This is interesting Blog news. Issue Dynamics Inc have released a formal Blogger Relations Practice (read: Public Relations Practice). The idea is to utilise (read: manipulate) the blogsphere for the gain for their clients – who they claim includes “fortune 50 corporations, national trade associations, advocacy groups and political party committees.”

The site certainly makes for an interesting read and would indicate that blogs are becoming increasingly persuasive.

My frustration with the Green movement was a motivation for my thesis. There are many interlinking problems. My post below about Monbiot serves to highlight the lack of radicalism, while this post on the Center for Media and Democracy’s blog points to the lack of grassroots mobilisation.

What began as a formidable popular movement has turned into competing non-profit companies that merely use their grassroots members for fundraising, failing to empower them to become the political force needed for real change. Thirty-five years after the first Earth Day, a revolution is needed in the ranks of the greens. Until the environmental movement rebuilds itself from the grassroots up and demands accountability from the top down, it will continue its losing ways.

I don’t like to speak ill of the recently deceased and I avoid commenting on issues I don’t have a reasonable grasp of (although occasionally I do slip here).

For this reason I haven’t commented on the passing of Sir Joh. I can’t imagine I’d have anything particularly nice to say about him and he was mostly before my time – or at least before I was politically aware enough to understand.

However it is interesting to note the difference in the way the media and others have portrayed his life in comparison to Arafat’s. When Arafat died all we heard about was how corrupt he was and how we could now go ahead with the peace process in his death with little reference to the good he did. All we’ve heard about Sir Joh, was about how wonderful he was and his gross civil rights abuses seem to be dismissed almost as part of his charm. Australians love a larrikin, and larrikins are usually a bit controversial but seriously, corruption is still corruption.

George Monbiot makes an excellent point here:

“Wind farms, while necessary, are a classic example of what environmentalists call an “end of the pipe solution.” Instead of tackling the problem – our massive demand for energy – at source, they provide less damaging means of accommodating it. Or part of it. The Whinash project, by replacing energy generation from power stations burning fossil fuel, will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 178,000 tonnes per year.(6) This is impressive, until you discover that a single jumbo jet, flying from London to Miami and back every day, releases the climate change equivalent of 520,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.(7) One daily connection between Britain and Florida costs three giant wind farms.

Alternative technology permits us to imagine that we can build our way out of trouble. By responding to one form of over-development with another, we can, we believe, continue to expand our total energy demands without destroying the planetary systems required to sustain human life. This might, for a while, be true. But it would soon require the use of the entire land surface of the United Kingdom.”

Overseas students are clearly a massive revenue stream for Australian Universities. The internationalist in me says that they shouldn’t need to be fee paying to use our universities but let’s just put that down to some wide radical lefty ideal that bears little relevance at this point.

As this article would indicate, these students are viewed by the government, the universities and probably most of the Australia public as purely revenue streams. What a waste. Moreover, they are all rich and lead lives of luxury.

Sure, a lot of them are quite well-to-do, of course they are, they have had their education paid for and are being supported by their parents. But a lot of them aren’t. They have been sent over on their family’s life savings and are expected to get a job and support themselves. This is further compounded by the fact that they have a considerable amount of pressure on them to succeed considering they are being put through the university at great personal sacrifice to the families of these students.

It is largely because of these preconceived notions – as well as some quite unfortunate ethnic stereotypes – that these students are left to fend for themselves. This has several consequences. Firstly, an alarming number of these students live below the poverty line. Secondly, suicide and depression rates are also quite alarming due to the isolation they experience not knowing anyone, which is made worse by language issues. Finally, it can lead to a sort of ghettoisation which is a sad cultural loss for both the international students and the Australian public (remember when multiculturalism was considered a good thing).

So this is a long winded way of explaining why I support Polyglot and have had some involvement with them. As their web page says: “Polyglot is a non-profit organisation that aims to enhance the
experiences of International students living in and around Melbourne by providing friendly information and fostering relations with the local student Community.”

They’re a good bunch of kids too and are holding a function this Saturday – I’ll try and get the details and post there here a little later on.

Update:
Saturday 30th of April
@ The Bunker
407 Swanston St (opposite RMiT)
7pm – late
Bollywood theme
$10 entry

The Melbourne Culture Jammers have been doing a fine job around town and now these enthusiastic kids are trying to get a few dollars under their belt so they can be that little bit more effective.

So if you hate multi-national corporations like I hate them then why not pop along to their benefit gig:

My beloved readers, hello and sorry.

Things have been busier then usual and I haven’t been able to blog as often as I like to.

So my thesis is still being proof read buy a couple of people and I am eternally in their debt – some great and helpful feed back so far as well as a healthy dose of encouragement.

I start moving house tomorrow which is doing my head in as only moving can and to make things worse work has been a bit hectic and requiring entirely too much brain power. The ‘Anzac biscuits’ my brother and I made on Saturday have only compounded these problems. I can’t wait to be back in the Ghetto though (North Melbourne) and start share house living again.

However to keep you interested for now, I’ve discovered that George Monbiot has a blog here. I rarely actually seek out blogs, I seem to just happen upon them. So when I discover a little gem like this it always makes me happy.

I’ll be back blogging soon with some very exciting announcements about the Australian Centre for Democracy and Justice (of which I am a board member) in no time.

Another one from the PR Watch bunker:

In a speech at the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ conference, News Corporation chief executive Rupert Murdoch pondered the impact that the growth in online news is having on newspapers. “The trends are against us,” he warned. Murdoch also mused on the possibilities of harnessing bloggers to the corporate news cart. “We need to be the destination for those bloggers. We need to encourage readers to think of the web as the place to go to engage our reporters and editors in more extended discussions about the way a particular story was reported or researched or presented.” Newspapers might experiment with using bloggers to extend coverage, he suggested. However, Murdoch cautioned that bloggers could pose a risk to “our standards for accuracy and reliability.”

The full speech can be found here.

PR is an ongoing theme on this blog so I was interested to read this from Crikey via PR Watch:

The president of the Public Relations Institute of Australia’s (PRIA) Victoria chapter, David Hawkins, bluntly summarised the results of a membership survey as, “Most people think the PRIA sucks. The average score across all members was about four out of a possible nine.” In the Australian e-zine Crikey.com.au, Hugo Kelly reports that survey results included the suggestion that the PRIA run “a public relations campaign – ongoing – to explain, and where necessary, defend, public relations.” Over the next two weeks, PRIA chapters in Western Australia, Victoria and Queensland are hosting events for Ross S. Irvine, the president of his own firm, ePublic Relations. Irvine, who describes himself as a “corporate warrior,” promises to tell his Australian audience “how to beat activists at their own game.”

It is always fascinating reading about PR firms “managing” activists. In fact an old lecturer of mine put me onto a PR text book with a whole chapter on “managing” activists. It would be funny if it wasn’t so scary.

Some interesting discussion going on over at Larvatus Prodeo about the use of government funding for NGOs.

I weighed in at the end of the comments and I don’t think I really have much else to say but it’s worth a read all the same.