Open Media Watch

Internet Issues, New Media & Citizen Journalism

Following are articles from other sources related to Internet media and communication technologies. The opinions and views expressed in these articles are not necessarily those of Internews.

Twitter Post Rescues Jailed Journalist, Politics Online, May 1, 2008
James Karl Buck was bailed out of jail by a 'tweet' post on Twitter, a social networking site. The message “arrested” was seen by Buck’s friends and bloggers in Egypt and the United States via the Internet.

Global Voices Citizen Media Summit 2008, March 13, 2008
Global Voices and Global Voices Advocacy are pleased to announce the Global Voices Citizen Media Summit 2008, which will take place in Budapest, Hungary on June 27-28, 2008 with the support of the McCormick Tribune Foundation, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and MediaHungaria.

Facebook Used to Mobilize Protesters Against Colombian Rebels, Fox News, February 4, 2008
Facebook, the Internet social-networking site, has mobilized hundreds of thousands of Colombians to protest the country's most powerful rebel group, the Christian Science Monitor reported Sunday.

Kenya: Do not doubt the power of the Internet in Africa, Global Voices Online, January 2, 2008
If anyone doubts the power of the internet in Africa, they need to look no further than what is happening in Kenya right now…As of yesterday there was a media blackout. The only way to get any up-to-date news for the past 24-48 hours has been through the blogosphere.

Caucasus: 2007 Blog Review, Global Voices Online, December 31, 2007
With 2008 less than a day away at time of writing, it seems only appropriate to take a look back at the blogging highlights in the Caucasus for 2007. Certainly, although blogging is still largely underdeveloped, the year has seen some major highlights, especially with regards to stories that also made headlines worldwide.

List of the 13 Internet enemies, Reporters Without Borders, November 7, 2007
Three countries - Nepal, Maldives and Libya - have been removed from the annual list of Internet enemies, which Reporters Without Borders publishes today. But many bloggers were harassed and imprisoned this year in Egypt, so it has been added to the roll of shame reserved for countries that systematically violate online free expression.

Burkina Faso: Blogs Help Burkinabe Skirt Censorship, Global Voices Online, October 30, 2007
In Burkina Faso, blogging is more than a pastime. It is the eyes and ears of thousands of net users.

TURKMENISTAN: THE HAZARDS OF SURFING, Eurasianet, September 28, 2007
At the government-run "Internet Kafe" near my hotel in the Ashgabat suburb of Berzengi, the small room is dominated by a massive portrait of the president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, framed by garlands of fake flowers, surveying the half-dozen computers.

Alive in Baghdad: Can Citizen Journalism Done Right Pay the Bills?, MediaChannel, August 30, 2007
Alive in Baghdad is arguably the best-positioned citizen news video outfit in the world. It boasts not only an on-the-ground team shooting unfiltered interviews in a highly relevant place like Iraq, but constructive goodwill from videobloggers and video startups like blip.tv and Next New Networks, and even acknowledgment from the mainstream media.

Indians blog to defend against illegal logging along the Brazil-Peru Frontier, Global Voices, August 26, 2007
The Ashaninkas are the largest indigenous group in the Peruvian Amazon and differently from the majority of the South American original dwellers, their cultural identity is greatly preserved.

Kenya: Debating the double-edged nature of citizen media, Global Voices, July 11, 2007
Last month, there was a bomb explosion at a downtown bus stop in Nairobi, Kenya. The bomb killed two people and injured more than 35. By the time the Kenyan mainstream media reported the incident, Kenyan bloggers had already written about it, posted photos and some of them speculated that the explosion could have been linked to Al-Queida or the outlawed Mungiki sect.

The Blogger's Democratic Revolution, Policy Innovations, July 31, 2007
2007 marks the tenth anniversary of the blog. One of the most beneficial side effects of blogs over the last ten years has been the advent of citizen journalism.

Blogging for change, Aliran, March 21, 2007
Bloggers in Malaysia are very much in the news these days after the official warning to the mainstream media not to cite the Internet media and blogs. Mustafa Kamal Anuar reports on a unique event that brought together bloggers, webmasters, and civil society activists.

Web censorship spreading globally, Financial Times, March 14 2007
Internet censorship is spreading rapidly, being practised by about two dozen countries and applied to a far wider range of online information and applications, according to research by a transatlantic group of academics.

Helter Skelter No More: An Evolving Guidebook for Online Ethics, Poynter Online, February 1, 2007
Poynter collected some of the best minds in online journalism to write a set of guidelines for the often-haphazard world of online ethics.

Web 2.0 can benefit the world's poor, SciDevNet, 14 February 2007
New web applications can benefit the world's poor, argue Waleed al-Shobakky and Jack Imsdahl.

A Summary of Citizen Media: Fad or the Future of News?, Editors Weblog, February 8, 2007
Citizen journalism media and local news websites offering user-generated content influence their communities and are here to stay, according to a report released by J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism.

Youth on human rights, youth for open source, Digital Divide Network, January 22, 2007
At the heart of the Commons movement is a simple yet powerful concept of sharing information and art for the enjoyment and the betterment of everyone’s lives. Much of this sharing is the result of widespread internet access and broadband availability, resources which many people do not have.

Implacable Adversaries: Arab Governments and the Internet, the Initiative for an Open Arab Internet, January 2007
Hundreds of websites are blocked in the Arab World while thousands, with similar contents remain unblocked. This shows the Arab governments' hostility towards the right to freedom of expression and exchange of information.