SOCIAL MEDIA
Streaming - Social Media, Mobile Lifestyles (The New Book)
- Wed, 2012-04-25 16:28
- 0 Comments
STREAMING: #Social Media, Mobile Lifestyles artfully combines relevant and often humorous short stories to explain and support findings from primary research on youth engagement via social networks and mobile phones. In addition to traditional methods such as surveys, focus group sessions and interviews, the author, Marcia Forbes, by way of virtual ethnography, immerses herself in life online to give a sensitive and true to life account of how social media, Twitter and Facebook but also the use of mobile phones (especially smartphones) are changing not only how we communicate and but also our very way of everyday life.
KDP, SEO, DRM – Acronyms for Indie Authors & Self-Publishers
- Wed, 2012-03-28 15:17
- 0 Comments
KDP, SEO, DRM – Acronyms for Indie Authors & Self-Publishers
KDP
It’s not as easy as they say! Self-publishing is not for the faint-hearted. Apart from numerous acronyms to learn, such as the ones in the title of this blog, it’s definitely not a ‘click and go’ situation. The self-publisher should try to understand what he/she is getting into. This means reading the fine prints. There’s a great deal of that, especially from Amazon, the leading eBook self-publishing platform, with its Kindle Direct Publishing – KDP.
Lime v/s Digicel - The Battle Continues
- Fri, 2012-03-09 21:53
- 0 Comments
Telecoms Way from Way Back When!
Social Media & Politics in Jamaica
- Thu, 2012-01-19 15:47
- 0 Comments
Barack Obama did it. He used social media to great advantage in his Presidential bid. They almost had to pry his Blackberry from his fingers prior to and into the election year 2008 when he swept to power. President Obama became the virtual embodiment of successful use of social networks like YouTube, Twitter and the then still alive, My Space, by a politician. Today every politician dreams of millions of Facebook friends and hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers, a committed base to proselytize on their behalf and eventually to vote for them.
Traditional Media Embraces Social Media – Election 2011 in Jamaica
- Thu, 2012-01-19 15:41
- 0 Comments
The 2011 general elections in Jamaica saw use of traditional and social media in ways never before experienced in that island. This was the first such elections in that country since the coming of age of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, three of the most popular social networks. In September 2007 when Jamaica voted in this manner, Facebook was just three and a half, YouTube approximately two and a half and Twitter about one and a half years old – all in their infancy. Given Jamaican’s love of music videos, however, YouTube did play a role in the 2007 elections. Not the other two networks, though. It was different in 2011. All three were used by the two leading parties, the PNP and the JLP, with a view to gaining political mileage.
Social Media – Much More Than a Joke!
- Thu, 2012-01-19 15:37
- 0 Comments
It’s important to make the deadline for my book but I’m constantly being distracted. This time it’s by the very subject on which I’m writing, social media. Very early in the morning of Nov. 30, I noticed the back and forth tweets. There was nothing on the radio news though. That’s odd, I thought, that this could have happened and no one knew. Could that story have been overtaken by the growing quagmire of the Jamaica Development Infrastructure Programme (JDIP) which raged the night before with the resignation of the Minister of Transportation and which drove CVM TV into a live news broadcast at about 11:30 PM? I thought no, since this DJ is always controversial and Jamaicans take dancehall matters very seriously.
Jamaican Diaspora, Social Media & Strengthening Ties that Bind
- Thu, 2012-01-19 15:32
- 0 Comments
Value of the Diaspora
Jamaica After Bruce Golding
- Mon, 2011-10-03 15:34
- 0 Comments
October 2, 2011
Last week the Caribbean Journal invited me to submit my views regarding the future of politics in Jamaica after Bruce Golding. This request came on the heel of Golding's announced intention to step aside as Pime Minister of Jamaica and as leader of the Jamaica Labour Party, the helm of which he took in 2004.
A Fractious Party
Tweeps & Friends re Internet Access Costs
- Wed, 2011-05-18 11:57
- 0 Comments
A few days ago, in my usual way of using Twitter as a sounding board....in short order 25 tweeps responded via 50 tweets/email. Tweeps love a good chat! Not to be left behind, Facebook Friends also joined in. It was all about the cost of internet access in Jamaica and the need to educate people re the value of the internet. Read to the end to see important lessons I learnt from this exercise.
Tweets re How to Increase Internet Access to Households in Jamaica
Behind the Figures of ICT Indicators & Broadband Survey 2011
- Wed, 2011-05-18 10:53
- 0 Comments
Greetings on this World Telecommunications Day! I congratulate the Mona School of Business and specifically the Telecommunications Policy and Management Unit for this body of work in bringing us Jamaica’s ICT indicators and Broadband Survey. Professor Dunn has done an excellent job in presenting us with the findings. My job as discussant is to pull out some of the knotty issues as they relate to these findings. To explore the ‘So what?’ behind these statistics. To add granularity and tease out some of the implications for Jamaica as we plan our ICT future.
Effective Sexuality Communication for Social Transformation Reframed as “Meet Me Inna de Rampin Shop & on Facebook”
- Sun, 2011-04-03 17:19
- 0 Comments
The topic given to me by the Jamaica Theological Seminary was ‘Effective Sexuality Communication for Social Transformation’. When I first saw this topic, I said WOW, that’s quite a mouthful and quite a task for me to take on! Social Transformation, that’s a huge challenge. And in today’s Jamaica, seeming impossibility, so entrenched are our formal and informal institutions and our practices. So far gone is the erosion of our moral and ethical standing as a people as daily we are exposed to the lies and deceit of the Manatt Phelps Phillips and the Finsac Enquiries. Both brought about by the incompetence of our leaders and seen as reality TV, especially MPP, with audiences cracking up over the theatrics.
Social Media -- New Bane of Business?
- Mon, 2010-11-01 21:29
- 0 Comments
I’ve always felt I have at least two books in me. Having completed the first, I’ve jumped straight into the second. This second book, with focus of what 14 to 35 years olds in Jamaica are doing online, has made me a netizen, a citizen of the internet. More precisely, the past seven months with me pretty immersed in social media as I try to learn the features of the various forms, has made me a twittizen, a citizen of Twitter, my preferred social network medium.
Digital Overload & Shallow Brains
- Fri, 2010-10-29 11:46
- 0 Comments
As social media gains traction in Jamaica, many question the value of networking tools like Facebook and are downright anti-online gaming by children and teens. Cell phones are regarded as a nuisance in schools and Twitter is seen as benign time-wasting. Yet, increasingly research findings are pointing to these new tools as ‘game-changing’, to use the new local buzz word.
Girls’ Fashion Night Out – An Excuse to Tweet
- Fri, 2010-10-29 11:44
- 0 Comments
When an Empress issues a command, her lowly subjects fall in live. So the missive came, “I need you to please add to my blog” Sounds like a request, right? No, I wasn’t fooled. The Empress had spoken. What follows are comments posted on Emprezz.blogspot.com. It promises to be an interesting, fun-filled blog as the inimitable, irrepressible TV Talk Show Host, Empress, draws women together to speak our hearts out on subjects of importance to us.
Sucky Phones & Sexting
- Thu, 2010-09-23 09:53
- 0 Comments
As technology continues its advance, parents need to be even more vigilant about what their children are involved with via the cell, the computer or whatever other communication devices they are using.
I laughed to myself when I hear the expression, but to the 10 year old beside me it was not a joke. She was quite serious in condemning her parents for making her suffer with what she described as a ‘sucky phone’. I later hear the very same expression from a 10 year old boy in another of my in-depth interviews. These were upper-middle class tweens who found it intolerable that they didn’t have the latest smart phone which would allow them to do much more than just send or receive phone calls.
Twitter,Twits & Tweets
- Thu, 2010-09-23 09:53
- 0 Comments
As four year old Twitter becomes more popular, Media Specialist & Researcher, Marcia Forbes looks at some related issues.
‘Twits’ may be a better name for ‘Twitter’. It more aptly describes some of the ppl (internet language for people) and the things they do and say via the brave new virtual frontier of Twitter-sphere. Having been tweeting regularly for about three months, I confess that the point of it all continues to largely evade me. I keep at it though, since tweeting is now an integral aspect of social networking, a subject which is of great interest to me. Everyday I try for about eight tweets and for all that work I am blessed with the grand number of about 60 followers. I follow 30, mostly locals since I’m really trying to understand the thing from a Jamaican point of view.
Jamaica to the World via the Internet
- Thu, 2010-09-23 09:53
- 0 Comments
Jamaican youths are using the internet, 15 to 19 year olds in particular.
Using the internet changes how people relate to each other and with the wider world. It also changes how people use the media, all media, including radio, TV, newspapers and cell phones. Media houses in Jamaica have wised up to this and so for the first time the MRSL Media Survey (2009) included data pertaining to internet use.
Eighty percent (80%) of the 937,000 internet users in the survey of just over 2,000 persons said they used the net for ‘research and information’. This compares to 63% who used it for emails. Entertainment news and updates ranked third, with 48% using the internet for these activities. Females logged on a bit more than males, 480,000 versus 457,000, respectively.
Let’s Pour New Wine into Old Skin
- Thu, 2010-09-23 09:53
- 0 Comments
None of us can afford to ignore new media technologies
Purist Christians may oppose me for seeming to challenge the biblical writing about pouring new wine into old wineskin. Using this as a metaphor with reference to the social media revolution now on in full swing, I am loudly proclaiming the gospel that new wine can and should be poured into old skins! Persons 50 years and older sometimes have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the world of new media. Not so this old wineskin. Although sometimes intimidated, I embrace the new technologies and what they allow us to do.
Twitter Users in Jamaica-- DJs & Singers (Work-In-Progress List)
- Thu, 2010-09-23 09:53
- 0 Comments
Recognizing the value of measurement as one way of tracking Twitter use by Jamaicans, I have started a list of DJs/Singjays/Singers who are using this social media form. The list is work-in-progress. Those who fall in this category but have not seen their names are invited to tweet me @marciaforbes so they can be added. Those whose names (real or stage) are there but not the one they use on Twitter are also invited to tweet me up.
Back up the Chat!
Together we can work to ‘back-up the chat’ with facts when we talk about Jamaicans and use of new media technologies. This list is being generated toward precisely that end. Because music and music production is so important to Jamaica and Jamaicans, a list of Music Producers who are on Twitter would also be useful. You are invited to send me your names and Twitter ‘handle’.
WORK-IN-PROGRESS LIST OF DJs/Singjays/Singers on TWITTER
Must Blog!! Blame it on Dancehall
- Thu, 2010-09-23 09:53
- 0 Comments
This rather tongue-in-cheek blog that is not a blog looks at language and dancehall. It takes off from the pride felt by watching Bree and Edgar perform Kartel and Popcaan’s song, Clarks.
Wrong Day & Not a Blog
It’s Friday afternoon. From everything I’ve read this is not a good day to blog. In any event this is not a blog but a mere few words of comment (LOL) which will not go to blogsphere, wordpress or any blog site—only to my lowly website and shared with my tweeps.
Truth is though; I’ve got to get this out of my system. Blame it on dancehall. Most other things are, so why not this too. After watching Bree and Edgar, Canadian dancers, perform in a dance competition to Kartel and Popcaan’s sell-off Dancehall song, Clarks, I feel compelled to write.
Proud of Dancehall
Cyberslacking & 4G
- Thu, 2010-09-23 09:53
- 0 Comments
Nuff Chat!!
As Jamaicans log on, are they cyberslacking or using the internet as a tool for entrepreneurship, particularly against a backdrop of high unemployment rates? What Jamaicans are doing online is largely speculative. What we do know, however, is that we love to chat and to gamble. Does this extend to out lives online?
Internet not ‘one size fits all’
Writing about the internet in Trinidad some ten years ago, Miller and Slater (2000) sought to understand “how members of a specific culture attempt to make themselves a(t) home in a transforming communicative environment, how they can find themselves…and at the same time try to mould it to their own image.” It is not just whether a country has internet access that matters but, importantly, what they do with that access; how they mould it in their image.
Reggae Sumfest Tweets & The Power of Social Media
- Thu, 2010-09-23 09:53
- 0 Comments
Reggae Sumfest is a large 3 day outdoor music concert hosted every July in Jamaica for the past 18 years. This year its top foreign acts were Usher and Chris Brown out of the USA. This article features my experience with highlighting the event via Twitter and the overwhelming support for this from Chris Brown’s Fan Clubs worlwide.
POWER of New Media
Reggae Sumfest 2010, renamed ‘mudfest’ by some, has come and gone but remains indelibly etched in my memory for bringing clearly and resoundingly home to me the POWER of social media. At the event I wrote 24 tweets about Chris Brown, many with picture attached. A tweet is a microblog comprised on a short sentence of 140 characters (about 17 words).
My Chris Brown tweets were retweeted (passing the message on to one’s followers) 356 times. The description of what Breezy was wearing as he entered the stage secured the most retweets (29). That of his dancing was next with 28. The majority of my tweets each received almost 20 retweets. In total over the 3 nights of Sumfest my tweets were retweeted almost 450 times.
Tivoli via Twitter
- Thu, 2010-09-23 09:53
- 0 Comments
After days of watching sand bags and barricades being erected by the Tivoli Gardens community in a bid to protect its area don, Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, from being served a warrant for his arrest, the Police and Military stormed Tivoli. I left Jamaica at the start of the incursion but followed it closely via Twitter.
Leaving Ja.
As we prepared to depart Norman Marley Airport I questioned the Immigration Officer about the plane parked close to the cargo area. Rumors were that it was American and there to help Jamaica with extradition matters. The Officer dispelled that by asserting that the plane was Russian and with supplies to Haiti. That piece of information got tweeted immediately. After all, it was from an authentic source and I was playing my part in quelling rumour-mongering tweets.
