The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Tech expert Michael Schrage calls voicemail "an anachronism" whose time has come and gone. Could e-mail be next? Schrage argues that people prefer scanning texts than listening to voice messages. Highlighting it as a demographic phenomenon he says, “I don’t think there’s anybody I know under the age of 30 who listens to their voicemail.” The era of e-mail is going to vanish too because people are using LinkedIn and Facebook, Yammer and other social media...
Gaming has become such an integral part of people’s lives in the new millennium. Jane McGonigal, talks about pioneering research on the impact of gaming on important aspects of our lives. She refers to a study done at Oxford University, which claims that people who played Tetris within six hours of experiencing a traumatic event could minimize the possibility of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and flashbacks. Playing Tetris within six hours of any traumatic event...
The market for smart phones is now dominated by two companies. Apple Inc. is the biggest corporation in the field, followed by the South Korean headquartered Samsung. But the two companies have been engaged in a legal battle over patent rights for more than a year and their battle looks set to obstruct innovation. Patent law is frequently understood as a mechanism to safeguard the rewards for innovation. But companies who employ batteries of lawyers and spend hundreds of millions of dollars...
Jane Duncan -
Recently, the African National Congress (ANC) released a discussion document on communications, entitled ‘Building an inclusive society through information and communication technology (ICT)’, in preparation for its elective conference in Mangaung.
Many media commentators will probably focus on whether the ANC has varied its position on the statutory Media Appeals Tribunal (MAT). However, the document as a whole merits serious consideration, as it is likely to have an...
Many are wondering if the media are providing a clear analysis of critical voices. This clip examines the impact of new technology on the role of the traditional news gatherer, featuring comments from both mainstream and progressive media figures, such as former president of CNN, Chris Cramer and on the other end of the spectrum, Danny Schechter.
Much has been said about the development of the Internet as an organic platform that has increased public debate. However, Alexander Cockburn argues that the Internet is not a public space. It is private commercial space, which means that any website can be pulled down by a corporate or government decision, at any time. A lot of the stuff about the web is hype. But the core thing, if you are talking about politics and power, is that it's resolutely private, contends Cockburn.
