digital poverty exits too

It looks like the Digital Age advent hasn’t changed the main concern of those who enjoy the capitalist system rules. Markets lead the game and you cannot take part on it if you don’t meet the requirements. Which requirements? Well, you must have been born in the right environment.

It wouldn’t be fair not to take into account all the chances that new technologies development involves. It is awesome how the new flow of communication is being able to transform the whole world. But now I would like to address the subject of global real time connection and its advantages for countries where citizens have easily included it in their life.

As I have already pointed out, people who have always lived in an authoritarian regime, are now asking for that concept of freedom that reached them through the web. If it hadn´t been for the Internet, cyber activism would have never played his essential role. 

Despite valuable facts like this, monetary rules are still too much important. The Web feels its presence as much as the other global inequality issues do.

In order to talk about the virtual differences, it has appeared another new term: the Digital Divide. Its formal definition goes: “gap or imbalance in people’s access to digital information and technology, including physical access, economic resources and skills”. 

The Digital Divide is an abstract concept; we shouldn’t imagine it as a clear line which divides society into two groups. 

We cannot only think about countries and their degree of development either. Its factors go beyond geographical location and include other kinds of minorities within the rich societies.

Studying these factors might be the first step. Planning initiatives and non governmnent organizations are great options to bridge the “technology gap”. But I am not sure that shelfisness was helpful to solve all the kinds of divides.

It looks as if power leaders are not able to change their impassive minds yet. So, either their income can´t afford tech and evidence data don’t reach them or they don’t mind about anything which is not their (profitable) business. 

Citizens are not getting journalism out of the way

By the time I started to realize how complex the world is (I am not sure I understand it yet), Internet had reached rich societies’ daily living. 

I wouldn´t be able to say how or in which order it occurred: all of a sudden, I came of age and this globalization tool has completely changed our life.

I didn’t altogether notice this fact until I began my university career. Then, I had to get used to heard about Internet impacts on the journalism world.

Information on the new digital environmet involves talking about a huge number of changes in traditional mainstream.

"Where do people get the news?" polls and the endless debate about the future of newspapers are frequently brought up. 

Citizen journalism is one of those issues that communication professionals are dealing with for first time. The term refers to lay people writing and reporting their live experience on the net and social media. Through some modern technology tools  (such as videophones or compact digital cameras), ordinary individuals that unexpectedly find themselves as witnesses of an event, may post what is happening online. Without any professional journalism training, they would be creating, amplifying or fact-checking information.

Social networks have recently joined the game too.

Over the last few weeks, in Arab countries where protests have been taking place (Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Libya...), social networks gained such a magnitude that are even considered the revolts´engines. Information that dictators made inaccessible to traditional media, were reaching us thanks to Twitter or Facebook. They have become brigdes, to an extent that people have turned to them more frequently than to the mainstream media.

For those most deeply interested in social media monitoring and analyzing; Sysomos.

Changes that are coming along with massive democratization of information, allow anyone not only the access to it, but the chance to publish content online. As I have already said, new age adaptations are not always "friendly received".

Some trained journalists are practicing what migth be considered citizen journalism. They are writing blogs and harnessing the audience knowledge, going out of the traditional hierarchy. While they are doing so, for many others it is hard to get the idea: citizien journalism is a very valuable source, not a threat. A variety of worried minds and views meeting all together can only mean a freedom never reached.

Future of true journalists is not endangered. It is not an easy job to verify and to go through the countless information dumped on the internet. You need high studies, years of experience and ethical feelings if you want to do it well. Professional journalism implies the awareness that information is a social right. 

I am sorry to announce you, power forces, that the time of the most advantageous and profitable agenda setting is over.  You, persistent gatekeepers, are not the exclusive center of the information anymore.

Taking social media easy

What does exactly “Digital Age” mean? And, what about “Information Society” or “World Wide Web”? When we talk about these terms we know exactly what we are touching on. Exactly? Well, I doubt it. Don´t get me wrong. What I am questioning is not our intelligence, but whether we are able to construct in our minds the main ideas associated with such abstracts concepts. 

With Digital Media Revolution we have assumed new words really quickly. Even most young people have grown up using those new words intuitively in their daily lives.

It is frequent to hear words like “web 2.0”, “digital content”, "mashup" or “social media”. Often we listen to increasingly more intense debates in which agents discuss “Internet Governance” or “Copyrights”.

Rather than entering into these discussions, where points of view diverge, I find it interesting to make these concepts clear first. Looking at it from a wide and simple attitude will help us understand which perspectives we find and why they don´t match.

That´s why I find this kind of videos cool. 

Social Media is regular people sharing information through a virtual net that connects the whole world. And that is complex to imagine, isn´t it?

Some sort of journalism takes advantage of it, as Gillmor does and explains in his  We Media introduction (Foreword). Feedback, freedom of expression and content made by consumers to consumers, all of them walking away from traditional "only one direction" information broadcasting, lead this "participatory journalism". 

Technology available for "Information Society", molding together Internet possibilities, gives us brand new technology. Business and companies are paying attention to what their target consumers say on the net to improve their products. 

Unlike we used to, we do not look at journalists as gatekeepers anymore. Information is supposed to flow without barriers and comes from very different physical spots and points of view.

All this jumble of new media and concepts may seem chaotic. Changes happen more frequently than ever. And that, for me, for those whose future might depend on communication, is interesting...

Indecisión

Quizá estuviera dándole más importancia de la que realmente se merecía. Después de todo, no era ninguna desconocida. Toda su vida... ¡era ella! De alguna manera, formaba parte de él. Aún así, seguía siendo impredecible. Podía ser fría y dulce a la vez; desconcertante. Y, ¡tantas sensaciones distintas cerca de ella!

Pero no tenía por qué hacerlo. No, miedo no. Sólo que... la idea no le convencía. Hasta ahora, se había sentido tranquilo y cómodo. 

De repente, las cosas se han precipitado, y si he llegado hasta aquí, no lo he hecho de forma premeditada. Me habré dejado llevar por algún impulso...

Además, todavía tenía mucho tiempo por delante. Podría volver a considerarlo más tarde.  

Incluso, puede hasta ser peligroso no dejar pasar más tiempo antes de hacerlo, ¿no? Tiene que ser algo lento, progresivo. Eso dicen...

En el fondo sabía que sólo era una excusa capaz de aplazar el momento.      

Una suave brisa le hizo salir del ensimismamiento. La brisa y el escalofrío definitivo: dio media vuelta sobre sus pies descalzos y emprendió el camino de vuelta a la toalla.           

“No. Ahora mejor no me baño.”