Social Media Platforms

By, Angeline Nekesa.

Social media communication tools keep on emerging on a daily basis, it   important for an environmental journalist to be aware of the latest trends in social media and their specific use.

The diagram below shows some of the social media platform you can use to communicate environmental information. 

Social media landscapes courtesy of: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/yjv/galleries/72157625318154047/

New Media and Environmental Journalism

By, Angeline Nekesa

New Media has provided an alternative platform of expression for environmental communication. New media is helping environmental activists to combat the powerful propaganda and immense resources of the traditional media. The adoption of new media has given a level playing field and has democratized the environmental communication and its debate.  The presence of low cost internet access and internet based devices have broken the monopoly of professionally run news organizations. 

In today's information environment, practically anybody can create and disseminate “news” contents. These unregulated “Citizen Journalists” can now galvanize populace support as widely and as effectively as any big budget news organizations. Furthermore, the Internet's ability to provide instantaneous news on a 24/7 basis, consolidated and indexed search engines has made it the primary source of news. Apart from that the convergence of media technology has fundamentally altered the way individuals receive news and gather information and has created new dimension to environment Communication like the User Generated Content. 

The Internet has given power to every individual to express himself globally. Any individual with a digital device and Internet connection can create, publish and distribute media contents. This has effectively put a "journalist" on every street corner of the world and no incident is likely to occur without someone seeing it, recording it and reporting it. The journalistic principles and hierarchy which can become a hindrance for a professional journalist do not come in the way of these Citizen Journalists.  

Social networking websites like Face Book and Twitter have brought together individuals with similar friends or interests into virtual communities. The homogeneity of these communities, and sense of bonding among “friends” with common interests, makes these communities susceptible to being organized and galvanized to support causes. Hence new media has created an omnipresence of “journalists,” coupled with technology that enables to report the news as it develops, communicate the information effectively to large group of like mined people thereby creating a mass movement on issues, happenings etc.

The launch of new media has certainly countered the threat of uncertain and dwindling environmental news in traditional media. Editors and journalists are now delivering sophisticated, in depth reports on various topics ranging from climate change to green marketing using new media platforms. The contributors in these platforms are wide ranging from a specialist to a common man giving it a holistic approach. These information platforms are in turn becoming the primary sources of information to many other media forms.  New media has reduced the distance and increased the proximity between the source and the receiver of the information.

New media and Communication

 By , Angeline Nekesa

"New media" is a form of interactive communication that use the Internet, including podcasts, RSS feeds, social networks, text messaging, blogs, wikis, virtual worlds and more. New media makes it possible for anyone to create, modify, and share content and share it with others, using relatively simple tools that are often free or inexpensive. New media requires a computer or mobile device with Internet access.

The term new media can also refer to various technologies that have emerged or seen rapid growth on a global scale during the latter part of the 20th century and into the new millennium. Most people who have an Internet connection are already aware of some of the major types of new media, which includes social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as blogs and video sharing sites such as YouTube. New media has also greatly advanced cellular communications in the last twenty years, through applications that connect with the Internet and other technologies. As new media is constantly evolving to connect to as many different platforms and people as possible, one of its most defining characteristics is interactivity.

One of the first forms of new media that the general public became familiar with during the latter-20th century was cyber chatting. Whether one-on-one or within a chat room, chatting online quickly evolved from a mostly text-based tool to one which also included audio visual capabilities via such applications as webcams. Because of the anonymity afforded by the Internet, many people who engaged in online chatting began reconstructing the narrative of their real lives, posing online under a different name, age, gender or occupation. Today, the notion of a new online identity first introduced in chat rooms has expanded to include visual recreation, via the popular web service, Second Life. On Second Life, members can create their own 3D image, also known as an avatar, and interact with other members in a completely virtual world. 

Blogs are another form of new media which have expanded our notions of the levels of interactivity made possible by new media. The ability for bloggers or citizen journalists to post any text, photos or videos for other Internet users could interact with was initially seen as a breakthrough in global communications. The problem, however, of locating blogs which focused on particular topics of interest was then solved by social networking sites, which enabled people to stay abreast of one’s own network of friends and organizations via one website. Social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are also compatible with blogs, cellphones, and other new media applications, enabling people to send and receive updated information to a select group of users.

The hybridization of different types of new media has given way to some concerns over privacy in recent years. The potential to combine different forms of new media into one source, such as connecting to social networking, email, phone, and web banking through a hand-held device, renders one more vulnerable to identity theft via hackers and spyware.