Bridging divides with online tools

CHARLIE Beckett, the director of Polis, a journalism and society think-tank, highlights an excellent piece in The Times that looks into the work being done to tackle radicalism within Muslim communities.

He concludes that quality reporting is important, but also that efforts should be made so that people are able to access tools to enable clear communication about life in Britain.

His post comes at a time when the talk of local news and community led initiatives raises its head once more, led by Jeff Jarvis.

He writes that towns are hyperlocal social networks with data (people that is) and that whilst the tools are there it is going to require someone to bring them together to give them meaning.

But it will also be very important to ensure that as many people and groups as possible are in this network of information or we are likely to ingrain, even deeper, feelings of isolation and alienation - and do it at internet speed.

Maybe a start is something that the BBC's Robin Hamman will be involved with, that sees a number of UK universities looking into online publishing amongst the public to help in learning but also communication.

As an aside I still think that media groups such as the BBC and the Guardian have a lot of knowledge and material locked away in intranets that with some selective picking could prove very useful to organisations and community groups in the wider world.

There is no need to provide the tools just advice on how to get the best from what is already out there.

Elsewhere on the internet the NUJ has decided to abandon its misguided plan to boycott Israel and the end is nigh for quoting page impressions as a measure of a website's popularity, instead the time spent on a site will be used.

Although I wonder how effective this is due to web browsers having tabs. For example, a couple of days ago I had a page open in a tab that I was about to read, but the phone went I sat down in front of the TV and ended up watching a film for over an hour - I never actually read the page.

And finally a new site has been launched by Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, called Book Tour that aims to being authors and their audience together in the real world.

A great idea that uses simple online tools to tackle a clear problem.

Comments

[charlie beckett]

Craig,
If anyone is intersted in following up on the media and community angle then they should get in touch with us as we have done and are planning much more work with journalists on issues around the news media and public security and media literacy.
www.lse.ac.uk/polis
polis@lse.ac.uk
cheers
Charlie Beckett
Director, POLIS

[Craig McGinty]

Thanks for that Charlie, I'll keep an eye out for things via your site and keep pointing people through.
All the best, Craig