Used by millions on a daily basis Web 2 and social media have become part of our lives; Facebook arguably developed into the largest online group worldwide with some 800 million users - or one seventh of the world's population. (Facebook, 2011) This paper reviews social media and provides a general overview of the same from the perspective of an independent documentary filmmaker. The paper investigates use of social media during the Arab Spring and Wall Street Movement (Occupy, 2011) and compares social- with traditional media. Using the example of the documentary 'God, Church, Pills & Condoms' (F Kohle, A Cuevas, 2011) the tools social media offers are examined and their applications are discussed. Web 2 is the accumulative sum of print, radio, TV and film, offering an ever-increasing amount of content. What are the implications and challenges for Documentary filmmakers? How can documentary filmmakers explore the full potential of social media? Does social media really offer an alternative to traditional content commissioning, content development and distribution as well as fund raising? The paper concludes by examining future trends for social media and potential applications in documentary filmmaking.
LINK
The Middle East and North Africa region has been absent form stocktaking exercises on social accountability initiatives (SAI), an umbrella term to designate citizen-led tools aimed at socio-political change. We argue that this sidelining is unwarranted, given the proliferation of participatory governance initiatives, civic associations and popular mobilisation in Arab societies after 2011. Whereas the struggle for improved accountability in the Arab world remains under-researched, analysis of authoritarian regime tactics has proliferated. The fact is, however, that many Arab societies have experimented with mechanisms to apply political pressure on corrupt elites while international donors have launched diverse SAIs, including community score cards and participatory and gender-responsive budgeting initiatives. In this chapter, we first identify this double gap: not only has the literature on SAIs overlooked the MENA region but scholarship on the Middle East has largely failed to recognise initiatives launched across the region over the past decade as SAIs. Then, we aim to address the blind spot of Arab SAI’s as pathways towards improved governance. Finally, we present an overview of extant literature and introduce a set of four research questions to better understand what social accountability means for people on the ground. These questions focus on the various meanings of social accountability (musā’ala vs muhāsaba), its modes of mobilisation, the responses from authorities to such initiatives and their overall outcomes.
MULTIFILE
Used by millions on a daily basis Web 2 and social media have become part of our lives; Facebook arguably developed into the largest online group worldwide with some 800 million users - or one seventh of the world's population. (Facebook, 2011) This paper reviews social media and provides a general overview of the same from the perspective of an independent documentary filmmaker. The paper investigates use of social media during the Arab Spring and Wall Street Movement (Occupy, 2011) and compares social- with traditional media. Using the example of the documentary 'God, Church, Pills & Condoms' (F Kohle, A Cuevas, 2011) the tools social media offers are examined and their applications are discussed. Web 2 is the accumulative sum of print, radio, TV and film, offering an ever-increasing amount of content. What are the implications and challenges for Documentary filmmakers? How can documentary filmmakers explore the full potential of social media? Does social media really offer an alternative to traditional content commissioning, content development and distribution as well as fund raising? The paper concludes by examining future trends for social media and potential applications in documentary filmmaking.
DOCUMENT
LINK
In this chapter, we first summarise the findings from the country chapters on the multiple meanings of SA, documenting terms, translations and contrasting understandings between citizens and public officials. Second, we highlight how civil mobilisation tends to be cyclical over time and is often mediated by brokers. Strategies to spur stakeholders into action rely on a delicate balance of both collaboration and confrontation. Third, we examine the responses from authorities to SAIs, finding that reactions are uneven and that all civic innovators fear appropriation or co-optation by officials. Fourth, we assess overall outcomes of Arab SAIs and highlight that the transformative potential of SAIs exists especially at municipal level, if four conditions for success are present (trust, proximity, endorsement, evaluation). We also point out that the actual outcomes of SAIs in Arab societies have, so far, been limited due to design deficiencies (emphasising short-term objectives and limited context sensitivity) or because of officials’ resistance in active or passive forms. We characterise SAIs as a discursive action format that is best understood with a relational approach to power. In a final section, we formulate recommendations for activists, officials and donors on how to make SAIs more effective.
MULTIFILE
The semantic web, social media and the amount of user-generated content continues to grow at a staggering rate. Social Media significantly contributed to the information flow during the Arab Spring, the Occupy and Wall Street movement continue to maintain a global online presence using social media technology. But is the social media information explosion really a unique event in media history? How did story telling evolve into social media? In order to place social media in its historical context and anticipate digital native expectations, we explore the origins of narrative and storytelling from the perspective of a documentary producer. How did past media technologies prepare the way for social media? How do digital natives perceive the world via social media and what do they expect from today's documentary producer? What are the viewing habits of digital natives? What do previous 'information explosions' have in common with social and digital media? These are essential questions for media and documentary producers navigating their way through the vast maze of social media technology and the semantic web, in addition to traditional media.
DOCUMENT
The right to the city is a concept that was first proposed by Henri Lefebvre’s book ‘Le Droit à la Ville’ in 1968 and that has been reclaimed more recently by social movements, thinkers and several progressive local authorities alike as a call to action to reclaim the city as a co-created space—a place for life detached from the growing effects that commodification and capitalism have had over social interaction and the rise of spatial inequalities in worldwide cities throughout the last two centuries. Today, the right to the city theory has inspired many social movements in the world, especially in the Middle East (e.g. Arab Spring movements and conquering the public squares of the cities by citizens, the Istanbul movement in Taksim square, the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York). Urban public space is the place where all the collective social movements and collective memory of citizens occur. However, the main question around the neoliberal city of today is how and who will create the public space and for whom will this space be created? The aim of this chapter is to discuss the triple notions of space production, collective use of space and the right to the city in the context of the neoliberal cities of the Middle East. We will use a desktop review and case study approach to explain how, in the neoliberal city of today, the occupation of collective space in favour of private profit upsets and impinges upon the general right to the city. All the while discussing the participation of citizens in the process of space production and the increase in the collective use of public space, hence extending and enlarging the citizenry’s right to the city.
LINK
Guest post by Lieke Wissink. Lieke is an anthropologist and philosopher who works at the Youth and Society knowledge center, University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam. She engages in an action-research project with undocumented youths at a day shelter, and carries-out participant observation, group workshops and interviews with residents. This blogpost reflects on feelings of empowerment and precarity as expressed by the shelter members during the Covid-19 pandemic. This post is part of our new themed series on border control and Covid-19.
LINK
The paper arguments that a design approach will be essential to the future of e-democracy and e-governance. This development is driven at the intersection of three fields: democracy, information technology and design. Developments in these fields will result in a new scale, new complexity and demands for new quality of democracy solutions. Design is essential to answer these new challenges. The article identifies a new generation of design thinking as a distinct new voice in the development of e-democracy and describes some of the consequences for democracy and governance. It argues that, to be able to design new solutions for e-democracy successfully, current approaches may be too narrow and a broader critical reflection is necessary for both designers and other stakeholders in the process.
DOCUMENT
The aim of this small explorative study was to get an impression of the participants’ views and understanding of the role of becoming a teacher in Swedish schools, realising the characteristic of pedagogy aimed for in the curriculum (in Lgr11 and Lgy), specifically the interaction patterns and student participation in learning processes. Main research questions addressed participants expectations of differences and challenges in the Swedish school context as compared to their experiences in Syria contexts, in specific the development of their understanding of student participation in interaction as characteristic of Swedish education and curriculum. From this, recommendations are formulated for curriculum and research for future Fast Track trajectories.
DOCUMENT
