Training of Trainers - Library - Network of Aquaculture Centres in ...

The internet: Connecting everything and everyone“The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of massmedia. These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organisation and knowledgeexchange to emerge.” – The Cluetrain Manifesto.The Internet is the most powerful network for exchanging information that has ever existed in human history. Itscoverage, accessibility and influence grow every day. With recent advances in web publishing and socialnetworking technologies, it is possible for a small organisation or even an individual with a shoestring budget andlimited IT skills to establish a global communications network. You can meet new people, talk, chat, share photos,videos, documents, audio recordings online.Internet technologies are giving people a global voice. They are also allowing people to network and exchangeideas with people all over the world with a scale and speed that has never occurred before. The increase in ‘socialnetworking’ and direct exchange of information is driving major changes in society:• In the past people got most of their news from mass media such as TV, radio and newspapers. Nowpeople are starting to get a lot more of their news from each other directly through blogs, communityforums and social networking applications such as Facebook and Twitter.• The newspaper industry is in decline in many parts of the world due to ‘competition’ with the internet.A number of high profile papers have recently gone bankrupt and the industry is essentially strugglingto reinvent itself as an internet business.• “Citizen journalism” via websites and social networking applications is beginning to supplant someaspects of professional journalism, simply because people with internet-enabled camera phones havebecome ubiquitous. People can relay photos, videos and text messages essentially live from thescene of a breaking news event, long before a news crew can get there. In the context of the presentproject, people can also publish information that the mainstream media may not be interested in, suchas better agricultural management practices.• Journalists are beginning to move towards becoming secondary compilers and editors of informationpublished online by ordinary people rather than doing the original ‘field work’ themselves, becausethey simply can’t move fast enough. CNN has used Twitter as its primary source for coverage of somemajor recent events.Practical ways to use the internetThere are many different ways to communicate over the internet and more are being developed all the time. Thegood news is that most are available through free, high quality service providers, and even the paid services areavailable for just a few dollars. These are actually the easiest way to make use of the internet, as the technicalissues are all managed for you. We will focus on some of the more popular free services here. There are manymore, but these will get you started. Practical measures you can take include:• Set up a blog or website• Distribute an email newsletter• Broadcast audio recordings (“podcasts”)• Share videos and photos through Youtube and Flickr• Participate in social networking: The gorilla of the internet87