Continuing to Help Japan Through Social Media

By Lauren Haberkorn

Images from http://www.sxsw4japan.org

When the word spread of the disasters in Japan, the whole world looked to do what they could to help. Years ago, helping others on another continent would have been difficult. Today, social media makes it easier to help out.

The organizers of SXSW, the annual music, film and emerging technology festival that takes place in Austin, Texas each year, sought to raise $100,000 by developing a special website aimed at meeting their goal: sxsw4japan.org. Not only did they reach their goal, they exceeded it, raising *$105,000 for relief efforts.

These examples of social media aimed at doing good, can be applied to any endeavor. Anyone can identify their community or audience, formulate a succinct and powerful message, and then use social media to send out that message in a matter of seconds. Though there are arguments against the benefits in social media, it can be proven that it has done many good things in today’s world. It is likely that an entire generation will continue to use social media to reach out to each other and make powerful changes in our world.

The Stream: Al Jazeera’s New Interactive Show and the Future of News

By Steve Byers

Want to see one possible direction for future media? Look to Al Jazeera’s new show and website called “The Stream.” It’s an indication of where television might be headed, according to this view.

What Al Jazeera has done is formalize a technique it used during the Mideast unrest, especially in Egypt. The show uses a social media service to gather content and interact with the community. The Stream is unique in its use of tools like Twitter,  YouTube and Facebook to both source the news and interact with its  audience.

The website, called “The Stream”, is can be found online at http://stream.aljazeera.com; the TV show can be viewed at www.ustream.tv/channel/the-stream-al-jazeera. Keep your eyes on this because it may well be the future for TV network news.

Steve Byers is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism at Marquette University’s Diederich College of Communication.

Is Negative PR Bad for Business?

By Sarah Bonewits-Feldner and Tom Isaacson

For practitioners working in corporate communication and public relations, an ongoing concern is the impact of negative publicity on relevant target audiences. The old adage “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” – frequently cited by business journalists and alternately credited to either P. T. Barnum or an ambiguous “they” – deserves a closer look.

Unequal, a sport-equipment manufacturer, recently decided to use the controversial Michael Vick to promote its products. In a story described in the Wall Street Journal, company executives and consultants debated if the move would help the relatively unknown company or if it would be ‘business suicide.’ Apparently, it was the former.

According to the article’s author, Lee Hawkins, after the endorsement deal was announced the high number of hits on Unequal’s website crashed the site and sales initially went up 1,000 percent before settling “at about triple what they were a year ago.”

However, we know a single example rarely settles an argument. For every organization that benefits from negative publicity, counter examples exist as well.