Kennedy School Library Blog

Berkman Center for Internet & Society Luncheon Series

Citizen Video & Networked Politics in Southeast Asia

Andrew Lowenthal, EngageMedia

Tuesday, December 4, 12:30 pm
Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor
RSVP required for those attending in person via this form.
This event will be webcast live at 12:30pm ET and archived on our site shortly after

Citizen video in Southeast Asia has exploded in recent times, and has come to play a significant role in national and regional politics. As in other contexts it has documented spectacular events, spearheaded campaigns and uncovered scandals. More broadly citizen media and networked publics are shifting the balance of power both in the media and the political landscape.

Like China and India, ASEAN nations are experiencing rapid growth and the online and citizen media space is only set to grow in media production, audience and importance.

Whilst broadband access in the region is still often constrained to urban areas, citizen video is also being taken up as a political tool from those on the economic and political fringes. Initiatives such as Citizen Journalists Malaysia and EngageMedia are working to develop strategic networks of new citizen video producers.

In this discussion, Andrew Lowenthal, co-founder and Executive Director of EngageMedia, will outline their approach to video4change and their work in the region, in particular looking at West Papua, (a remote region of Indonesia that has been waging an independence campaign for more than 40 years), the development of regional, cross-border and multilingual video networks, and the effect and possibility of the internet and online media to generate new post-national political configurations and collaborations.

Berkman Center for Internet & Society Luncheon Series

Power in Our Hands: Adapting Social Media to Promote Credible Elections in Low Countries

Oluwaseun Odewale, Berkman Center Fellow

December 11, 12:30pm ET
Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor
RSVP required for those attending in person via this form.
This event will be webcast live at 12:30pm ET.

Armed with little more than a modest smartphone (mostly even ordinary phones) and an Internet subscription that will permit only a fair access to the mobile GPRS/EDGE, Nigerian young people went into the 2011 elections with a new wave of enthusiasm and interest.

This was the fourth consecutive elections since the reemergence of democratic governance in 1999. And until then [2011], none of the previous elections received positive review in the aspect of credibility – or freeness, or fairness. Now, with the appointment of a new leadership and growing influence of technology in fostering more accountable processes, Nigerians optimistically anticipated a marked improvement in the April 2011 elections over past discredited experiences.

It is even more significant that more attention were paid to the 2011 elections as it portended to be the most expensive electoral experience for Nigerians. A leadership change had recently been effected in a tensed political climate and the elections management body (EMB) had set a plan for the costliest elections ever.

In light of the renewed hope and confidence, and the desire to get things right, several civil society organizations established election monitoring platforms via SMS, twitter, websites, blogs, facebook, telephone lines etc. One particular organization recruited volunteers and got itself embedded within the INEC systems to promote a “two-way communication between INEC and its stakeholders”.

What evolved was a media-tracking centre established to assess the robust blend of traditional and new media during the election period. It was an interesting trend to see how social media, for the first time, was adopted and, quite interestingly, adapted, to ensure credibility of the electoral process.

During this presentation, I intend to showcase the Nigeria experience, highlight what worked and what didn’t; specific instances of how social media interventions prevented rigging; how the elections has helped the growth of use of social media, the patterns of usage during and after the elections; and, how traditional media has adjusted to social media practice.

I hope the audience will share their experiences and proffer recommendations to revamp the innovation for a more institutionalized adaptation in promoting good governance in Nigeria, as I continue to explore this in my present research work.

Starting January 27, the Library will host a workshop every Friday from 12-12:45pm while classes are in session. Please go to http://www.hks.harvard.edu/library/research/training.htm for a complete list of workshops and their descriptions.

Sign up here.

Find it @ Harvard Harvard provides access to an incredible array of information resources, but it can be difficult to know where to start, and to know which system searches what. Join us to learn about the various types of systems and sources you have access to as a member of the Harvard community. Bring your laptops.

Wed. Sept. 8, 11am-12pm
Tue. Sept. 14, 1pm-2pm
Wed. Sept. 15, 12pm-1pm

RefWorks Use Refworks to organize and insert citations into your papers. Learn how to save citations from the web, HOLLIS, and databases. Automatically generate bibliographies using any citation style (Chicago, APA, MLA, etc).

Wed. Sept. 8, 1pm-2pm

Developing Your Research Strategy Conduct your research in a more effective and efficient manner by improving upon and developing your research strategy. Learn how to state your research topic in a thorough and clear way, identify synonyms and subject areas, think through search limitations, and discover potential sources of information for your topic.

Tue. Sept. 14, 11am-12pm

Zotero Use Zotero to organize and insert citations into your papers. Learn how to save citations from the web, HOLLIS, and databases. Automatically generate bibliographies using any citation style (Chicago, APA, MLA, etc).

Thurs. Sept. 16, 11am-12pm

Join us in the library instruction room to learn about the various types of free information sources you can use to conduct research after graduating. Bring your laptops.

• Tuesday, May 18: 1-2pm
• Wednesday, May 19: 2-3pm
• Thursday, May 20: 1-2pm

Additional sessions will be posted shortly
Sign up.

Introduction to Zotero

Location:

Library Instruction Room

Date:

Wednesday, 4/28/2010

Time:

12:00 PM

Contact:

Luke Gaudreau

Use Zotero to organize and insert citations into your papers. Learn how to save citations from the web, HOLLIS, and databases. Automatically generate bibliographies using any citation style (Chicago, APA, MLA, etc).

Sign up

Drop by the Library this afternoon to learn about library services and get help.

• Enter a raffle to win free movie tickets
• Set up an Interlibrary Loan Account
• Get help with RefWorks
• Get answers to all your library questions: Reserves, Research, Circulation
• Learn about upcoming workshops
• Eat some delicious chocolate

We hope to see you there!

Please join us for an open house on Friday, April 10, 2009 to learn more about HOLLIS beta, the new version of the Harvard University Libraries’ search and discovery system. The open house will be held in the HKS Library Group Study Room from 2:30 – 4:00 p.m.

At the open house, we will have informal demonstrations of the new system every 30 minutes.

More information about HOLLIS beta is available here.

We hope to see you there!

The Library is pleased to welcome everyone in the Kennedy School community to the continuation of our popular speaker series.  As in the past, this year’s series features HKS fellows, researchers, and faculty who will be making short presentations on their recent research.  Please join us for these discussions of timely topics relevant to us all.

Friday,  March  13, 3-4 p.m., Fainsod Room

Will Obama’s Recovery Plan Work?

The financial crisis–and now the economic crisis–has neither simple origins nor simple solutions.  But Washington has already committed $700 billion to TARP and $800 billion to the President’s recovery plan.  Little understood, however, is that those two programs are just a small part of the massive $8.8 trillion the government has so far pledged in spending, loans, and deposit guarantees.

And yet all that may well not be enough: all of us need to understand what’s at stake now.  Should we simply restore the current financial system–or do we need a new (or in fact, an old) one?  Join us for a talk by Richard Parker, Lecturer in Public Policy and Senior Fellow of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy as he discusses what the government should be doing to get us out of these crises–and why.

Listen to the talk.

Related reading

Richard Parker: “Government Beyond Obama,” New York Review of Books, March 12, 2009

Past Speakers

The Library is pleased to welcome everyone in the Kennedy School community to the continuation of our popular speaker series. As in the past, this year’s series will feature HKS fellows, researchers, and faculty who will be making short presentations on their recent research work. Please join us in these discussions of timely topics relevant to us all. Refreshments will be served!

Wednesday, November 12, noon-1 p.m., Taubman 275 / KALB

Foreign Policy Challenges for the New American President

Join us for a brown bag discussion with Nicholas Burns, Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics. Ambassador Burns served in the U.S. Foreign Service for 27 years until his retirement in April 2008. He has held many impressive diplomatic positions including Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, U.S. Ambassador to Greece, State Department Spokesman for Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher, and White House Special Assistant to the President for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia Affairs. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Order of Saint John and Red Sox Nation.

Listen to the talk (HKS only)

Read article about event

Past Events: