A woman explores the anti-social side of social media

A woman has moved in donated furniture, exercise equipment and a large-screen computer with a projector overhead so everyone walking by can see as she tweets, updates her Facebook page and Skypes. During her 30 day stay in this "cell" no one comes in and she never goes outside. Her only contact with other people is through technology. She wants to explore how social media has changed the way people communicate.

This is an experiment to see how social we are really being through social media outlets. It explores how social media can be beneficial for people that live states or countries a part but how it may be detrimental for actual social interaction with people we come in contact on a more regular basis.

Article

Do you feel like you've become more disconnected to people you see regularly because of social media?

TSA Chief is Warning Against Boycott of Airport Scans

TSA Article

We have discussed the whole body scan that is being conducted at the airports and how much controversy they have brought along with them. Since there are so many people upset about these body scans, TSA is warning people against attempting to boycott the scans. Wednesday is one of the busiest fly days of the year and if people attempt to boycott the scans, the entire airport could back causing a much greater amount of frustration. It should be interesting to see whether or not people will try to boycott the scans... my prediction? Some people will still try to be an activist and will cause trouble for everyone trying to fly to see their families.

Nasty 'Nazi' Comment (Follow up to NPR Case Study)

Fox News CEO Ailes: NPR Execs Have Nazi Attitude

Fox New's CEO, Roger Ailes, seriously criticized NPR for the way the handled the firing of Juan Williams by stating, "They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don't want any other point of view."

He was heavily criticized by the public for his comments and apologized to a Jewish civil rights group. He later discussed his use of words and said that if he could take it back he would have much rather have called NPR 'nasty inflexible bigots.'

This is pretty racy language to be used in interviews.

Does George Bush Think Before He Speaks?

During an interview with Matt Lauer former President of the UNITED STATES of AMERICA George Bush says his lowest moment as president was when Kanye West said he did not care about black people.... what about the war in Iraq and the collapse of the entire economy!!!!??? This article examines this statement from a hip-hop perspective.
Many people were very surprised at the absence of Bush during the mid-term elections. I would've thought he'd be publicly supporting some of the Republican candidates considering many of the races were so close this year. But of course why would he want to stumble over his words or say something outrageous in public right before the debut of his book.

Instead, he decided to wait until after the mid-term elections to say something so unbelievable on an NBC evening telecast with Lauer. I'm curious about the amount of patience Bush's PR team has with him.

Carnival's PR Crisis- What they got right and what they got wrong

On Thursday, 4,500 passengers and crew members from Carnival's stranded cruise liner arrived safely on land. Passengers had been stranded for 72 hours without electricity due to a fire in the ship's engine room. These articles address the PR strategies Carnival used during this crisis.

On one hand, this article hails Carnival's PR strategies as impressive due to the company's fast response, the crew's competence in containing the danger with no injuries, the provision of timely information to the media, and the company's efforts to compensate the passengers. From all indications, Carnival had a very good crisis management plan in place to deal with such incidents.

On the other hand, this article provides a more balanced analysis of the incident, especially its use of social media websites in dealing with the crisis. What struck me was the author's mention of how Carnival should have changed its profile picture on Facebook since it was too light-hearted. It seems to me that every detail counts when it comes to crisis management.

It will be interesting to see how Carnival tries to restore its image in months to come especially since it involves convincing people to put their lives at risk by going on one of its cruises. Which of their publics will they appeal to? What messages are they likely to use?

Old Spice

There's a funny Old Spice commercial that most of you are probably familiar with. It's sort of random, but funny, and very popular (on Youtube, it has over 23 million hits). A lot of people have re-made it, including the library at BYU. What I hadn't ever noticed is that if you go to the original video and scroll down, on the right hand side there are a bunch of videos the Old Spice guy has made that are in response to tweets he received (they all begin with Re: @). All of his other videos have millions of views as well, so people are definitely following him. A lot of the videos are in response to "regular" people, and some are to celebrities.

I thought this was such a great PR strategy. It's a very original way to use social media, and it makes the campaign interactive and fun. It looks like most of the videos were posted all together in July, so I'm not sure the campaign ran that long, but I'm sure people like me who are just discovering it are still watching the videos.

Crisis Management for Chinese Government?

Saw this article in New York Times: "Assertive Chinese Held in Mental Wards."

It tells the story of a Chinese farmer, Xu Lindong, who was imprisoned in the Zhumadian Psychiatric Hospital for four years after he filed a series of complaints against the Chinese government after being angered by a land dispute. Lindong was not in the least bit deranged.

The government's reaction was to commit him to a mental hospital and, as the article says, "forge his brother's name on the signature line." He even received 54 electrical shock treatments while there, as well as routine injections of powerful drugs. Human rights activists suggest that incidents like Lindong's are not uncommon, and on the rise, because the government wants to silence troublemakers.

The Chinese government is notorious for censorship. For example, in 2009 it completely blocked Facebook. However, this incident seems unnecessarily severe. Is the Chinese government justified in its hasty imprisonment and forgery?

If you were asked to do PR for the Chinese government around the Lindong incident, what would you do?