links for 2009-07-03

• For the Record » Blog Archive » Citizen journalism, mainstream media and Iran | Blogs |
  Reuters confronts social networks as news sources during Iran coverage. Article by Dean Wright and John Clarke, with a focus on verification standards.
  (tags: Reuters citmedia iran)
• Generating Custom Map Tiles Rapidly in the Cloud | Development Seed
  Mapping and a strategy to generate data-rich maps quickly, as an information interface in rapidly evolving situations.
  (tags: mapping development elections data)

links for 2009-07-02

• In Pakistani Relief Camps, Charities Press Anti-U.S. View – NYTimes.com
  (tags: Pakistan media conflict humanitarian)

links for 2009-07-01

• Global Voices Online » Global Voices translation exchange takes off
  GV’s translation exchange project hires new staff, maps research agenda
  (tags: GV translation research community)
• Honduras stands alone | FP Passport
  Summary of international news
  (tags: FP news brief blog)
• 2009 Failed States Index – Interactive Map and Rankings | Foreign Policy
  FP’s latest Failed States Index
  (tags: conflict analysis development)
• Keeping News of David Rohde’s Kidnapping Off Wikipedia – NYTimes.com
  Keeping David Rohde’s kidnapping private; inside account of how Wikipedia collaborated with NYT to keep David’s story out of the public eye.
  (tags: NYT Afghanistan Pakistan wiki conflict)
• The 2009 Failed States Index | Foreign Policy
  (tags: conflct failed states)
• The Video Bay – Extremly early test – HTML5 media tags
  (tags: video online tools foss)
• Customer Feedback & Ideas for Global Voices
  (tags: GV feedback community)
• New Media & Development Comm. » home
  (tags: mediaorg development blog Columbia global)
• Fast Text Translation
  (tags: translation tools community)

BB 09 – Building Global Connections: practices, tools, global connectors

Ethan Zuckerman begins this session by noting a deep commitment to amplifying voices from all over the world. Now we’re able to do this at much lower cost than we have before. We have the ability to create and share media at an unprecedented rate. We have infrastructures that tie us all together. Theoretically, a story anywhere can influence the entire world. However, there are many practical problems to getting the stories to the right audience, and figuring out how to meet demand for different kinds of stories.

Fabrice Florin explains NewsTrust – they see demand for news as the critical problem – and identifying quality and diverse sources as an important element in helping feed that demand. They use a hybrid of aggregation human effort to rate and amplify stories. NewsTrust has a rating based on quantitative measures of the quality of stories, as rated by volunteer reviewers.The reviewers themselves are also rated, with more trusted reviewers getting a higher profile on the site.

NewsTrust builds partnerships with different media outlets, identifies topics and themes, Fabrice finishes by the observation that demand for news needs to be built up – to bring people into the conversation by participating in the review process.

Ethan asks Fabrice about the traction he’s getting – do the partner relationships drive stories, such as the Washington Post or the Council on Foreign Relations does he see change at the personal level with millions of users. Fabrice says they receive upwards of 150,000 uniques per month, with 10,000 members and growing.

Evelyn Messinger, series producer of Link TV’s Global Pulse. Global Pulse extracts small segments of news from around the world, and compares them. Evelyn first began working on this kind of project in 1987 by shipping video from all over the world. She finds that even with the ease of moving content, demand remains a major problem. Every episode of Global Pulse has 8-12 sources providing a variety of perspectives. Their goal is to develop a short format that will help drive demand, whether on LinkTV or on YouTube. The most popular stories have been about the drug war in Mexico – picked up by the U.S. anti-immigration movement, and air crash stories. Ethan refers to CNN’s “international minute” as an example of siloed nature of international stories for U.S. audiences.

Persephone Miel of Internews spent 2008 looking at how digital media technologies are changing journalism, while a fellow at the Berkman Center, running Media Re:public. Now, at Internews, she’s looking at the same issues from the perspective of international media development.

If in the 1990s and much of the 2000s, Persephone’s work focused on supporting professional media organizations in the developing world, training journalism, building broadcast networks, and working on commercial revenue models. After observing the changes wrought by digital technologies in revenue and distribution systems, Persephone now sees a need for a hybrid approach to the “cyber-utopian approach” which thinks of participatory media as the solution for information needs, and bringing in the best elements of traditional, institutional journalism.

Kim Spencer of LinkTV begins by looking at global media’s role in the digital era. 10 years ago, we were setting up independent TV networks in Kazakhstan and the Balkans, but in the U.S., with hundreds of channels, there was still a real lack of quality international content online. Hence the motivation for LinkTV. Link won a set-aside for satellite broadcast, and is now in 32 million households via satellite. But that’s Link 1.0. Link 2.0 is their website, with hundreds of videos and documentaries available from around the world. LinkTV online also has 1/3 of its viewers from outside the U.S.

Kim profiles Mosaic - world news from the Middle East – which brings the Arab world perspective to American audience.

Link wants to engage, inform, and activate views. Their future goals are to use a base of video to create links to other videos, dialogue via Seesmic, and other perspectives available in online text. Link now has a prototype of a viewer using Freebase to bring related news stories that have to do with text embedded with a given story, as well as ways to take action or participate around that issue.

Question from the room – what are engagement metrics? To this point, we’ve been looking at metrics that are based on traditional news measures. How to measure engagement at it’s most important moment, when engagement matters, and how to build a causal link to the effect of the story.

Fabrice responds that NewsTrust now can reflect back to their reviewers how their perceptions and analysis change over time. Knowing more and quantifying how people’s views change by exposure to participation and dialogue.

Kim responds that most satellite viewers are part of red-state America. In their surveys, they’ve found significant social action as a result of watching, even among this community. They measure by using public opinion surveys asking participants, and by asking activist partners to measure how their engagement.

I ask how to respond to the fact that there are now multiple audiences, and that they may not be defined in the way that media traditionally expect. How do they adapt? How do they create a vision of what their audiences are? Fabrice notes that overall, world news is the most popular topic on NewsTrust, and that they are trying to create groups to help people refine their interests. Kim notes that a surprising number of viewers are first-generation Americans; Link is also strong in the 18-35 demographic, unlike the traditional public media demographic, which is under 5 and over 55. Kim speculates that this middle demographic doesn’t like being talked down to, and that Link provides an alternative. NewsTrust has picked up university partnerships, which has changed the demographic around their site. At Link, professors use a news remix tool to help teach media literacy.

BB 09 local perspectives, global links

BB -09 today kicks off with a look at local perspectives on public service media. This session is an overview of the variety of experience coming from the world, and how it might be applicable elsewhere. The speakers come from Korea, Madagascar, Kenya, the Phillippines, and the ethnic media experience in New York.

1. Kim Myoungjoon of MediAct in Korea works on empowerment to help support social change. he emphasizes the role of media activism – both alternative and mainstream. Kim notes that Korea has undergone rapid technological change, development, such that 100 mb download speeds are common; communications infrastructure better than in the US. Traditionally, there have been four areas of media activism in Korea:

-independent film and video
-trade union movement in mainstream media
-NGOs and citizens press reform
-Internet activism for alterantive media and advocacy

Since ’90s, trends in Korea are deregulation of media and an increase in media participation, together with democratization and neoliberal economic policy. Kim describes an activist agenda – public broadcasting and creating the concept of viewship rights. Longer-term agenda for media change with MediaAct is the institutionalization of public service media and citizen participation of the media.

2. Lova Rakotomalala, Co-founder, Foko-Madagascar and Author, Global Voices Online, talks to us about how social unrest in Madagascar has overwhelmed other news stories. The crisis kicked off around a land deal scandal to grant land to a South Korean country, facilitated by President Ravalomanana. On March 17, there was a military-driven coup that gave power to the mayor of Antananarivo, Andry Rajoelina.

Lova explains that several radio channels used to mobilize and polarize political positions. If local media played a role in the crisis, there was nearly no coverage overseas. Lova makes the argument that this crisis should matter to the rest of the world, because it happened because of the interconnected nature of development. Lova notes that there is a great deal of resentment toward the international community, and suspicions of favoritism in Madagascar. Much of this is based on agricultural policy, with development based on land deals that grant international businesses access to good agricultural land.

Lova also discusses Foko Madagascar. He quotes Michael Tyson – “Everyone has a plan until he gets punched in the mouth,” when explaining how Foko’s mission has changed from training and personal stories to filling in the gaps of international coverage – writing reports, taking pictures, and documenting the crisis, both on Foko and on Twitter. Now, 55 reporters produce content for Foko. It has also become a tool to reach out to mainstream media, with reports on CNN and the Wall Street Journal. Foko is also using frontlineSMS and Ushahidi platforms to aggregate and organize their content. Lova notes that Foko has more reporters in cities throughout the country than any other media.

In Madagascar, of 20 million people, only 160,000 have Internet access. and 2.2 million have cell phones. Radio remains the primary source of information.

Citizen journalism and cyber-activism have led to a backlash by security forces, with people being harassed and attacked. Additionally the government now proposes to regulate Internet content. Lova proposes the need for a vigorous defense of blogger’s rights.

3) Juana Ponce de Leon, Executive Director, New York. Community Media Alliance. The Alliance works with ethnic media in New York, translating and amplifying the needs of local ethnic media audiences in the New York area.

Most of these media outlets are small. 84% of ad revenue comes from local revenue, which means that migration to online presence is slow. Of 200 ethnic media in NYC, 36% were static, another 1/3 were beginning to create some interesting models, and the last 1/3 just post text. The Alliance is seeking how to help these small media create better online presence, including looking at Internet radio.

The Alliance works to connect ethnic media to the government, to MSM, and activist communities. An example of this kind of connecting work around the census. In New York, over 200 languages are spoken, yet the last NY census was only conducted in seven languages. Yet in New York, there is traditionally a low participation rate.

4) Daudi Were of Mentalacrobatics. Why democracy is so important for development. Daudi thinks that democracy is often poorly defined. He wants to focus on democracy as “government by discussion.” In traditional African society, discussion was at the heart of decision-making; the purpose of of which is to avoid conflict. From East Africa we have the example of the Baraza, and from South Africa, the Indaba, as forums for community discussion.

Today, Daudi thinks that the actions and interests of government officials are opposed to discussion. Yet blogging and online speech has the potential to return discussion to the center of African experience. Daudi proposes that content and community together are what makes interesting online material – another way of saying that it’s the discussion that needs to be emphasized, rather than information in isolation.

Daudi explains that the technological challenges of the digital divide are “overcome by relevance.” As people find a need for particular kinds of information, they seek out the paths to find it.

While these speakers are sharing local and national perspectives, it’s curious to see how each of them describes links into global communities as crucial for their function.

5) Anthony Ian M. Cruz of TXTPower begins by focusing on Filipino mobile phone use. A peripatetic people of 90 million, 70 million use mobile phones. TXTPower uses texting as a tool to mobilize citizens for activism and rights. TXTpower begins by looking at access to mobile use and texting, to ensure that costs remain fair. Anthony describes how in 2004 activism managed to defeat a tax on texting, by running a campaign to text government officials protesting the tax. The mainstream media picked up the story of the campaign, so that it became the biggest story of the week. He describes the use of texting in other campaigns and explains their model of success:

-Fight for consumer welfare and general democracy always be important to people.
-Stay close to the interests of citizens – conveners within TXTPower all have their own networks and local relationships.
-Be media. Work with both legacy media and to gain power and profile itself. Mong Palatino, one of their conveners, as well as the SE Asia editor for Global Voices, recently became a member of parliament.

Drawing a link between these presentations, there’s an common set of issues for TXTPower, Foko, MediaAct, Kenyan bloggers, and the Community Media Alliance. All look to structural and institutional issues to ensure continued online speech and activism, including fair pricing schemes, institutional and structural support for citizen participation in media, and legal protections for citizen media participants.

Beyond Broadcast 2009

Emerging from hibernation on posting, twittering, and all things media and social, and hanging out in Los Angeles at Beyond Broadcast 2009. In past years BB has focused mostly on US public media and its relationship to digital media. This year, BB has brought speakers from around the world to provide alternative visions and experiences. We’ll have speakers such as Anthony Ian M. Cruz, of TXTPower, an initiative in the Phillippines that describes itself as “an organization of cellphone users that aims to empower Filipinos both as consumers and as citizens,” Nouneh Sarkissian, of Internews Armenia, who works with independent mass media in Armenia and across the Caucasus, and Daudi Were, a Kenyan blogger who writes at Mentalacrobatics, and others.

This community has in the past few years evolved a dialogue around the language that we use to describe digital media: Citizen media, citizen journalism, participatory journalism. Most here are aware of the traps of ascribing a permanence and value to the verities of professionalism as the height and goal of journalism – rather than journalism’s role as a connecting force within a democracy. This is of course a strongly American debate, and I’ll be especially interested to see what international perspectives bring to the discussion.

Beyond Broadcast will be streamed here, blogged here, and twittered at #bb2009. Ethan Zuckerman, I suspect, won’t be able to resist liveblogging it here.

I Vote for Global Voices Advocacy

This blog post is part of Zemanta’s “Blogging For a Cause” campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about.

Global Voices Advocacy is a project to support online freedom of speech and activism; it seeks to build a network of supporters for online speech rights, provide tools and knowledge to help people avoid or surmount censorship, and understand and navigate the risks and challenges of online speech in repressive environments.

Help support Global Voices Advocacy – add your voice to the Zemanta campaign!

Gaurav Mishra talk

If you’re interested in digital activism in India, a great source for analysis, links, and project ideas can be found at Gaurav Mishra’s blog, Gauravonomics. Gaurav, the Yahoo! Fellow in Residence at Georgetown University, as well as a Global Voices author, will be giving a talk on April 23 at Georgetown to discuss digital activism in India and China.

I’ll be helping out at the talk, along with Evgeny Morozov, an Open Society Fellow and an expert on international digital activism, and, Trebor Scholz, professor of media studies at New School University, NY.

While the talk is invite-only, I’m sure all of us will be writing about it, and look for Gaurav’s upcoming writing on the subject as well, as part of his fellowship work for Yahoo!

You can also catch Gaurav at Yahoo!’s Business and Human Rights Summit May 5 in California.

USIP Peace Media Clearinghouse

USIP’s come out with their first draft of their Peace Media Clearinghouse. USIP describes the site as follows:

The clearinghouse provides a central site where educators, students, organizations, and the community of practitioners working in the conflict management field can access multimedia materials that support conflict analysis and prevention, conflict resolution, and post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation.

While Peace Media as a concept has both advocates and detractors, it’s surely useful to compile and organize the work that’s been done to date; the site gives us a sense of the breadth of Peace Media efforts over the past 15 years or so, and also provides links for those who want examples or tools for their own projects, lessons, and research.

Content comes from numerous sources, but a number of media development and human rights organizations have ‘channel’s on the Clearinghouse, including Internews, IREX, USIP, the UN, Search for Common Ground, and Fondation Hirondelle. The work of groups such as Witness and IWPR is also available, as well as PBS documentaries and other productions.

The site at the moment seems to mix productions intended as news for a general audience with efforts targeted for populations in conflict. Likewise the descriptions and links are uneven – but then, the site’s still in Beta and hopefully will surely include more information as it is developed. A useful source for anyone interested in the peace media field.

The site includes films and video, radio programs, teaching guides, video games, multimedia projects, and Interet-based projects. If you know of good projects not yet in the Clearinghouse, contact USIP or add them yourself.

Live Webcast and Chat Tuesday: The Future of Freedom and Control in the Internet Age

I’ll be helping out the evening of February 10, as Rebecca MacKinnon and Evgeny Mozorov explain the changing landscape of Internet censorship, with a focus on China and Russia. The event is titled “The Future of Freedom and Control in the Internet Age”. Details:

OSI Webcast: The Future of Freedom and Control in the Internet Age

Location: OSI-New York
Event Date(s): February 10, 2009
Event Time: 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Speaker(s): Isabel Hilton, Rebecca MacKinnon, Evgeny Morozov

More about the event here. I’ll be live-blogging the event here. Join us!

#osi to follow Twitter feed.