Charities and New Media and Case Study of ChildLine

There has been a change in how charities operate since the development of new media such as the internet, web 2.0 and the prevalence of mobile communication. This has changed how a charity interacts with their audience and has lead to positive changes in how they raise awareness , funding and volunteers. Helen Beckett, head of communications at Media Trust, says many voluntary groups are showing a great deal of initiative in the way they are approaching new media. "Charities' use of online communities is becoming more prevalent," she says. These networks are joined and maintained by individuals rather than organizations, which makes them great for raising awareness or fundraising among friends, peers and colleagues. They are informal but extremely powerful."
Web 2.0 has seen charities developing networks, discussion forums and blogs. This is not only allowing them to spread messages, but ensuring that their beneficiaries are talking to each other and to them about their ideas and problems or to get support and advice.
An example
Amnesty international is a charity that proliferated there brand across the world and the web has had a key role in this. Many nations have their own site idiosyncratic to there domain, which details local events , offers a place to donate and provides a wealth of information on human rights.
Martin Bailie, planning director at ad agency Glue London, explained in a recent interview that : "Charities and companies have never been in control of their brands and what people say about them, only now audiences can share their thoughts with the world. This is a wonderful time for organizations to welcome ever more stakeholders in what they do. But they need to be prepared
This is an acute observation; new media has allowed charities to improve their services but also in a quicker more efficient way, now that the public’s feedback can be instant . It also allows for new marketing strategies and how membership to a charity can be online and profile based, which also always for a personalisation of the interface and heighted sense of gratification for the user.
Challenges in control emerge with the greater means of communication: The message of the charity may be challenged and confused by the ill informed members of the charity and the forums around it. Charities have to accept that people may use such forums to express a range of views about them and their work, but that this in turn will make them even more accountable and effective.

A Case Study-ChildLine
Why does ChildLine exist?
ChildLine’s aims and objectives are: to protect children from harm, to share children and young people’s difficulties and help resolve or alleviate their problems to raise public awareness and influence policies and practice that affect children’s lives and development.

A brief History
In October 1986, a BBC special programme on child abuse, called Child Watch, launched Child Line. British Telecom provided Child Line with space to work from .Child Line quickly took root in the minds of children and young people as “their line”. Child Line is established as the place that children and young people identify as their own.

Child Line in Ireland operates in the same impartial space for child to seek help. I asked a child line volunteer to answer a few questions. Have a read there...
The Interview
Tell me what is your role as a volunteer?
As a Child line online volunteer my duties are to communicate with the child users through the mediums of text message, one on one instant messaging and responding to their emails. Though many children contact us with problems, the emphasis is on us to be non directive, that is, to represent a listening ear rather than a problem focused helpline.
Who is child line aimed at?
Any child under 18, there is no specific 'target audience' though naturally children are often 8 years plus, given that the service r some degree of technological know-how.
Is there an ethos or mission statement that underlines how child line helps children?
Yes absolutely. As I mentioned earlier, key to the child line service is what they call a 'non directive', 'child centric' service where the idea is not to be problem focused but to be a listening service for the child. The idea is to empower the child, and if there is a problem, to allow them to decide the best solutions for themselves, rather than telling them what to do.
What are the primary ways a child can contact child line?

They can either phone the service, or text, or go online and either send an email or enter into a one on one conversation with a volunteer.

Can children ask for a particular volunteer? And are they allowed build a relationship?

No this is something that child line aims to avoid. This is both to protect the volunteer’s objectivity and to avoid the Childs overdependence on the service. As such, child line will never give out information on volunteers shifts, but instead reassure the child that they all do the same thing.
Which is the most popular form of contact? And why?
Not too sure- the phone lines are open 24 hours, so they are the most available. Whereas, text and online conversation are restricted to day and evening shifts during the week.
Do you think texting and online contact has made getting help for these children more accessible?
Yes definitely. This form of communication seems to be overtaking phone calls in their daily lives and is something they are very familiar with. It is perhaps easier to present as mere 'words' rather than as a voice, and may make them feel less vulnerable.
How does child line screen calls? Are there instances when you are not allowed to respond?

No calls are screened in that every call/ message will be answered unless they are unable. in rare cases certain callers who are over dependent on the service will be recognised by the volunteers. These are often aware that they have been given scheduled times to call (to stop them calling all the time) and if they outside these times, child line will remind them of this. but no call is purposely unanswered
To other children on the site communicate with each other, as I have seen on the website there is public form?
They can post publicly, but there is no forum per se where they can communicate with one another.
Is the means of communication tiered, as in the first point of contact on the website and then the child is encouraged to ring?
No not necessarily, the child dictates which service they prefer though we do tell them about the other services so that they are aware of all of them.
Does child line work with any other charities?
Not sure! Though with regard to the volunteers work, we have a select, approved set of websites/ books that we can recommend for the child that may be better equipped to help them with queries such as homosexuality or bullying (It is important to say that child line does not like to explain things, but rather encourage the child to find out for themselves..)

Has child line solicited more donations and interest because of new media such as the web 2.0 features? (Web 2.0 in interactive real time chat and many features of social networking sites?

Well the instant messaging has no doubt really helped how child line communicates with children and is a key component.
To Conclude
Child Line is helping a wider audience , with a means of communication that allows children to find their voice and choose how they ask for help, be it a text message, an email or a phone call.
We can see through Child Line the positive ways in which new media can be used. Though there is concern for how the medium may be compromised or misused, as Public forums can be hard to monitor , with child line there has been concern over people pretending to be children but this can be hard to determine through a text or email.

Type oneself into being- Social Networking

Type oneself into being- Social Networking

The pervasiveness of social networking sites has become everyday and is fast becoming one of the most popular forms of communication. While online communities have been popular for the last ten years, social networking has become a recent phenomenon. Social networking sites are centred around people rather than a specific interests. They are said to be ‘ego centric’ networks with the individual at the centre of their network. Dana Boyd an academic that has centred her career on the effects of social networking sites has noted that the bulk of SNS’s focus on impression management and friendship performance. Boyd (2004) has suggested that ‘public displays of connection’ serve as important identity signals that help people navigate through a networked social world, in that an extended network may serve to validate identity information presented in ones profile. Most sited encourage accurate representations of participants. There is a sense that a profile will never be real, that they are a projection of one’s best self or a selective presentation of a person.

Another aspect of self presentation is the articulation of friendship links, which serve as identity makers for the owner of profiles. MySpace has leveraged Peoples willingness to connect to interesting people to find targets for their spam. Friends on social networking sites are not the same as friends in real life. The context of friends is reliant on behavioural norms, but a social networking site seems to create a different set of norms, in that a SNS user may be behaving in a way that is a reaction to a perceived audience. They are effectual performing, in that a status update may be a means of attracting attention and go beyond the basic conception of letting the world know what they’re doing.

Most social networking sites support pre existing relations; sites like Facebook are designed to foster existing relations rather than soliciting new friends. The relationship may be based on weak ties but typically there is a common offline element, like that of a college of work place. An advantage of SNS is that they allow a network of people to socialise in a borderless space and in unmediated environment. There is much discourse to support that SNS promote sociability. However there are a great number of privacy concerns, this may be of particular concern for younger users. There is a sense of disconnect between users awareness of the dangerous of the internet and their actual behaviour. Users often reveal there where about but fail to realise that a wide variety of their audience can access this. The public nature of the internet seems to be over looked or underestimated. There is very much a lack of responsibility in what people type into their being, in that a passing comment on the internet is recorded and can be liable, there have been many cases of employees trashing their bosses only to be fired on the grounds of defamation of character.

Aside from privacy concerns, the positive uses of SNS has benefited many and allowed one to keep in touch with estranged friends and family, similarly people living abroad or away from their primary social networks can keep in touch online and remain a part of people’s lives despite living hundreds or thousands of miles away.


Sources: Judith Donath and danah boyd (2004, October). "Public displays of connection."

Jihad vs MacWorld

According to Barber Jihad and MacWorld’s are two seemingly opposing paradigms that share a common trait; they both threaten democracy. In the meantime network based organisational structures, Jihad /Macworld belong to this category are thought to foster democracy. How would you unfold this paradox?


I would agree with Barber, both paradigms do threaten democracy, as the author so aptly captures, ‘their common thread is an indifference to civil liberty’ (Barber, 2003).Yet I find it difficult to reconcile how Jihad or MacWorld are fostering democracy. Perhaps if I consider them in isolation, I could fathom how they may foster democracy.In this article, I would like to argue that they offer an element of democracy in their respective structures but not in the greater sense that the question purposes.

With my argument in mind, I feel it would be prudent to consider, if MacWorld does foster democracy?Democracy is dependent on the majority of rule. If like Barber, we recognise MacWorld as the development and exploitation of technology, communications, economics and information, then we look to the structure of this, in how do we as members of Macworld contribute, do we have a voice and are the majority ruling? If MacWorld is becoming homogenised, then is this true of the ownership of such multinational corporations. Consider the leading institutes; Coco-Cola, Mac Donald’s, and media providers such as Star TV and Myspace. The latter are owned by Rupert Murdoch, he seems here to be an example of how the world’s leading media platforms are being bought by one man and his empire. Does this structure foster democracy? My initial reaction is to say no but let use delve deeper. Media products are consumed and bought, in that, there is a sense of a choice and the choice is our vote as the public. By Buying and consuming certain products, we are signalling an acceptance with the product and the provider. This seems to show how the majority is passing their rule. But are we consuming certain products because there is no alternative or are perhaps the alternatives harder to access? Or is it because of aggressive advertising? It would seem that they all play a vital role. The rub of the argument is suggesting that our choice in consumption is our vote and Macworld is giving us a voice albeit a limited one.

In terms of Jihad, I can perhaps conceive an element of democracy in that; democracy offers freedom of a political voice and the right to petition. Jihad does exercise thier right to political freedom, that is perhaps against the democrat governance from west.Here lies the paradox; jihad uses democrat functions against what it fears.In galvanising the tribal elements of Islamic culture there is a sense that a structure is being used to create something that has democrat elements,in that there is a hierarchy that is said to be protecting its people and ensuring their rights. Jihad is said to be opposed to Macworld, yet it utilizes MacWorld’s success such as the web , and living in societies that exhort MacWorld’s ideals . What I can deuce from this, is that , Jihad and Macworld inhabit the same spaces, employ elements of democracy as network based structures but they both at the same time undermine the principles of democracy.

Tracking Global Flows

Globalisation is considered to be a process whereby regions of the world are linked by economic or cultural flows. The process involves the expansion and contraction certain aspects of culture, in that one country may adapt certain tendency of another nation perhaps at the loss of a former tradition. The example banded about is that of the prevalence of Mac Donald’s throughout the globe.
Much thought has been given by academics as to the effect of an increasing globalised world. The findings have rendered both positive and negative outcomes. Noam Chomsky summates perhaps one of the negative aspects of globalisation;
‘The dominant propaganda systems have appropriated the term "globalization" to refer to the specific version of international economic integration that they favor, which privileges the rights of investors and lenders, those of people being incidental.’
Chomsky address a very important point, that globalization is a process that protects and supports the economic gain of certain investors, perhaps at the cost of many people’s cultures and traditions.

To offer further explanation, I shall consider the concept of outsourcing. Outsourcing is a practice used by many international corporations; it allows for a cheaper means of production, often a company will relocate to a country where labor is cheaper or there are cheaper natural resources. While this may offer the population of the relocated country employment, there has been reports exploitation of people and the natural recourses. Bearing this in mind, within the article ‘tracking global flows’ there is a clear identification of the types of cultural flows that have been shaped by globalisation. There are; images, capital, commodities, people and ideology.

The article clearly addresses the question does culture flow equally? In terms of globalisation and culture, there appears a one dimension flow, from the centre (the west) to the periphery (the east). This flow is regarded to be a cultural imperialism, where there is a domination of one culture over another. The domination of a few leading cultures, notably America is leading to a ‘cultural homogenization of the world’ (R., p. 15). What is described is how the dominant imposes on the peripheral culture, which leads to the peripheral culture is become an off shoot of the dominant culture. There is a fear that the loss of cultural differences will ultimately lead to a global culture that promotes sameness. However this does mean to suggest that the flow is solely one sided, rather is uneven, as the peripheral cultures do have a marginal influence on the centre, consider fast-food, while the west has exported Mac Donald’s in return we have received cuisine from a variety of places, Mexican Chinese, Thai and Indian are among many. This example can be extended to music and religion. It would be wrong to consider globalisation as merely westernisation as there is a far more interactive relationship between the centre and periphery. As the west becomes home to many migrants, they export their culture and adopt their hosts, what comes into play in interdependency, they feed into each other.

Globalisation is not uniform but is subject to limitations, the article coins the term materiality of the globe and awkward connections to identify the limitations. The former relates to governmental agencies, infrastructure and institutions, and how such powers allow for some entities to flow throughout the globe and other not to. While the term awkward connections relates to selectiveness of interconnection around the globe. To conclude the global flows are ever increasing but are very much bounded by an unevenness.