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March 1, 2010 |  5 comments |  Print | E-Mail Your Opinion  

Interviews at DLD

Social Media Shapes Public Opinion

Interviews at DLD: Peter Berger of the website Suite101.com asserts that it is essential for governments to participate in social media. New media is making the spread of information across borders instantaneous.


At last month's DLD conference in Munich, Atlantic Community's Editor-in-Chief Joerg Wolf was able to talk about the future of technology and global politics with former head of PR for UNHCR Claudia Gonzales, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, author of "What Would Google Do?" Jeff Jarvis, and technology journalist David Kirkpatrick.

In our final DLD interview Peter Berger, CEO of the online publishing site Suite101.com, explains that politicians need to get more involved with social media and not just rely on their aides to create their online presence:  "The first steps for governments is to participate." 

Social media and the internet are making it easier and quicker than ever for information to pass through borders.  Berger notes that governments need to react more quickly now because social media is influencing public opinion.  For example, Facebook causes have become an important tool for expressing opinions on policy issues.

In addition to speakers at DLD, we also had interviewed the participant Andrea Schaller of the Global Environmental Society.  Ms. Schaller reflected that the conference is good for discussing current and emerging Web 2.0 trends and for networking.

Ironically, she noted that the conference is not as technologically or environmentally advanced as it could be.  For example, the conference produces enormous amounts of coffee cups that create unnecessary waste.  She thinks the organizers of the event should make the conference more environmentally friendly. Schaller also suggests that DLD makes use of tools like Poken to help participants connect digitally instead of through business cards.  Poken is a small device that allows people to exchange social networking information through keychains.

These interviews were conducted by Joerg Wolf, Editor-in-Chief of atlantic-community.org, at the DLD Conference in Munich on January 25, 2010.

To learn more about Poken, watch this video:

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Tags: | DLD | social networks | technology | environment |
 
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Member deleted

March 2, 2010

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I think social media may provide advisory support to politicians if and only if not biased but really reliable....

Thanks,
Mustafa
 
Jennifer Margaret Anne Morrison

April 27, 2010

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If goverment don't make use of social media and internet they are missing vital and incredibly exciting opportunities to communicate with the public. Facebook and Twitter have seen recent examples of news spreading globally at incredible speeds, and of people reacting to and forming opinions based on this news.

For me, one thing that is particularly exciting is that the speed of communication via social media and media has overtaken the traditional print, television and radio media outlets and has also caused a much more global news outlook.
 
Cora Nicole Weiss

April 28, 2010

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@Jennifer I think the Obama campagin and administration has made excellent use of social media. Do you agree?
 
Jennifer Margaret Anne Morrison

April 29, 2010

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@ Cora Nicola, yes I agree with you, I think the Obama campaign and administration has really managed to make social networking work for them.

There's an older article here (2008!) that I also found quite interesting to read retrospectively.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.html

While I most definitely think social networking can be an incrediably exciting tool for government I suppose it is true that the negative effects could be as catastrophic as the positive ones are powerful?
 
Talha Bin  Tariq

January 17, 2012

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Social media can shape up the public opinion for the politics,politicians much more then the traditional way used by politicians and political parties .. simple debates and speeches or visiting the rural and tribal areas just before the elections and then never coming back .
We have one major example of Obama's election campaign .. he made such a beautiful use of social media .. text messages, Facebook,twitter .. random recording telephonic messages .. and that really made his popularity almost double then the other .

And same tactics was used by mr imran khan for his jalsa(debates & speeches) at Karachi & Lahore respectively .. he also used this new technology in such a positive manner that the outcome was so perfect ..
Social media is now a days is keen usage if youth, young generation..activists..practitioners..professionals .. and votes and opinions of these people are more important then people living in rural and tribal areas..If the other group of people educated ones will step forward they can eradicate or at least minimize.

Regards,
Talha Bin Tariq
 

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