Wednesday 10th March 2010

Media: Reclaiming the airways

During the Cold War, long before the collapse of the Soviet Union, a group of Russian journalists toured the United States and were astonished to find, after reading the newspapers and watching television, that all the opinions on the vital issues were the same.  “In our country”, they said to their host, “to get that result we have a dictatorship. We imprison people. We tear out their fingernails. Here you have none of that. How do you do it? What's the secret?”

“No imprisonment is required.” the Americans answered, “no loss of fingernails is called for. There is another, far more effective way. Our media: radio, television and printed press tell the people what they want them to know.” 

Source: Issue 200 of SOCIALIST REVIEW Published September Copyright

A Key Scripture

“Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body ...the tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person.”

James 3: 5-6

Word's also have creative power to bring life, God spoke and there was light.  Communication is powerful and can be used for good. 

Social Media Statistics

It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million listeners. Terrestrial TV took 13 years to reach 50 million users. The internet took four years to reach 50 million people... In less than nine months, Facebook added 100 million users.

Wikipedia currently has more than 13 million articles in more than 260 different languages. The site attracts over 60 million unique users a month.

You Tube will provide over 75 billion video streams to around 375 million visitors during this year.

Social networks and blogs are the 4th most popular on line activities

10% of all time spent on the internet is on social media sites.

If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth most populated place in the world.

900,000 blog posts are created within a single 24-hour period.

The top three people on Twitter (Ashton Kutcher, Ellen DeGeneres and Britney Spears) have more combined followers than the entire population of Austria.

Source: http://econsultancy.com/blog/4402-20