Happy Sunday! We don’t have any new articles this week as we’ve been busy preparing for a few projects, but we do have some great news. Ben Valentine, our strategist and regular contributor, will be speaking at SXSW alongside Andres Monroy-Hernandez of Microsoft Research, Elena Agapie at Jet Propulsion Lab, NASA, and J. Nathan Matias of… »
I am so pleased to announce that I will be speaking on a panel at SXSW Interactive this coming March on a subject perfect for The Civic Beat: The LOLs of Nations: Understanding Global Memes. Tackling this exciting and fun topic with me will be panel organizer, Andres Monroy-Hernandez of… »
It’s Sunday the 13th! That must mean something somewhere, right? This week we only had one Reader article but it was a tasty one. Swedish videographer and meme-nographer Sara Fritzon spoke with us about memes about fika, a tasty essential snack for Swedes. For this Sundae, we’re trying out a… »
The British drink tea, the French drink coffee, and the Spaniards eat merienda. And the Swedes? They have fika, an essential snack between meals. Remember that scene in Lord of the Rings when the hobbits ask about second breakfast? Think of fika as second breakfast, second lunch and third lunch all fit together in one… »
Ahhh… fall is in the air. And so is autumn love, and pastas falling in love online. We recently wrote about the #BoycottBarilla/#BoicottBarilla meme that blew up on Twitter and Facebook in response to homophobic remarks from the chairman of the Barilla pasta group. Mr. Barilla in turn issued a… »
Our core team at The Civic Beat have been busy with public outreach these past few weeks! Here are a few updates: Ben Valentine moderated a panel on art hacking for #ArtsTechSF at Hub Berkeley, with local artists Kat Parkin and Danielle Siembieda, and The Civic Beat’s An Xiao Mina. The… »
Guido Barilla, chairman of the Barilla Group pasta empire, is apologizing for his remarks last week about gay families. Last Thursday, The Independent reported that Barilla expressed his views on La Zanzara, an Italian radio show: “I would never do an advert with a homosexual family…if the gays don’t like… »
In this week’s edition of The Civic Beat Sundae, Ben Valentine looked at memes around #TransferDeadlineDay, the highly anticipated football/soccer event that seems to get the whole world paying attention. And our correspondent from Uganda, Daniel Mwesigwa, teamed up with An Xiao to look at the creative imagery Kenyans posted online… »
A version of this article originally appeared in Tech Post Uganda. It has received a few addenda tailored for The Civic Beat’s Reader audience. What happened in Nairobi’s Westgate Mall didn’t just stay on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube but rather left scars deeply ingrained in hearts the world over. What started… »
Football, or soccer as it’s known in North America, is the most popular sport in the world. Hundreds of thousands get up early, stay up late, or skip work to watch important games, not to mention the world cup. However, the action starts well before the season, a time that… »
October 20, 2013 
