Public Communication Campaigns - United Nation, United Nation Childrens Fund, and Wikimedia Foundation - Essay Example

Course: Student’s Name: Institutional Affiliation: UNITED NATIONS Having a transparent government in all its decision-making processes and actions is the key to having a well-informed republic. Transparency is the key toembracing the principles of public relations and ensuring effective communication, which leads to incorporation of stakeholders (Cutlip et al., 2009). The three elements that can define transparency in government include communication, accountability and openness of information coming from the government to the citizens. The most recent campaign launched by the United Nations was the elimination of political campaign from the Internet. This is because they could not guarantee the legitimacy of the information (Paroutis et al., 2016). Blogging and Hacking is becoming a trend in the modern society. Some of these blogs are for the purpose of spreading false information that can lead to chaos. To curb this, United Nation came up with a strategy. The United Nation (UN) came up with the strategy to harden the IIS security as it continued to be an essential part in a web environment. A website will never be secure unless there are security initiatives taken to protect it from breaches. For the internet information server to be hardened, first, the server must be proficient when it comes to NET technology (Jost et al., 2002). It is advantageous when the server gets to understand the important coding skills as well as framework life cycle. For the blogger to manage to post irrelevant or false information, he/she first seeks authentication, seconded by authorization then an audit mechanism in the website. The attacker tries to identify him/ herself as a legitimate user and then cracks the corresponding keys.Afterauthentication, the intruder gains and interferes with information that that have been encrypted or secret data in the system. To prevent all this from happening to the UN website, it hardened its IIS system. The system provides one with security mechanism for instance, the authentication, authorization and confidentiality. Its interface offers a number of security options that can be used to deny or restrict some type of requests (Kerzner, 2017). Furthermore, there are request filters. Request filters allow a certain set of rules to determine which type of requests is allowed and those that are not allowed in the system. In as much as the people have a right to know what is going on, they as well have a right to have correct information. The effectiveness of communication, wholly determines the success or failure of a government. In Greece, a database by the name Ermiswas created. Its purpose was to the procedures of authentication and uniformity in registration was provided (Hendy, 2013). UNICEF The United Nation Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is a programme under the United Nation (UN) that seeks to provide developmental as well as humanitarian assistance to young children and mothers in developing countries (Breslow, 2002). Recently, there have been some technical debates regarding communication for development and few related programmeapproaches, which have resulted to the evolving of UNICEF. Communication has and will always be the core ingredient to support communication.UNICEF has collaborated with certain agencies with the aim of advocating for the communication for development project as well as other related interventions (Daymon et al., 2002). This is to reduce risks and promote/improve health as well as sanitation. The communication for development project has resulted to a number of positive attributes in these countries. Progress has been madeworldwide. For instance, there are reduced mortality rates. Normally, children would die from illnesses that could be prevented or treated. Positive health behaviors have been promotedthrough communication campaigns, door-to-door visits by the health workers and media broadcasts (Broom et al., 2013). These acts have helped reduce preventable diseases. There was provision of mosquito nets, oral doses and among other initiatives intended to promote the well-being. Public education regarding how to take care of self, hygiene; washing hands with soap before eating and after visiting the toilet, education on having a balanced diet was also provided. Researchers also formed an alliance with VOTO mobile and came up with the projectMobile for Development. The Mobile for Development project was to enhance communication through phone messages to mothers with infant children to ensure they adhere to positive health behaviors (Pearce et al., 2015). These initiatives include washing hands with soap, oral rehydration solution for treating diarrhea, preventing malaria by sleeping under a treated mosquito net, breast-feeding the infant exclusively for the first six months and dealing with a skilled birth attendant.These achievements were accomplished through partnerships, information that was based on evidence and an approach to communication as well as advocacy. The “glocal” approach is based on global objectives and core assets that have been locally developed. To get to a new group of people most specifically the middle class and millennial was of the objectives of public advocacy and global communication (Fenton, 2010). Ever since DOC was created it has provided opportunities both offline and online to the youth so that they could point out on issues that are affecting their lives and more so their future. Wikimedia Foundation Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit organization that aims at encouraging the development, growth and distribution of free education and provide the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public (Nentwich et al., 2012). Wiki-based projects include Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation operates the largest and widely used reference projects. It is committed to creating a world where each individual can access and share freely knowledge. Late 2016, the public relations firm that working with Wikimedia held a communications audit. To come up with an effective messaging strategy, the department of communications first analyzed and assessed the recent efforts made in communication (Johnston et al., 2009). On the other hand, the communications manager plays a central role of building and to managing the foundation’s communication effort. The manager supports the growth and expansion efforts of the foundation. In addition, provision of leadership in communication sector will also lead to the increase in growth of Wikimedia chapters globally. The committee of Wikimedia Foundations uses private mailing list as a private way in which they communicate to each other. The mailing list is used to address any queries or strategic ideas (Farazmand et al., 2007). The only people accessible to the private list are the Wikimedia Foundation staff, the volunteers, charter members who include media liaisons and also advisors who legally advice on issues regarding communication. Wikimedia Foundation has led to the following learning objectives: Literacy in media-Wikipedia, being a collaborative, reliable and transparent site, it allows students to understand how information is produced and consumed.It provides an environment where students can reflect on the available sources and utilize them properly. Skills development- Students develop or improve their writing skills. They become diverse in thoughts as well as writing abilities. For this process to be achieved, students have to learn to write and accept their work, be flexible to adjust on developmental skills including revision or correction. Students become knowledgeable in issues regarding differences in writing styles. For example, students are able to learn the difference between the persuasive writing style and the fact-based writing style. Collaboration-Wikimedia Foundation has enabled students to learn how to co-operate with volunteer editors and by extension, other students. When students receive their work for revision, they interact with other editors who assist them in the consensus of the work. This way they collaborate and negotiate with people. Research skills and critical thinking- Students are also taught how to analyze Wikipedia articles. It helps them to determine which areas have yet to be covered and those that have already been covered. It also helps in evaluation of the articles to check the reliability of the used sources (Ezra et al., 2015). Evaluation of these articles helps students learn how to evaluate other materials and not only Wikipedia. Accessing an existing article is a very crucial procedure in determining the content that has been left out. Communication and Technical skills- The Wiki software has led to the growth in corporate and education settings. It is through the Wikipedia assignments, that students are taught how to use the wiki software. Every year, a conference called Wikimania is held to people who are involved in Wikimedia projects. Since Wikipedia was growing at a high rate, their next move was to create a strategic plan that would help them improve and sustain the movement. The five-year plan was created to improve quality of content and control quality (Tufte et al., 2017). All these would result to optimistic operational areas such as infrastructure and finance sectors. A survey was then conducted which aimed at discovering the challenges that students were facing when editing Wikipedia and the huge obstacles such as templates. Late 2016, the public relations firm that working with Wikimedia held a communications audit. The most recent campaign held by Wikimedia Foundation was the Fund-Raising report campaign. More than 5 million readers around the year donated $77 million dollars to the foundation. We noticed that, the point of entry of our current donors was through placement of banners in our Wikipedia org. The fund-raising team highly relies on the donors and reader habits to design as well as execute banners for campaigns. Wikimedia Foundation then decided to try out the banners to advertise the fund-raising campaign of which the team received positive results. Wikimedia foundation also came up with Wikimedia email for the fund-raising report. Readers now opt for future email communications when making a donation and then a year later, the fund-raising team sends reminders for the upcoming donation which makes it convenient to communicate to the readers. Similar to the banners, there is comparison of the different variations in the emails from the readers and this helps Wikimedia Foundation to know the most effective way to communicate to its donors and know their preferences and choices. The Wikimedia Communications Team has always focused on promoting events via public relations, managing communication channels, giving proper response to the incoming requests from influencers and supporting strategic projects or ideas (Smith, 2017). It helped in managing campaigns, ensuring messages have been relayed, and development of products and product marketing, communication and ensuring there is transparency and coordination in the organization (Caywood, 2012). In the practices that have been adopted to ensure citizens have correct information, the hardening of the IIS system is the most convenient because most people are using and relying on the internet for their operations. The mailing list in Wikimedia information might not be accurate as much but this because anyone can edit it hence bringing about some contradictions in information. To some extent, it can be easily vandalized if not properly managed. From the recent Campaign though, Wikimedia Foundation managed to properly and effectively communicate with its readers and get to know their feedbacks, which is quite appropriate. Regarding the practices in UNICEF, especially collaborating with the VOTO mobile company, the process ensures that communication is widespread to the people in the suburbs. In fact, tot only were people educated on how to use modern technology but also on how to improve their health status. 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