republica 2013. Photo taken by Mario Sorgalla

On my way back home from the republica 2013 (#rp13) – the biggest „conference“ for digital topics with more than 5000 participants and 260 sessions – and the recampaign (#rc13, conference on Online Campaigning for NGOs) I was wondering if I should write just another blogpost with a short summary of my favourite sessions and a quick overlook of the „hot topics“. But the more posts I read that followed this pattern the more I thought I should do something different. Then I read Jens Altmann’s post “Republica: 10 Learnings” and I thought I have to adopt this idea. Everything has been written before…except for  my 10 personal learnings.

1. The special atmosphere at the recampaign was fascinating. Sure, at the re:publica there are lots of interesting people and a bunch of so-called German „net celebreties“. But at the recampaign there are so many people that seem to share mutual interests. It was nice talking to all of you. (And the farewell was indeed a special one – see picture below).
   

   Farewell from the recampaign 2013. Photo taken by Mario Sorgalla.

2. There are one-person-blogs that have millions of readers. Where? In China of course. Hu Yong’s blog has 3,5 million readers. The presenter of this session did not mention if these are the numbers per year or month!? Anyway, it’s a lot!
3. I never thought I would watch more than one video as a follow-up to a conference. But I did. There are indeed many very interesting videos on republica’s YouTube channel and the quality is good.
4. On Facebook Barack Obama is friends with people who are friends with 98% of voting Americans (Betsy Hoover in her keynote speech at the recampaign).
5. Don’t plan too much. I arrived in Berlin on Sunday. In the evening I tried to set up my own programme. On Monday – the first day of the recampaign and the republica – I was busy trying to stick with my own schedule. On Tuesday and Wednesday I took heed of what @pluralog said on Twitter: “Since most sessions are recorded. Don’t try to schedule, enjoy, go with the flow and work with the videos later “.

6. Being a blogger in #Bangladesh can be pretty dangerous. Nonetheless @shahidul likes to wear a T-Shirt that says: “I’m a blogger”. #rp13

   — Mario Sorgalla (@mariosorg) May 8, 2013

7. I will always prefer coffee over Club Mate.
8. The participants of the re:publica drank 13000 bottles of beer and 5,500 bottles of Mate.
9. There’s not only Google Trends but also YouTube Trends. What are the trending topics? What are the most popular videos? You can also have a look at the trends map and get to know which videos are trending in the US. Yes, so far this feature has only been rolled out for the United States.
10. I got to know Yoani Sanchez. Not personally but I learned that she is a Cuban blogger who started the first independent blog in Cuba. She is a strong critic of the Cuban government and she was finally allowed to leave Cuba setting off on a worldwide speaking tour. Unfortunately I could not listen to her presentation but I will definitely watch the video on re:publica’s YouTube channel.

I studied Political Science, Modern History and Media Science at the University of Bonn. I chose these subjects purely out of interest. I didn’t have any concrete occupational area on my mind when I decided to study these subjects. I have always been interested in Politics and History. When other people were reading exciting novels I read just another non-fiction book on the Cold War, the Chinese Revolution or about the life of Gustav Stresemann. So in hindsight I can really say that I enjoyed my studies (except for the exams of course!).

University of Bonn. Photo taken by Flickr user Ariane Middel and published under a CC BY 2.0 license.

If you study Political Science it also makes sense to do an internship abroad or to study at a university abroad. I completed internships at the NATO in Brunssum (the Netherlands), at the German embassy in Washington, DC and at the Foundation for Development Cooperation (FDC) in Brisbane. Nothing seemed to be more appropriate than a job as a consultant/ speaker/ contributor to an international organisation or maybe at an NGO in Germany.

As a graduate in Social Sciences in Germany it is not a matter of course that you get a good job right after graduation. Many articles have been written about the Generation Praktikum (generation internship).  Guess what I did after I had graduated?

I started an internship with the Bertelsmann Stiftung (Foundation) at the beginning of 2011. I applied for this internship because the project futurechallenges.org seemed to be a very interesting experiment because of its goal: raising awareness for global problems with the help of a worldwide blogger network and via social media. I started to assume the role of an Online Community and a Social Media Manager although at that time I didn’t know that such a „profession“ actually exists.

Today I’m working as a freelancer in Online Community and Social Media Management and I still enjoy it! I especially like the opportunity of communicating with people from all over the world. I also like the fact that in Social Media it’s more about the content than about your position within a company or an organisation. It’s interesting what you have to say and not (only) what you are. I know this may sound a bit idealistic but it’s true in a way.

What will be next?

To put it bluntly: I have no idea. It could be that in five years time (the popular question in a job interview) I will still be doing what I do today. However, it could also be something else. But what I know is that I would study those subjects once again if I had to choose. It’s important to be satisfied with what you’re doing and if you’re always open to new ideas and inspirations most of us will get a job that matches our interests – sooner or later.

Blog Carnival

Now if you studied Political Science what’s your job today? Does it have anything to do with what you’ve learned during your studies? Would you study Political Science once again or would you choose anything else?

It would be nice to read about your thoughts on this. We could make a collection on „I studied Political Science and today I’m working as…“. This could be interesting for other Political Scientists or for Political Science students. I’m looking forward to reading your posts! I will link to all your posts and publish a summary.

What’s the matter? Why is net neutrality in Germany in danger?

First of all, the Deutsche Telekom supplies more than 12 million clients (link in German) in Germany with broadband Internet access. If the company will change its tariff structure a good deal of the German population will be affected. Now the Telekom’s plan is to introduce a new tariff for broadband internet access very similar to what we already know from mobile phones. Most of the mobile phone subscribers have a contract with a certain data volume. If this data volume is exceeded you have to pay for a supplementary service in order to use high-speed Internet. If not, the speed of your Internet connection will be heavily reduced.

So what, those who pay more get a better service. Isn’t this the bottom line of a service economy?

Well, in this case only partly. The Deutsche Telekom is not only a company that provides the infrastructure. The Telekom itself provides content as well. Its own platform Entertain makes dozens of TV channels as well as Video on Demand services available. These services won’t be deducted from the data volume. There will also be so-called managed services, which means that some content providers pay the Telekom for a preferrential transmission of their content. The result will be that big players will definitely be at an advantage because they can pay the infrastructure providers like the Telekom. But what about smaller, innovative and new companies? They could be the losers (besides the customers) in this game.

Net neutrality flyer. Published by Flickr user skyfaller, CC BY-SA 2.0

Is it only about money?

No. It’s also about data protection and privay. The Telekom only knows which service they want to favour if they scan the content. This means that every data package has to be checked in order to find out who is the sender, who is the addressee and what’s the content. Just try to imagine what an outcry it would cause if parcel services would control every parcel they deliver (if you speak German you should read this great blogpost. It explains the similarity between controlling data packages and „real“ packages).

According to Wikipedia net neutrality „is the principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication“. This principle will be broken if the Telekom will really implement what it has announced yesterday. It seems like there is only a small chance to stop this if Telekom’s customers send a signal that they will change their Internet provider. This could also prevent other providers from implementing similar tariff structures. Unfortunately the German government is not willing to pass a law that secures net neutrality in Germany.

Von allen sozialen Netzwerken, die ich auch heute noch aktiv nutze, ist meine Mitgliedschaft bei Facebook die älteste. Zunächst als Alternative zum heute beinahe vergessenen studivz gedacht, hatte ich mich auf Facebook mit Freunden und Bekannten vernetzt. Mit allen diesen Menschen verband mich, dass ich sie im Laufe meines Lebens irgendwann und irgendwo schon mal getroffen hatte. Ich hatte dieses Vorgehen für mich nicht zum Prinzip erhoben. Es hatte sich einfach ergeben.

Kontakte kreuz und quer. Wie gehen wir mit unseren Kontakten und Kontaktanfragen in unterschiedlichen sozialen Netzwerken um? Public Domain Foto, veröffentlicht auf Wikimedia.

Im Laufe der Zeit kamen beruflich bedingt – vor allem meiner Mitarbeit im internationalen Bloggernetzwerk futurechallenges.org geschuldet – immer mehr Kontakte hinzu, die ich noch nie zuvor persönlich getroffen hatte. Ich teile mit Ihnen jedoch die Mitarbeit an einem Projekt in das viele Menschen großes Engagement stecken. Diese Schnittstelle ist für mich Grund genug, mich mit diesen Menschen zu verbinden. Ich teile mit Ihnen keine gemeinsame Vergangenheit wie beispielsweise die Schulzeit oder das Studium. Gemeinsame Interessen – in diesem Fall das Bloggen zu global relevanten Themen – sind für mich aber Grund genug, mich mit diesen Menschen zu vernetzen.

Folgen ist immer erlaubt!

Trotzdem bevorzuge ich nach wie vor einen anderen Kanal, um mich mit Menschen zu vernetzen, die ähnliche Interessen haben: Twitter. Der Nachrichtenstrom auf Twitter ist perfekt geeignet, um sich auf Inhalte zu konzentrieren und nicht auf private Bilder oder Ähnliches (die auch ihre Berechtigung haben). Ich stelle zwar fest, dass ich, wohl kaum überraschend, häufiger mit Twitternutzern interagiere, die ich auch persönlich kennne. Das entscheidende Kriterium, einem anderen Twitternutzer zu folgen, ist und bleibt für mich aber die Überschneidung von Interessen – und zwar unabhängig davon, ob ich mit dieser oder jener Person jemals in Kontakt stand. Insofern ist Twitter für mich das zwangloseste Medium. Folgen ist immer erlaubt! Die große Mehrzahl der Nutzer freut sich über jeden einzelnen Follower. Ich stelle die nicht allzu kühne Behauptung auf, dass man mit Freundschaftsanfragen auf Facebook nicht jede Person glücklich macht. Für Viele ist und bleibt Faceboook eben doch ein Medium für das private Umfeld. Man kann natürlich darüber streiten, ob ein öffentliches Medium wie Facebook dafür der richtige Ort ist. Darauf möchte ich an dieser Stelle aber nicht näher eingehen.

Google+ im Aufwind

Ähnlich wie Twitter eignet sich auch Google+ gut für die Vernetzung mit Menschen, die ähnliche Interessen teilen. Googles soziales Netzwerk hat einfach noch nicht die kritische Masse erreicht, die es benötigt, um ein ähnliches Netzwerk aus Freunden und Bekannten abzubilden wie Facebook. So tummeln sich auf Google+ viele “Early Adopter” mit ziemlich hoher Affinität zu allen Themen rund um moderne Technologien. Ich nutze Google+ im Vergleich zu Facebook noch in bescheidenem Ausmaß doch in den letzten Wochen ging bei mir persönlich der Trend hin zu einer verstärkten Nutzung. In meine Kreise nehme ich dabei genau wie bei Twitter auch Leute auf, die ich überhaupt nicht kenne. Einziges Kriterium für mich ist der Inhalt, den die entsprechende Person über Google+ teilt.

Im Unterschied zu Facebook, Google+ und Twitter nutze ich die als berufliche Netzwerke angelegten Linkedin und Xing tatsächlich rein zu beruflichen Zwecken. Um ehrlich zu sein, beschränkt sich meine Aktivität dort (vor allem auf Linkedin) aber vornehmlich auf das bloße Vernetzen mit Projektpartnern, Kollegen oder auch Freunden, die auf Xing oder Linkedin ein Profil haben. Inhalte teile ich dort nur sehr selten. Anfragen von Xing- oder Linkedin-Nutzern, zu denen ich noch nie in irgendeiner Form in Kontakt stand ignoriere ich in aller Regel. Und das sogar ohne schlechtes Gewissen – im Gegensatz zu Facebook, wo mich das Ignorieren einer Anfrage schon mal stärker ins Grübeln bringen kann.

Meine persönliche Einstellung zu der Frage, wen ich in meine sozialen Netzwerke mit aufnehme, ist alles andere als eine Empfehlung an andere Personen. Das muss jeder für sich selbst herausfinden und außerdem können die Rahmenbedingungen auch völlig unterschiedlich sein. Ich bin sehr zufrieden mit meiner selbstständigen Tätigkeit als Social Media Manger. Für viele Arbeitnehmer jedoch mag es den berechtigten Wunsch geben Privates und Berufliches stärker zu trennen. Ich benötige eine solche Trennung (noch?) nicht. Sie wäre aber auch ziemlich schwer zu realisieren.

This year, Social Media Week celebrated its fifth birthday. Ten cities all over the world were hosts of this truly global conference. The organizers marked this milestone with a unifyingglobal theme that explored openness in a connected and collaborative world.

Future Challenges first got in contact with Social Media Week last year. The Future Challenges team gave a crowdsourced presentation titled “Big World – Big Challenges: can a big network help?”. Twenty bloggers from our worldwide blogger network contributed to this presentation. That’s just one of the reasons why we at Future Challenges are familiar with the benefits of openness and collaboration – especially across borders.

Our globalized world forces us to rethink accustomed practices. The organizers of the Social Media Week assert:

Emerging technologies have dramatically changed the way we communicate and engage (with) the world around us. One voice can now ripple to millions, and we can now share our passions openly and across cultural and geographic boundaries. Change is happening everywhere (…). Groups are self organizing to take positive action. Transparency, accountability, information sharing, and collaboration are accelerating progress to levels never seen before.

FutureChallenges.org joined Social Media Week in two European cities: Hamburg (Germany) and Paris (France). Mario Sorgalla reports from Hamburg and Rayna Stamboliyska participated in Paris.

Hamburg

One week and 170 events. You don’t need to be a professional statistician to seee that one person couldn’t possibly attend all the sessions that the organizers of Social Media Week (SMW) Hamburg got going. But this abundance of interesting sessions was a great opportunity for cherry-picking. Which new trends, tools and perspectives did Social Media Week Hamburg offer its participants regarding “Principles for a Collaborative World”?

My personal Social Media Week started with a presentation about corporate blogs. Many, or actually most of, the big corporations are still hesitating to start their own blog. A loss of control is probably the main reason for such reluctance. The classical mindset in Public Relations and Communication departments is that the information flow has to be controlled and directed. Such a mindset necessarily clashes with the attitude that prevails in the blogosphere and on social media channels. However, there are some good examples of big corporations that run their own blogs, like the Daimler blog. Setting up blogs could be of particular interest for transnational corporations. Don’t you think it would be exciting to get to know the faces in different countries behind an anonymous corporation?

Let’s jump to the second day in Hamburg, when the session “A Nerd Toolkit for Journalists” caught my attention. I’m not a journalist and not a nerd (though some people might challenge the latter point) but I’m convinced that data visualizations — the focus of this session — will become ever more important for our globalized world of big data. We learned about some useful visualization tools and got to know the technical basics of visualizations. Did you know that the Guardian provides all the data they use for their visualizations via Google spreadsheets? And why shouldn’t they? They don’t own the data and everybody in any corner of the world can take these data and create something new. This is how globalized data journalism looks like. If you’re interested in the technical basis of data visualizations and you understand German, you should take a look at this summary. You will find some useful notes from the session.

…It’s already Wednesday! My highlight of the day was “Wikipedia in Museums”, an inspiring project that I’ve also discussed on my blog. There is hardly any better example for our global, open and connected information society than Wikipedia. The German Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte (Museum for the History of Hamburg) has collaborated with members of the Wikipedia community in Hamburg in order to publish information and photos about many of the museum’s exhibits on Wikipedia, an endeavour resulting in a rich collection of information for all museum geeks out there. The museum’s visitors can access this information via QR codes that are placed next to the museum signage. I’m sure there will be many more projects like this in other parts of the world.

Paris

For its third edition, SMW in Paris hosted “only” 62 events. But what a tough choice it was, selecting which one to visit, especially when I was also speaking at a few of them. As a number of the organizers are also involved in what I’ll call the collaborative economy, many sessions were converging to the focal point of identifying economic models able to sustain open knowledge in the broadest sense. Here are my top 3 SMW events from the last week!

The first day kicked off with a whole afternoon at Paris’s City Hall. This building is anabsolute jewel in terms of external architecture and the interior totally follows, which makes the venue even more striking as we discuss the ‘digital Parisian’ against a backdrop of 19th century marble chimneys. The goal was to build a bond between the Parisians and their (well, our) city. One of the ways to do so was with the introduction of an app, “Dans ma rue” (translated: “In my street”), inspired by the British ‘Fix my street’. The app aims to provide Parisians with a handy tool to report the status of city works in the neighbourhood. Using the app, anyone can take a photo and geolocate the situation.

The event itself also allowed us to work in groups of 3-5 during an hour around a few other topics. In one group session, we worked on the idea of ‘Paris Answers’, a crowd-sourced Yahoo! Answers-inspired platform which will collect information on various topics related to services proposed by the city. A very interesting debate emerged around the possibility and the rationale behind crowd-funding of public services, an idea that clearly divided the participants. On one hand, some were putting forward the fact that a citizen already pays taxes, so s/he should not be asked an additional effort. From the other hand, why reject such a much more targeted contribution to the city and the neighbourhood? So many answers yet to find…

A session dear to my heart came on Tuesday: “Open & Connected: Research Joins, Too!”. In this session, we addressed vital questions about the economic models that underlie open libraries, open data produced by public institutions, and open labs. I talked a bit about open data and how it can change a person’s everyday life; one can stop being an observer and begin acting upon one’s environment. More specifically, the discussion emphasised the screaming need for opening the data produced by research groups, especially by those that receive public funds. If you read French, I greatly recommend you to allocate a neuron or two to the summary (and in any case, to watch the amazing video, no French speaking required).

Last but not least, I’d like to end this retrospective with a very short mention of the Open Hardware session. We had Open Source Software decades ago, now the time has come to have all the nerds united and geek out with Open Hardware. Actually, this is partly misleading, as anyone can hack: I leave you to the fabulous ‘Fabrique–Hacktion’ initiative (French & English) which will convince you that everyone can be creative and that wonderful things can be achieved when we work in an open, connected way.

There is already a heated discussion going on concerning Yahoo’s step. Mashable has published a good overview of the discussions on Twitter. And there are already several voices that are very skeptical if Yahoo’s decision will benefit the company. Intel and Hewlett-Packard made similar initiatives in the past couple of years and they backfired said an analyst with the Enderle group. The analyst told Investors.com: “The move is likely to…make Yahoo a less attractive place to work (…). Companies that take such measures typically reverse the policy in 12 to 24 months.”

I’m curious if I will also reverse my decision to leave my home office.

What brought about this move?

At the beginning I really enjoyed working from home. You can sleep longer because you don’t have to commute. You can also organize your time as you like. It’s no 9 to 5 workplace. In light of the bad weather in winter in Germany it’s currently hard to imagine but a few months ago I posted this picture on Facebook because I enjoyed working in my own garden.

Home Office. Photo taken by the author.

Working from home was a benefit for me because nobody disturbed my concentration. Nobody came into my office to ask anything or to just say hello. So I was more efficient, I thought, when I work at home. However, this is only partially correct.

I had to realize that it was very hard to think about anything else than work-related issues. Your office is just one step away and it felt like I was on standby all the time.

One year ago I joined a big shared office with many other freelancers. I went their once a week but soon I realized that it was too anonymous. There wasn’t much interaction and I decided that under these circumstances I could save my money and stay at home. Why do I have to commute to get to a place where I work almost as anonymously as from my home office?

A few months later I gave co-working another try. I’m now working in a shared office with a design agency. So far I’m really satisfied. I’m very concentrated at work but you can also talk to your “colleagues”. I don’t have this tunnel vision that I had when I worked at home. You get other impressions and you learn about things that are not necessarily related to what you’re doing. I think it increases your creativity.

I wouldn’t say that Yahoo’s decision to ban the home office is recommendable. Yahoo has to compete with other big technology companys for the best talents. And many of these talents are used to working from home. They demand flexibility regarding working hours and working place. Yahoo won’t be able to reverse this trend and it could be that they have to revoke their decision any time soon.

I’m happy that I, as a freelancer, can decide if I work from home. And I will make use of my home office every now and then. But I’m also happy about the opportunity of going to an office outside of my house. When I come back home I switch of the standby mode. At least I try!

Ten cities all over the world hosted the Social Media Week from 18-22 February 2013 and for the second time I took the chance to attend many interesting sessions (all for free) in Hamburg. When I took part in the Social Media Week in Hamburg for the first time, last year, Tom Fries and I gave a presentation about the potential of big networks to find solutions for global problems. This time I  had the opportunity to just listen and learn. And again it was worth it!

It would not make any sense to sum up each and every session. And I bet there are many other blogposts that give an overview of the most interesting presentations. I just pick one of my favourite sessions in order to focus on this amazing initiative: Wikipedia in Museums (link in German).

The Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte. Photo taken by Flickr user mama-online (CC BY-SA 2.0).

Wikipedia seems to be literally everywhere. Most of you have a smartphone and if you want to look something up there are two simple options: Google or Wikipedia. Now if you go into a museum you might think that you don’t need Wikipedia (or Google) because all the exhibits are furnished with tables that give explanations regarding history, context and so on.  Why should you look up anything else? Because there is much more information about these exhibits than a museum can provide in a regular exhibition. And this is where Wikipedia comes into play.

The Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte has cooperated with some engaged members of the Wikipedia community in Hamburg (for example @Peter_Weis) to fill this gap. The Wikipedians and the museum’s resarchers had a few workshops to write texts for several exhibits and to take numerous photos. All this information can now be found here. The visitors of the museum can access these texts via QR codes that are placed next to the museum signages.

This is how it looks like when Wikipedia and museum texts merge. Photo by the author.

One of the participants of this tour through the museum asked the initiators how many visitors make use of the QR codes and it turned out that it’s still just a few people who scan the codes. However, I think that the biggest benefit of this project is not the QR codes in the museum but all the information that has left the gates of the Hamburg Museum and which is now available via Wikipedia including lots of pictures. This project is the first of its kind in Germany (there are similar projects in the UK) and I keep my fingers crossed for the initiators that they don’t need to legitimize this project by counting the people that use their QR codes. Information about Hamburg and its history has found its way to Wikipedia and this is a value in itself!

Idealismus. Realismus. Konstruktivismus. Und so weiter. Die Lehre der internationalen Beziehungen speist sich aus vielen Theorien, durch die junge Studenten lernen zwischenstaatliche Beziehungen zu analysieren. Dieses Spektrum muss natürlich noch um das Verhältnis zwischen staatlichen und nicht-staatlichen Akteuren erweitert werden. Aus meiner eigenen Erfahrung zeigt sich, dass das Studium der IB zu einem großen Teil auf die Kenntnis dieser Theorien abzielt.

Dies soll keine a priori Kritik an Theorien (der IB) sein. Ich habe Texte der Vordenker all dieser Richtungen sehr gerne gelesen. Diese Theorien erleichtern das Verständnis für die vielfältigen Beziehungen unter staatlichen Akteuren und auf Basis der IB-Theorien lassen sich beispielsweise auch verschiedene Handlungsszenarien von staatlichen Akteuren herausarbeiten.

Trotz dieser Vorzüge  hat es mich aber immer irritiert mit welcher Selbstverständlichkeit junge Studenten (Anmerkung: ich habe an der Universität Bonn studiert) Außenpolitik durch eine IB-Theorie-Brille betrachtet haben oder außenpolitische Vorgänge zumindest derart abstrahiert haben, dass mir nicht mehr ganz klar war, ob sie auch zu einem einfachen Pro und Contra fähig sind. Ein Beispiel ist der Angriff der USA und der „Koalition der Willigen“ auf den Irak im Jahr 2003. Zur Verteidigung dieses Schrittes wurde in einem Seminar vor allem das Argument „Bündnissolidarität“ aufgeführt. Randaspekte wie der mögliche Tod Tausender Zivilisten oder die fadenscheinigen Beweise der US-amerikanischen Regierung für die Existenz von Massenvernichtungswaffen wurden teilweise ignoriert. Steht es einer sozialwissenschaftlichen Disziplin gut an, derart zu abstrahieren und nicht auf unmittelbare Folgen einer schwerwiegenden Entscheidung einzugehen?

Das globale Dorf. Foto: Gerd Altmann, veröffentlicht unter einer CC0 1.0 Lizenz auf pixabay.

Wenn man beispielsweise über Antiterrorismus-Maßnahmen diskutiert oder schreibt kann es doch nicht ausreichen, sich mit der teilweise abstrakten Gefahr terroristischer Anschläge zu beschäftigen und diese als Ausgangspunkt zu nehmen für Maßnahmen wie etwa den Drohnenkrieg der US-Regierung. Es sollte schon dazu gehören sich Geschichten wie Yemen: Anger at Expansion of US Drone War , Obama’s Lawless, Secretive Drone War Continues Over Pakistan oder List of children killed by drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen durchzulesen. Was sind die Auswirkungen auf die lokale Bevölkerung? Was sind die Erfahrungen der Menschen die sich hinter den Opferzahlen verbergen? In welchem Ausmaße treiben diese Anti-Terror-Maßnahmen junge Menschen eventuell in die Arme terroristischer Gruppierungen? Ich möchte an dieser Stelle nicht auf das Für und Wider des Drohnenkrieges eingehen. Aus meiner Sicht jedoch kann sich Jeder erst ein Urteil über solche Maßnahmen bilden wenn man sich über politikwissenschaftliche Theorien hinaus ein ganzheitliches Bild gemacht hat. In Zeiten des Internet gibt es – trotz des  digital divide – genug Stimmen online anhand derer man sich eine Meinung bilden kann. Eine Meinung, die nicht nur auf Theorien und möglichen Konsequenzen fußt, die sich aus eben diesen Theorien ergeben.

Studenten und Wissenschaftler der Internationalen Beziehungen – aber natürlich auch anderer sozialwissenschaftlicher Disziplinen – sollten sich aus meiner Sicht auch mit nicht-wissenschaftlichen Texten und Meinungen auseinandersetzen. Für mich persönlich stellt beispielsweise die Mitarbeit an den Projekten Future Challenges und Global Voices in dieser Hinsicht eine enorme Erweiterung meiner eigenen Perspektive dar. Die Berichte von Bloggern aus aller Welt zu Globalisierung, Menschenrechten, interkulturellen Themen und vielem mehr lassen das Verständnis für andere Kulturen und Staaten wachsen.  Sie durchbrechen den Tunnelblick der einem durch unsere traditionellen Medien allzu häufig vermittelt wird. Doch nicht nur solch große Multi-Autoren-Blogs vermitteln ein Gefühl dafür, dass es den global citizen nicht nur als Ideal gibt. Sie oder Er begegnet jedem, der sich in sozialen Netzwerken auch in internationalen Kreisen bewegt. Ich bin immer noch oft überrascht welche Überschneidungen sich mit Personen aus anderen Kulturen auf anderen Kontinenten ergeben. So kann es schnell geschehen, dass man sich seinen internationalen Kontakten aus anderen Kulturen in sozialen Netzwerken näher fühlt als seinem Nachbar ein Haus weiter.

Natürlich lässt sich solch interkulturelles Verständnis noch besser durch längere Aufenthalte in fremden Ländern fördern, doch nicht Jeder hat dazu die Gelegenheit. Insofern möchte ich dazu ermuntern das eigene (politik-) wissenschaftliche Studium auch dazu zu nutzen sich, über die Aneignung von Theorien hinaus, mit den Geschichten von den Menschen vor Ort auseinanderzusetzen. Das Internet bietet dazu die Gelegenheit!

Wissenschaftliche Theorien sind wichtig und bilden Grundlagen. Sie bieten ein Gerüst. Sie sind jedoch nicht ausreichend, um die Welt in all seinen Schattierungen nachzeichnen zu können.

Newspaper ad by the German Department for Development and Economic Cooperation. Picture published by @OpenAidGermany on Twitter.

This morning I stumbled upon a tweet by @aidnography:

[New] German #globaldev minister @bmz_bund wishes #Africa merry christmas w/ stereotypes bit.ly/VaooO8 HT @openaidgermany

— Tobias Denskus (@aidnography) January 8, 2013

When I clicked on the link I was pretty surprised. The German Department for Development and Economic Cooperation has indeed published such a newspaper ad that says “Merry Christmas, Africa” and which is full of clichés? There are at least half a dozen stereotypes that I could list.

- “Merry Christmas Africa” suggests that Africa is a homogenous continent and not a conglomerate of many countries

- The giraffe draws the picture of a rural Africa with wild animals everywhere

- All African people live in straw huts.

- Santa Claus and a reindeer? I have to be honest that I have never been to Africa before but I can’t believe that the majority of African people decorate their houses with Santa Claus and reindeers.

- A chain of lights on a straw hut? I don’t know which cliché this is but are you serious?

I think a German Government Department should be more careful with these kind of ads. It is 2013 and not the 1950′s or 1960′s.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 6,100 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 10 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.