Digital Activism

How Social Networking bought down a Government.

It will be no surprise to any of you who have seen the news in the last two months that President Hosni Mubarak has stepped down from his 30 year rule of Egypt. How is it though that a nation as vast a Egypt were able to organize these fierce riots at such short notice ... well it seems that social networks aren't just for playing Farmville and sharing photos. Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and many other social networking sites all played their part in the events that unfolded.

As we saw last year in London, Riots can be organized within a couple of days an have devastating effects. In the first student protest, 25,000 school children and University students acted out on the proposed increase in fees. Protests went on into the night and caused millions of pounds worth of damage. This all started from a Facebook group calling for an organized walkout and peaceful protest in demonstration against the proposal however in truth it resulted in scenes like these.

The revolution in Egypt was much the same. Deciding that they had had enough of Mubaraks 30 year dictatorship, rose up and stood their ground calling for the current leader to stand down. It took 17 days of constant protesting to get rid of man who had been in power for three decades, millions of people campaigned through the night breaking curfew laws put in place. After just seven days of protests, mobile phone signal was cut and the internet blocked in an attempt to disrupt the protesters organization. Twitter was still accessible for some though, Twitpic and YouTube were used by those that had a connection to send evidence of the events to International news stations. After a while houses around the main squares opened their WiFi networks to allow Facebook and other networks proved vital tools in the organization of both of these events. .

Marshall McLuhan once talked about the "Global village", a world bought together by electric technologies. Free and instant movement of information between quarters with no practical restrictions. It is this facilitation of communication between social groups with similar opinions that has changed the face of society as we know it. Where it would have once taken several weeks to organize such public uprisings, and even then may not have come to fruition, now only takes days, possibly even hours.

Social networking is all the rage, it's where the people are and where businesses want to be but does it have a darker side? Yes it can be used to do great things like help find lost relatives in the devastating situation in Japan, you can broad cast yourself like Justin Bieber or rebel against commercialism by backing "rage against the machine" for Christmas number one. Social networking is such a powerful tool though that I worry it may be misused by those looking to cause trouble. Both of the examples that we have looked at in this blog just go to show how you can rally thousands of people in a common cause from your back bedroom. Provided they all share your view on a given matter who knows what is possible, that is the brilliance/terror of digital activism.

How can we protect ourselves in cyberspace?

I recently had problems with my computer at home, various viruses had managed to slip through the AVG net and embed themselves on some fair important files that I was working on. After much shouting and swearing I managed to remove the offending files and was advised to used a piece of software called SUPER Anti Spyware (SASw) that would ensure that all unwanted programs and files on my machine were removed. I was must say that I was hugely impressed with a the software particularly as it was free! Having run an initial AVG scan, you would have thought that any spyware or malware would have been removed but oh no. I followed it up with a whole computer scan on SASw and to my amazement it found the following : 7 Ad-ware cookies, 1 Browser Hijacked and 1759 tracking cookies. As you can imagine I was slightly taken aback by AVG inability to detect 1767 unwanted files.

We are all familiar with Social networks like Facebook taking over the world of communications but why is it that no one seems to have any major objections to showing their relationship status, contact info, likes, dislikes favorite films, artists etc? Many of you will be aware of the Facebook privacy settings in place but some may not know how these have evolved over time. Matt Mckeon talks of how the Facebook team have relaxed the approach to default privacy as more emphasis has been put on monetizing the site. The picture bellow depicts how poor Facebook's default settings have been over the last year.

Some of you may not be aware of how Facebook use our personal details and profile information to target us with Ads although they maintain this is done anonymously, it still takes place.We can of course opt out of this unnecessary exposure of information but why should we have to? shouldn't the default be the highest possible setting? Of course in an ideal world it would. It is these short comings in online privacy that lead to Spam mailing, excessive tracking cookies, spyware, fraud and viruses.

Online privacy is a massive issue, you wouldn't give out your contact details or personal information to a random person you met on the street. Nor would you give your card details away to anyone unless you trusted them 100%. Unfortunately many sites, groups and networks do not have security and privacy barriers in place to stop your info leaking out to a wider audience

So how can you ensure that your online privacy settings are up to scratch? Well following these tips offered by the EFF would be a good place to start.

1.      Do not reveal personal information inadvertently.

2.      Turn on cookie notices in your Web browser, and/or use cookie management software.

3.      Keep a "clean" e-mail address.

4.      Don't reveal personal details to strangers or just-met "friends".

5.      Realize you may be monitored at work, avoid sending highly personal e-mail to mailing lists, and keep sensitive files on your home computer.

6.      Beware sites that offer some sort of reward or prize in exchange for your contact information or other personal details.

7.      Do not reply to spammers, for any reason.

8.      Be conscious of Web security.

9.      Be conscious of home computer security.

10.  Examine privacy policies and seals.

11.  Remember that YOU decide what information about yourself to reveal, when, why, and to whom.

12.  Use encryption!

BEWARE: Even if you Facebook privacy settings have been put in place, every time a new profile layout is bought in you settings may reset to default!

Product Placement - Friend or Foe

We have come a long way from the Unilever’s first deliberate insertion of Sunlight Soap into the early Lumiere films of the late 1890’s (Gregorio and Sung 2010) to the point were today we would probably be more surprised if a film didn't include product placement (PP). Most of the movie blockbusters of the past few years have used PP to either fund parts of production or market the film through co branded advertising.

In recent years there has been a rise in films that use product placements heavily to subsidize the production of the movie such as Sex and The City (2008) and Hitch (2005). Both of these films use product placements shamelessly, whether they are there to add a sense of realism to the scene or as stealth advertising is irrelevant, the fact is that an increasing number of brands are placing products but with what consequences to consumer attitudes?

Before you do anything have a flick through this video.

Do we as the audience actually notice these placements as much as the advertisers think we do? Well I would probably say no, granted some of them are unavoidable like the use of Chevrolet in Transformers or Ford/Aston Martin in Bond but how many fly under the radar or merge into the background. Looking through that video above I tried to count how many brands were included in that montage but the truth is that PP is so rife that in some scenes you can easily over look a background brand. There is an ongoing discussion in the world of academia as to whether prominent or plot connected placements are as effective as previously thought. Supposedly background placements are more effective for long term recall but if we don't notice them surely they are good for nothing. 


Product placement assumes that just seeing a product in a particular setting or scenario will increase awareness or desire to purchase the product. Surely though if a placement is too obvious and in your face it is going to have a negative effect on the audience who may feel that the brand is violating their enjoyment of the movie or program. It has got to the point now where if were not careful, films are going to become 2hr commercials for the big swingers in advertising.  To make matter worse now we are going to see it in UK television as well. 


It may seem from what I have said so far that I am against PP in a big way, I actually don't mind the practice provided that it is done tastefully but at the moment I believe that some of it is crossing that line. We are so used to products in films now that we often dismiss it as an unfortunate truth but how will we react to PP on our televisions. You are probably familiar with American Idols placement deal with Coca Cola (seen below), do these new rules mean that we will start to see a similar situation on the X Factor? 

My big fear with this new wave of PP is that UK television will become just as bad as some of that in America. So long as ITV, Five, Sky and the others can keep this tasteful I won't mind. I find it interesting that the new UK regulations require programs that include PP to show a warning symbol at the beginning and end of ad breaks. Why has this not been the case in films over the past few years? There has been a call for some time now that films featuring PP show a warning at the start to caution audiences as to its presence. Why I wonder have they now decided to make this warning mandatory, is it warn people so they can choose to change channel or so they pay more attention and increase the effect of each placement?


I shall leave you to form your own opinions of whether or not we should be warned about PP or what the future holds for PP in UK programming. One final thought, David Lynch, the Oscar nominated director and his thoughts on the practice of product placement. 

Gregorio, F., Sung, Y., 2010. Understanding Attitudes Toward and behaviors in response to product placement. Journal f Advertising. 39 (1). 84-96