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Showing posts with the label Egypt

The words "Facebook" and "Twitter" banned from French Airwaves

The French have quite a few odd rules, as Matthew Fraser points out, but this one strikes us Social Media bandits to the core: Not being able to say Facebook or Twitter on air?! The social media hold a great deal of power in today's society: 1. Political power, as evidenced by the Obama campaign and the rallies in Egypt 2. Social power (how many couples meet or maintain relationships online?!) 3. Educational power (interactive lessons, teacher immediacy...studies show that students may even learn better with social media. How many times has Google gotten you over that brainfart, "Who was the director of that movie...gosh I can't remember...this is going to keep me up tonight...better just Google it."). The evidence is in our culture. Language serves those who use it, and social media have certaintly taken the driver's seat in creating new turns of phrase like "I'd "Like" that","Tweet this" or "Facebook me". An even stron...

Egypt Lesson Plan

Everyone loves a good story. In fact, we love good characters so much that they often re-appear. The step parent was evil in Cinderella, and that hasn't changed much in the new blockbuster Step Father . The media has always been a vehicle to tell a large story to a large audience. Now with the dawn of the digital age, we too can become story tellers. We share our personal narratives with our Tweets and add our voice to movements on Facebook and newstories on CNN. But who's story is NOT being told? Those without access to technology, either because of their membership in a lower economic group or a higher age group. Aka, those without the skills or the money cannot be cultural storytellers. This was not the case in Egypt, however. While the inernet was shut down, only outsiders could tell the Egyptians' story. BBC and American news networks innitially told the tale of the Egyptians without adding individual narratives. Instead, blanket statements about the protestes (not as ...