I had the opportunity to view an interesting film recently called Contradiction: A Question of Faith. This documentary delves into the role religion has played (or not played) in the African American community. African-Americans are deeply religious, and a church can be found on every corner in many black neighborhoods.
But according to the film’s director, Jeremiah Camara, despite the large church attendance and the approximately $250 million weekly tithings, African-Americans have very little to show for being faithful. Why are there still so many social and economic problems within the black community? Isn’t God listening to their prayers?
“Religion flies through the airwaves, 24/7. Never is the dissenting voice heard. It’s time to hijack the mic,” said Camara.
Whether you are a devout Christian (or Muslim or Jew etc.) or a staunch atheist, Camara is right that there isn’t much discussion in American media about being a non-believer. According to the Pew Center, the rate of people not affiliated with any religious denomination has increased in America. In the last five years alone, the percentage of religiously unaffiliated Americans has grown from 15 percent to 20 percent. Many unaffiliated Americans are still religious or spiritual in the broadest sense of the word, but there is clearly a movement away from traditional religious institutions.
There should be more voices speaking for atheists, agnostics, and other unaffiliated Americans besides Bill Maher.
Camara recently launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for his film. The donations will support marketing the film and getting it on DVD.
If you support free and diverse speech, you might want to check out this film.
I have been a professional web designer for five years. I developed an interest in graphic and interactive design as a journalist covering technology issues when I had to design my own website seven years ago. Since then, I have been hooked and have designed dozens of websites for other people over the years.
I also teach web design to other journalists. Last week I had the opportunity to instruct a multimedia design for media development class in New York City for a group of journaIists from the developing world during UN Week. Many were very excited to be in the class, as it is often difficult to receive this kind of training in their home countries. They asked me how I got my training. I told them that I took some traditional web and graphic design classes in the past, but I am mostly self taught from just taking in all the free resources online.
Technology is always changing, so I have to stay up to date with the latest news and innovations. The students in the media development class asked me to share my resources on my blog. The following is a short list of online resources for design training:
Smashing Magazine: This is the most popular online magazine for web designers and developers with useful resources in their blog and ebook series.
A List Apart: Another must-read website for web professionals. They have great articles about the politics of web design, like this piece on making web design events more inclusive for young designers. Their sister company, A Book Apart, also sells a great selection of design ebooks.
Awwwards: This is a pretty cool website to go to see some of the most innovative websites from around the world. You can even vote on the ones you like.
CSS Zen Garden: HTML and CSS go together like peanut butter and jelly (wait a minute…) You can learn how to design better style sheets straight from the pros.
W3Schools: If you ever Google any HTML code, most likely a link from this website will pop at the top of the search list. A great website for basic explanations and tutorials on regularly used coding.
Khan Academy: Good place to learn JavaScript through an interactive experience.
Graphic Design Blender: If you have any interest in freelancing, this is a great place to hear from other self employed designers talk shop and inside baseball on running your own business.
YouTube: When in doubt, most likely someone already thought of doing a video tutorial about whatever web design question you have.
Graphic Design School: If I had to recommend one book you should read, it’s this one. It gives you a basic foundation of graphic design principles that are useful for print and web.
Do you have other recommendations? Leave a comment or email me directly.
While the United States begins its airstrikes campaign in Syria, ISIS may have already won the media campaign.
As I was researching this topic, I stumbled upon an article about security intelligence firm The Soufan Group analyzing the brand strategies of ISIS and al-Qaeda. (Yes, they study terrorist marketing!) According to Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent, there is a generational clash between the two terror groups. To be more precise, al-Qaeda is Microsoft, a once powerful organization that is now struggling to stay relevant, and ISIS is Apple, the new group for young hipsters.
ISIS is light years ahead of the days when al-Qaeda produced home videos of Osama bin Laden speaking in a cave somewhere.
It’s pretty obvious that ISIS takes their “brand” seriously. From the high production value of their beheading videos, to their sophisticated social media strategy, to their slickly designed propaganda magazine “Dabiq,” which is named after a Syrian town where the last Islamic caliphate flourished during the 16th century. In the multilingual online publication there is imagery of the “coming apocalypse” and calls on all Muslims to fight the “apostates” and “bring about the complete collapse of the modern American empire.”
ISIS clearly has a whole marketing team of writers, designers and videographers working behind the scenes. As a matter of fact, it is believed that the whole media strategy is being run by Ahmad Abousamra, a 32-year-old Syrian-American man from the Boston area with a computer science degree from UMASS Boston. Now there are reports that Boston, Los Angeles and Minneapolis are “jihad-pipeline” cities for recruiting new ISIS fighters.
ISIS’s marketing strategy has been compared to youth media brands like Vice or Buzzfeed.
…To hammer that point home, see how IS has been promoting the profiles of its teenage recruits, clearly encouraging them to publicise the outfit’s brand through their Facebook accounts and other social media.Using the marketing techniques of media monitoring, Soufan points out that on Twitter, a massively influential recruitment and publicity tool for Islamic extremist groups, IS is “crushing” al-Qaeda. Savvy use of hashtags and clever – if warped – videos makes Twitter the perfect tool for the IS product, while al-Qaeda remains relatively silent on the social network. And, while Isis mentions on Twitter rocketed after its early capture of Mosul in June, al-Qaeda mentions increased far less – and that despite the massively heightened global conversation about Islamic terrorism. In recent weeks, al-Qaeda is barely getting mentioned more than it did before the fall of Mosul…
One problem ISIS (or ISIL or IS) has, according to Soufan, is that they might be “struggling” online because of the multiple names. The U.S. government refers to them as ISIL, while most media outlets use ISIS.
In the last 30 days on English Twitter, “ISIS” was mentioned 1,371,277 times, while “Islamic State” was mentioned only 193,222 times (the less common English variation and term of reference, ISIL — the L for Levant — was mentioned 55,000 times in the same period).
Regardless, the group is still winning the branding war.
Soufan also notes that it might be difficult for ISIS to keep the momentum going over the next few months as they expand, just like how Apple has to keep people excited every time a new product is released.
The United States and its coalition now has to not only begin thinking about the known violence by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, but also the unknown domestic terror that can by struck by lone wolves who are inspired by ISIS’s inflammatory message. You know we are living in fascinating (or corrupted?) times when we are analyzing the marketing habits of a terrorist group!
I had a discussion with a group of teenage girls I mentor last week about the recent Supreme Court decision on Hobby Lobby, which allows private firms to opt out of paying for contraception for its female employees based on religious grounds. Most of them were actually surprised that the decision came in favor of the Christian focused company.
These young girls are used to living in a country where their reproductive rights are fully protected. In the United States females have access to safe abortions, birth control pills and other contraceptives and education for proper family planning and sexual health.
As a business owner myself, I have been torn on this issue since the decision. While I support the right of privately-held businesses to do what they please, as a woman, I could never see myself denying those rights to my female employees.
As a matter of fact, access to proper reproductive and sexual health rights is an economic issue that affects female workers worldwide.
I have worked in international development for the last 12 years, mainly in media development for journalists in the developing world. However, one of my first jobs in this field was working in reproductive and sexual rights in Africa and Southeast Asia. I saw firsthand many of the injustices women and girls faced on a regular basis.
In many countries women and girls simply don’t have any rights when it comes to their bodies, such as when they get pregnant or protecting themselves from sexually transmitted diseases. Obstetric fistula, female genital mutilation and, of course, HIV/AIDS are corrupting the lives of many females in these regions. Sometimes this is due to cultural or religious traditions, but much of the time it is caused by poverty and lack of education.
I told my mentees that in many poor countries some women and girls usually have to stay home from work or school when they menstruate. They literally have to sit on a rag at home for the duration of their flow because they can’t afford feminine products.
Women can play a big role in global market over the next decade, especially in the developing world, where GDPs can significantly increase and current rates of female workers are below 30 percent. Economically empowered women also raise healthier, better educated families.
When women and girls can’t go to work or school, it affects economy in the long run. Women and girls shouldn’t have to worry about losing their job or not receiving an education because of an unwanted pregnancy, a sexually transmitted disease or even a lack of maxi pads.
My girls were shocked when I told them this because for them their rights is something that is taken for granted. It is really important to educate others about these issues and make sure women’s reproductive and sexual health worldwide moves forward, not backwards.
I had the opportunity to view an interesting film recently called Contradiction: A Question of Faith. This documentary delves into the role religion has played (or not played) in the African American community. African-Americans are deeply religious, and a church can be found on every corner in many black neighborhoods.
