Archive for
August 31st, 2006
Stories
Internet in Chile: Creating New Political Actors?
Co-authored by Mary Joyce and Rosario Lizana
Why has Chile, a country of only 16 million people where only 10% have internet in their homes, become a hotbed of cyberactivism? We know that the answer is not related to the tool, it is related to what is done with the tool and with the social consequences produced. This article is a mixture of the opinions of Chileans involved in activism, examples related to the fields of technology and education, cases of cyber-activism and some history of Chilean technology.
In the past few months, Chile has witnessed several instances of citizens using the internet, particularly blogs, to affect social change. These actions are different from other forms of internet activism, like Amnesty International's Irrepressible campaign or MoveOn.org 's efforts to influence the senatorial campaign in Connecticut. These actions were realized by large organizations. However, events in Chile mark a new type of internet activism in which individual citizens who use the internet as a low-cost mechanism to publicize a message, attract allies, and collaboratively plan and execute actions.
The most noteworthy example of this individual-led internet activism is that of the thousands of Chilean students who went on strike around the country and staged rallies demanding the removal of fees for college entrance exams. Many high schools set up photoblogs to show their affiliation with the campaign and to disseminate information, such as the times and locations of rallies. The work of individual webmasters was key in spreading information in this decentralized campaign, which resulted in the government raising the education budget by $200 million.
Pakistan: Blog-o-day
I don't quite know what the appropriate salutation would be for this auspicious cyber day, so I'll just go with a very happy World Blog Day to all fellow bloggers and readers of GV! Hope the power of blogs and citizen journalism grow ten fold and beat the daylights out of propagandist mainstream institutions, such as Fox News Network, which is already suffering from a swollen black eye of a massive ratings drop, and big hurray to that.
As part of celebration of this special day, I would like to take this opportunity (as suggested by GV) to reveal a little bit more about myself so fellow bloggers can get to know me better.
Why did I start blogging?
Basically to save me the expense of seeing a therapist, I opted instead to vent my frustrations through the medium of a free web log. Very cathartic and highly economical!
What do I blog about mainly?
I mainly rant about the actions and foreign policies of the geniuses residing in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and 10 Downing Street.
What motivates me to keep blogging?
Primarily, to annoy as many Fox News watchers as I can with my posts. Seriously, it has to do with sharing my opinion on global events with other bloggers.
Have blogs started to have an impact on politics in my country?
The blogging community in Pakistan is considerably small in comparison to other countries, but it is large enough to annoy the government authorities who have started taking notice of dissenting and critical blogging voices and as a result Pakistan has suffered from unfair specific and blanket bans on blogs. I am happy to say the blockade of blogs in Pakistan has had the opposite reaction from bloggers who have become even more tenacious in continuing their blogging activities and the Pakistani blogging community continues to grow larger everyday.
Allow me to return to the main reason for this post, which is to highlight the latest and most interesting opinion pieces from the Pakistani blog community.
Hypocricy Thy Name discusses the Ralph Peters article and the Operation in Balochistan;
Fountainhead pens another impeccable piece on the Neocons; Teeth Maestro highlights an interesting opinion about the media; All Things Pakistan discusses the no confidence motion against the PM; PWC-ing writes about Bugti and the Baloch insurgency; PAKCAST presents Ambreen Ali's (podcast) report on Earthquake relief efforts; and finally, I rant about the real terror of airline travel.
Well that is it for this week, I shall return soon (depending on my work commitments and my uncontrollable procrastination level) with another collection Pakistani blog wares.
Happy Blog Day!!!
Happy Blog Day!!!
Today we celebrate the wonders of the growing and very global online conversation. Blog Day founder Nir Ofir suggests we celebrate by recommending five new blogs. But I really want to take this opportunity to give thanks to our tremendously hard-working Global Voices editors - bloggers living around the world who work every day to aggregate and curate conversations coming from the blogs in their regions.
It's amazing to think that one year ago, Global Voices in its current form was only just getting started. A huge hug of thanks (in no particular order) to:
Georgia Popplewell, Regional Editor, Caribbean; Podcast Editor. Her blog is Caribbean Free Radio.
Nathan Hamm, Regional Editor, Central Asia. His blog is Registan.
Veronica Khokhlova, Regional Editor, Eastern & Central Europe; Language Editor, Russian & Ukrainian. Her blog is Neeka's Backlog.
David Sasaki, Regional Editor, Latin America; Language Editor, Spanish. He blogs at Oso, Moreno, Abogado.
Haitham Sabbah, Regional Editor, Middle East & North Africa; Language Editor, Arabic. His blog is Sabbah's Blog.
Oiwan Lam, Regional Editor, Northeast Asia. She blogs at Interlocals.
Preetam Rai, Regional Editor, Southeast Asia. His blog is Betterdays.
Neha Viswanathan, Regional Editor, South Asia. Her blog is Within-Without.
Alice Backer, Language Editor, Francophonia. Her blog is kiskeyAcity.
John Kennedy, Language Editor, Chinese. His blog is Feng37.
Farid Pouya, Language Editor, Persian. His blog is Webgardian.
Jose Murilo Junior, Language Editor, Portugese. His blog is Ecologia Digital.
Sokari Ekine, former Regional Editor, Sub Saharan Africa. Her blog is Black Looks.
Thanks also to all of our fabulous volunteer contributors, listed along the right hand column of the Global Voices front page. We couldn't have done this with out everybody's hard work, links, and passionate belief in the value and importance of calling attention to citizens who are speaking out online all over the world.
India: Is The World Really Flat? It looks like.
In this roundup we celebrate an eclectic mix of blog posts on India. In this patchwork quilt of Indian blogs with a global flavor (is the world flat or what?) we have posts about motorbikes, travel, traffic (Bangalore traffic to be precise), comics,and those three great Indian passion: festival, food and films or the three F's.
But, first if you have not read about this here it is: Infosys, India's top IT company finally got a blog with a suitable name Think Flat. If the company''s name sounds familiar that is because Tom Friedman's idea for "The World is Flat" book originated in his conversations with Nandan Nilekani the head of Infosys.
Chris Kaufman's blog chronicles the Two-Wheeled Asian Invasion, the motorcycle, and in this post he talks about motorbikes (and scooters) in Bangalore. Another American Kevin from Bozeman, Montana is in Bangalore and in this post he describes his meeting with Bangalore's top bureaucrat. Read what he has to say about the meeting. Jayan Sree Rangan of Motorcycle Diaries has a post about their Himalayan trip, on what else but motorbikes. He does a great job of describing parts of Ladakh that very few will ever get to go. Have you heard of salted tea? Read the post to find out what else is interesting about this region of the world.
John Kirby has a post about Indian hospitality in Bombay and a well-known eating joint called Bademiya, which is located in a narrow lane in downtown Mumbai/Bombay. Checkout his post and read what it is like to be a guest in an Indian home and his thoughts about reading Indian newspapers. I privately like to think that you cannot beat the creative headlines that you see in Indian newspapers.
Ajay's post called Smile Specialist gives a run down of the new radio station in Bangalore and is all praise for one particular RJ,or Radio Jockey as radio show hosts are known in India. Vasu has an interesting article about Bangalore's traffic and pictures and some of his thoughts are similar to the stream of thoughts that pop in my mind when I am navigating Bangalore's traffic.
Virgin Comics launched its first comic in India titled Sadhu and Gautam Ghosh has a review of the comic. Comic-lovers might want to take a look at the review and see if they want to get their hands on this new comic.
Bollywood: Blogs devoted to films appear to be on a upward swing, and there appears to be a couple of new ones every week. MovieWatchers is a collab blog by VSAT and Bloomiboy and here is their review of Omkara, a Bollywood movie fashioned after (more…)
Links for Thu, 2006-08
Of Kevin Sites' recent Hot Zones coverage of Haiti, Yon Ayisyen writes (Fr): “His visit helped me realize how narrow and even possibly twisted an image he portrays of the places he visits. He did not go farther than the well established cliches of this country.”
From Haiti, Yon Ayisyen points to (Fr) sites of pictures of Haiti taken by Haitians.
Robert Koehler in Marmot's Hole has two posts on Korea-U.S relation regarding the withdrawal of U.S troop or the flexible military strategy in South Korea. The first one is a comment on an opinion piece written in Chosun Ilbo. The second one is a summary of varous reactions towards the agreement.
Bingfeng is now translating comments from present and ex-foxconn workers on the working conditions in Foxconn from the two First Financial Daily workers' blog. According to Bingfeng, the newspapers company has a meeting last night to collect evidences to prepare for the libel case.
Shang pei-jin from Shanghaiist has a detailed sum up on Chinabounder (Shanghai foreign sex blogger) issue.
Having watched the trailer for a newly released film set in Uganda, Jamaican novelist Marlon James announces that he's sick and tired of “stories of a white man trapped in black (and sometimes yellow) hell where in the midst of all this inhumanity he discovers what it means to be human.”
Raúl Castro appears to have made his first official appointment, writes Luis M. Garcia: “analysts and Cuban watchers will have a field day over the next few hours with these latest news from Havana. Does it mean Raul is really in charge?“
Srdjan Cvijic of The TransAtlantic Assembly a translates an article by a renowned Serbian political analyst on Kosovo, the West and the feeling of collective guilt.
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