protest letters to the
authorities to put pressure on governments which do not respect the
right to inform and to be informed, and send releases to the media to
drum up support for the journalists under attack.

Sometimes gathering information is not
enough. A Reporters Without Borders fact-finding mission is then sent
to investigate on the spot the working conditions of journalists, as
well as cases of imprisoned or murdered journalists, and also to meet
with the authorities in the country concerned.

Publicity campaigns conducted with the
help of public relations firms aim to inform people and try to give
countries which do not respect this basic right a bad name in the eyes
of international institutions, the media and governments that have ties
with them.

Reporters Without Borders is funded by
the sale of its twice-annual albums of photographs as well as
calendars, by auctions, small and large donations, member dues, public
grants and partnerships with private firms.

An international organisation

Reporters Without Borders is present in all five continents through
its national branches (in Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany,
Italy, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland), its offices in Bangkok, London,
New York, Tokyo and Washington, and the more than 120 correspondents it
has in other countries. The organisation also works closely with local
and regional press freedom groups that are members of the Reporters
Without Borders Network, in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Burma,
Colombia, Democratic Congo, Eritrea, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Peru,
Romania, Russia, Somalia, the United States and Tunisia.

Reporters Without Borders is registered in France as a non-profit organisation and has consultant status at the United Nations.

In 2005, the organisation won the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

A constantly-updated website

All the organisation’s press releases and publications are available
online in five languages (Arabic, English, French, Spanish and Persian)
at its website www.rsf.org which keeps a daily-updated list of
journalists killed or imprisoned around the world. It also contains
detailed reports on special cases and invites the public to sign online
petitions for the release of jailed journalists.

DoGooderTV is a project of See3 Communications.
See3 is all about helping nonprofits tell their stories on the web. We
primarily use video and social media / websites to tell the stories. We
have been helping our clients use existing tools, such as YouTube and
the dozens of other video sharing sites and social networks. Some of
our clients kept telling us that they had a problem with these sites.
They were OK, but they worried about control of their brand, and
whether the audience and the surroundings were appropriate for their
messages.

So they decided to create DoGooder.tv,
where nonprofits can brand their videos to a specific audience that is
interested in making the world a better place. The idea is that any
person interested in non-profits and their body of work will see the
videos on DoGooderTV and they´ll be able to read more about the
organizations and their causes, inform themselves about volunteering
and donation opportunities, create a community around the issues they
care about and share their experiences and their efforts with other
like-minded individuals.