What’s involved?
The Internet as a tool for action
My action for the incubator involved using the internet to raise awareness about social issues and hopefully encourage people to become more active in the community. After completing my action, I discovered that the internet is a very powerful tool. The internet has the power to connect people from all over the world and reach a very a wide audience. Internet action, big or small, all builds up to make a difference. The internet has made learning about issues a whole lot easier (since you're on actnow, you'll understand)
Using the Internet to raise awareness about social Issues
The 16-25 age group is the demographic that uses the internet the most. Young people often spend a lot of time procrastinating on the net, either on msn, facebook, myspace or maybe watching totally random videos on youtube. Between you and me, I am a big offender. Because people are often just scrolling around, having a subtle presence on the internet can remarkably reach a lot of people.
Little things you can do:
- Change your facebook status to something worthwhile
- Joining a facebook group/cause
- Putting up 'action groups' in your myspace top friends
- Having links on your msn nickname
- Uploading photos of issues (heaps of people check photos out when they're online and bored... I'll be honest, i sometimes do...)
Bigger things you can do:
- Post a video
- Write a blog/note about an issue
- Start your own facebook group/cause and recruit people
Things you shouldn't do
From my experience of trying to raise awareness about global issues. it's important that you draw a line between "raising awareness" and "being in your face". Spamming is a no-no and can be annoying i.e. mass forwarded emails. I also realised people don't like to be told twice...so once is often enough! =)
Happy netting!
Alex.
Recent Researches (just some additional random info)
Newsblaze (a US mag) published an article that claimed internet marketing is the BEST way to reach College Students. According to WorldStat, there are approximately 1.1 billion people in the world who use the internet. It is apparent the world is hooked-up live and the majority of these users are youth and young adults.
Online socialisation and friendship is common place through Messenger services. Over the past 5 years, blogging one’s feelings into personal websites, has become a growing trend. Addressing the personal needs of youth and young adults online is the way of the future. It's pretty cool that Australia is one of the first countries to really take advantage of the internet to connect with young people.
I want to do this!
This work is licenced under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence.
© 2008. First published on actnow.com.au
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