graphic images

The day Michael Jackson died, many of us discovered his death announcement on the TV because all the social media networks were out of service or were too slow.
The deaths of Michael Jackson and Neda Agha-Soltan once again shows the emotional and political power of the many-to-many nature of social media. Both had little in [...]

The first wired generation raised in the virtual realm is coming of age and recreating the world in their image. In a galaxy not too far away, digital natives are deserting traditional sources of information for an emerging journalism of interactive multimedia experiences informed by the timeless dynamics of story.
Such an approach envisions new [...]

Search engine giant Google last week unveiled a revolutionary open source project that could change how reporters and the public communicate and share information.

Google’s biggest product launch in recent memory has generated lots of buzz. It combines aspects of email, instant messaging, wikis, web chat, social networking, and project management to build one elegant, [...]

OK, John Edwards did a Bill Clinton. Now some of the most searched videos on the Web are those by Rielle Hunter, the mistress and neophyte producer who directed the Webisodes about the former US presidential candidate.
After adamant denials, Edwards, a possible 2008 vice presidential candidate, admitted today he had an affair with Hunter, the video director of his One America campaign.
Responding to rumors which surfaced in October 2007 of their affair, the former Lisa Druck, said the Edwards camp gave her video production company US$114,000 to produce the series she had proposed to the senator in a bar in New York City.
One clip is just 2′26.” The four little vain videos for his Website were taken down when Edwards began his presidential run in 2007 - until now. Someone has re-posted them on YouTube Channel as Missing Videos.
As I said, everything has a way of finding its way back to the Web. But see no sleaze. Viewers (read voters) get a real look at the man. One has Edwards crafting a speech on the need to “live in a moral, honest, just America.” Man, that’s authentic.
Within political circles, the videos were seen as innovative, painting Edwards in a down-to-earth light. Now that narcissism is one more excuse for our sexual indiscretions, I guess we should see these videos in new light. After all, they urrm … strip bare a narcissist.
Webisode 1 - Plane Truth

Webisode 2 - The Golden Rule:

Webisode 3 - Plight of Uganda

Webisode 4 - Plugs

Singapore cameraman Sharif Bangi quit Mediacorp, Channel NewsAsia after 38 years in the industry. This is a video tribute for a well-loved professional and artist.

YouTube is holding a competition for journalists, as part of its new ‘journalism programme’. The video-sharing website is calling for submissions of a max of three minutes, in English, featuring original content profiling someone in the community that ‘the world should know about.’ .
Technology has fundamentally changed the way we produce, gather, share, and consume news - and thousands of people from every corner of the globe are using YouTube to share important stories with the rest of the world.
OLIVIA MA
News Manager, YouTube
The goal of the project is to provide everyday citizens with a platform to tell stories that aren’t traditionally covered in the mainstream media. The competition starting September is the ‘first assignment’ of a new journalism programme launched by the site.
The site has recently created channels for reporters and citizen news. YouTube’s Steve Grove explains:

Online politics anyone? Way to GO! The Web gives anyone — candidates, advocacy groups, corporate interests and ordinary folks — affordable and powerful means to mold policy, influence elections and shift the direction of public discourse. Welcome to the politics of participation in the age of digital dialogues.
The all important role of the Web is making politicians sit up. So core is Web to politics today that a certain anxiety pervades the political classes. And it comes from the perception that folks have become disaffected with traditional media. Indeed, the wired generation who have deserted MSM are using social networking to move their political activism from cyberspace to the real world.
The term, participatory culture, contrasts with older notions of passive media spectatorship. Rather than talk about media producers and consumers as occupying separate roles, we might now see them as participants who interact with each other according to a new set of rules that none of us fully understands.
HENRY JENKINS
Director, MIT Comparative Media Studies
It is apparent that new people, coming together in new ways to participate in a process we do not yet understand are changing the way we understand the medium and the way we understand politics. I would argue that video is key. When this generation wants to find out about a candidate, the first and probably only thing they do is watch videos of the person online. The first place they go for videos is the candidate’s website.
So it is important that a candidate’s website is easy to find and use so that it becomes the main source of information about the politician. Barack Obama does this really well. Many people regardless of whether they support Obama, have seen his official videos on his Website, allowing him to have much more control over his message.
Obama’s comparative advantage is the level of 2.0 technology in his Website that allows digital natives to forge online community. You can join “the mo

See Simon's (and his cat's) other animations at www.youtube.com/user/simonscat...

A controversial documentary challenging the scientific consensus that human activity causes global warming. In a long-awaited judgement, Ofcom says Channel 4 did not fulfil obligations to be impartial and to reflect a range of views on controversial issues. The film also treated interviewees unfairly, but did not mislead audiences "so as to cause harm or offence". Plaintiffs say the Ofcom judgement is "inconsistent" and "lets Channel 4 off the hook on a technicality.

It’s the June school holidays in Singapore and timeout for education. But with creativity and curiosity already schooled out of kids, how many are headed back to the classroom for more learning?
Sir Ken Robinson argues that we’ve learnt to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. His TEDTalk has been distributed widely around the Web since its release in June 2006. Watch it here:

The journalism of PBS FRONTLINE is recognized every week for in-depth, no-glitz examination of something significant. On Monday March 24, the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, PBS will retrace the path of the war in a two-part documentary that draws on its FRONTLINE reports to examine the legacy of the Bush administration.
Once in a rare moment, a work comes along to reconcile our hopes in the Web as a documentary medium. “Bush’s War” elevates the telling of true stor...

It’s been four days since Mas Selamat Kastari answered nature’s call and put Singapore in the global spotlight. The city’s most wanted man, and now ubiquitous poster boy, gave his guards the slip during a toilet break in a top security detention facility on the island. Accused of plotting to crash a plane into Changi Airport in 2001, Mas Selamat was never charged in court. At the time of his escape, he was being held under an internal security law that allows for detention w...