Use and misuse of social media

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The use and abuse of Twitter and other social media tools, with some examples from the campaign of the last mid-term elections, in The Atlantic. This article was a good wake-up emergency call reminding me that I am very much beyond my working schedule for my book about politics, diplomacy and 2.0. Shame on me...

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Another ways to pursue public diplomacy

The development of social networks is offering a wide array of opportunities for public diplomacy. And equally, for abuse and widespread hate and terrorism on line.

I was this year to a conference about the Middle East where one participant, originally from Pakistan, was encouraging the contacts between Westerners and people from the Muslim world, as a way to exchange ideas and share insights from the two worlds. On the other side, the reality is that, from my own experience, this kind of dialogues are limited unfortunately to sharing our own stereotypes and taking the advantage of anonimity for sharing the hate. In this case, a mix between classical public diplomacy tools to be continued and pursued in the virtual environment. Using only one tool is not enough and the enthusiasm is not a miraculous cure of old and aggressive hates.

Communications for Humanitarian Intervention

I attended recently a webinar organized by the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research from Harvard University about the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) on humanitarian action. The participants were professionals belonging to various NGOs and organisations with a record of activity in conflict and emergency situations, as for example the recent Haiti earthquake.

Even we are fully aware of the tremendous impact of the ICT (cell phones, Skype, Twitter) on the humanitarian relief operations and consequently on saving lives, there are still lots of questions regarding the general reliability and the risks involved. But still, it is a great potential regarding the possibility to create and mobilize communities - mostly on a volunteering basis - for gathering support in crisis humanitarian situations. You have the opportunity to map a certain situation on the ground, for example, and to identify people able to intervene. The technical background is very important, including from the point of view of selecting the messages according to a guaranteed reliability. Even, as one of the speakers outlined, "Facebook and Twitter are ungouvernable", the sense of responsability is the first step to increase the sense of community and the general responsability for what we do and how we act in supporting people in need.