Culture,+Digital+Technology+and+the+Internet

Let's use this space to share ideas about culture, digital technology and the internet...

We have been thinking of a working group on "Knowledge and Community in the Digital Age". Is anyone interested in participating in this?

Carol on technology for Human Rights surveillance Check out Peter Gabriel's Hub: Today I'm proud to announce the launch of [|the Hub] – a "YouTube for human rights." It's the first online global platform that offers you the tools you need to use media for advocacy - enabling you and millions of others worldwide to use camcorders, cell phones and cameras to upload, share, and discuss your human rights-related footage, as well as organize campaigns to create change.

When I co-founded [|WITNESS], our goal was to distribute video cameras to people on the ground to document human rights abuses. We soon realized that it wasn't enough to distribute the cameras – our partners needed both technical training in using the cameras, but most importantly strategic training in implementing video as part of a campaign to create change. Since then, WITNESS has trained hundreds of human rights activists in over 70 countries.

And today, technology has caught up with our original vision of giving cameras to the world. Experts predict that there will be close to 3 billion cell phone subscribers by the end of 2007 and 15 million mobile TV users by 2009. Mobile phones are proliferating at astounding rates across socio-economic, geographic and cultural boundaries, revolutionizing the way we organize ourselves, and interact with each other. The wide-spread accessibility of media-enabled devices - videophones, digital cameras, and laptops - offers the potential for anyone, anywhere to become a human rights defender. Capturing evidence of abuse has never been easier, but finding platforms with the online tools you need to create context for the footage to inspire involvement and activism is an ongoing challenge for all of us who want to create a better world. All of this changes today.

Join me at the Hub today:

1) //View// [|media]

2) //Join// the [|Hub Community]

3) //Upload or embed// your [|human rights related videos], images and audio files

4) //Create// a [|group page] for your group or organization

5) //Watch// //and// //share// our [|1 minute video] about the Hub You've done so much to support our work; we hope the Hub will be a resource for you!

Sincerely,

Peter Gabriel