blog
iNformation Development
Posted by: Laurie Bennett
There’s little doubt that the circles of sustainability information and development overlap. I’ve just read an article that shows why the intersection is so often shaded in grey.
It reports on one (negative) impact of internet-facilitated access to information on sustainability and human rights in Afghanistan – and it got me thinking.
In the UK, everyone from computer programmers to PR execs are lauding the sustainable development potential of the internet, and more recently its gregarious and gifted offspring, Web 2.0.
The new breed of iActivist is gobbling up Facebook groups, helping people-what-care tell the considerable populace of the e-ther about their concerns for everything from Barrack to Iraq, climate change to stock exchange…
As a way of spreading the word, this has some real benefits; mostly it facilitates quick, cheap and often extensive awareness-raising. Messages move along the web equivalent of garden paths – from one neighbour to the next – but on a scale grand enough to make them feel part of a mass movement: the social proof highway.
The article I’ve read paints a slightly gloomier picture – the result of the collision between this new fountain-like availability of information on sustainability and its stubborn and lethal suppression.
It is odd how the wunderkinds of development in one context fail their GCSEs in another.
Recently we’ve been breaking down sustainable development into its literal components; sustainability and development. It’s fascinating to contemplate the impact of ‘easy-access’ sustainability information, and to mull how as communicators (professional or otherwise) we might use our roles to negotiate these contradictions.
Post A Comment
All comments are subject to moderation and you are required to submit a valid email address (this will not be published).
Archives
- November (21)
- October (28)
- September (16)
- August (13)
- July (18)
- June (15)
- May (31)
- April (6)
- March (1)
- February (2)
- January (1)
Authors
- David Willans (10)
- Jeff Melnyk (5)
- Sinclair Ashman (2)
- Solitaire Townsend (4)
- Ed Gillespie (30)
- Lucy Shea (3)
- Alistair Macdonald (9)
- Futerra team (145)
- Doug Stewart (18)
- Henry Hicks (20)
- Steve Smith (1)
- Emily Wilkinson (1)
- Lulu Kitololo (5)
- Pete Clutton-Brock (1)
- Georgina Combes (12)
- Laurie Bennett (13)
- Fiona Cameron (1)
- Helen Spoor (2)
- Amjad Parkar (1)
- Amisha Ghadiali (1)
- Geraldine Brennan (1)
- Nyree Ambarchian (2)
- Tanja Burgdorfer (3)
- Petra Parizkova (3)
- Natalya Sverjensky (2)
- Maura Dilley (1)
- Emilee Pierce (1)
- Cathy Gray (1)