video

Marxist geographer and critical urbanist, Harvey breaks it down hard:

“You cannot solve the problem of global poverty without going after the accumulation of global wealth. Until you leave your anti-poverty campaigns and join the anti-wealth campaign, nothing is going to happen.”

Stylish and powerful infographic on the nature and ramifications of the computer virus Stuxnet.

While not the first time that crackers have targeted industrial systems, Stuxnet is the first discovered malware that spies on and subverts specific industrial systems and is widely suspected of targeting the uranium enrichment infrastructure in Iran.

Patrick Clair designed and directed the animation for the Australian television program Hungry Beast.

This may be old news (Stuxnet was discovered a year ago,) but the consequences are still playing out.

“We must never cease to stand up for our values. We have to show that our open society can pass this test, too, And that the answer to violence is even more democracy, even more humanity, but never naïveté. That is what we owe to the victims and to the those they hold dear.”

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg the morning after the July 22 attacks in Norway.

One of the most moving videos I’ve seen in a while, Dark Girls: Preview is from an upcoming documentary exploring deep-seated attitudes about skin color and women in the U.S.

Few visuals capture the spirit of regime change as much as toppling the monuments of the previous regime. In the case of Libya, revolutionary protesters on YouTube topple a monument to Muammar al-Qaddafi’s revolutionary Green Book.

The future is unwritten!

In July 2009, I noted a study concluding that Brazil’s telenovelas have inspired both a drop in birth rate and rise in divorce. Via the Communication Initiative Network, I found a a few other items on soap operas and public health:

• A German report looks at TV soap operas in Kyrgyzstan, the Dominican Republic, and Côte d’Ivoire as vehicles for HIV/AIDS education.
  
  
• A radio soap opera in Vietnam reached millions of farmers changing their attitudes and practices managing rice pests, fertilisers, and seeds.
  
  
• Authors of a 2006 paper on a radio soap opera in Bihar, India document how it spurred fundamental, sustainable shifts in people’s values and beliefs.
  
  
• A May 2008 Master’s thesis looks at the effect of two Ethiopian radio dramas on attitutde towards reproductive health and spousal abuse.
  
  
• Fans of a radio drama in Sudan learned about, or were reinforced in, the importance of abandoning female circumcision, giving girls more control of their reproductive health, having a small family, and staying away from drugs and alcohol.

And though I couldn’t find a study on its impact, straphangers in New York City may remember Julio and Marisol: Decision, an episodic comic strip soap opera dealing with AIDS that ran in English and Spanish in NYC subway cars from 1989 through 2001.

“Take the knife” or “don’t take the knife?” One of the more interesting uses of YouTube I’ve seen, this video is the first in a narrative that unfolds as you decide what the main character will do. Each decision affects the outcome of the next 30 second clip, which then prompts you to make another choice. Ultimately, however, it’s the initial decision that determines the conclusion. The videos are shot handy-cam style from the point of view of the main character, which works well here.

The project was produced by AMV BBDO for an anti-violence campaign site droptheweapons.org run by London’s Metropolitan Police Service.

The video was Osocio’s 2009 Campaign of the Year.