"This paper explores the use of new information technologies in Russia to examine the next generation of media development and to ask how the ability of the “network society” – and the new forms of collective action it allows to contribute to social change can be supported. Building on the ide
...
a of the “fifth estate,” and how networked individuals and institutions can use the Internet as a platform to challenge the influence of other more established bases of authority, these examples of social media and online activism – specifically blogging and crowdsourcing – show how Russia’s networked society is helping invigorate the country’s civil society and traditional media." (Executive summary, page 1)
more
"Diante da crescente variedade de blogs e da demanda por um método que permita categorizá-los respeitando suas diferenças, este trabalho propõe uma matriz de 16 gêneros de blogs. Com base nessa proposta, conduz-se uma avaliação estatística de 5.233 posts nos 50 blogs mais populares no Brasil
...
. Na amostra estudada, observou-se que os blogs profi ssional e organizacional refl exivos são aqueles que atraem o maior número de comentários." (Resumo, página 129)
more
"Asia’s Media Innovator’s Vol 2 is the offspring of the earlier book that appeared in 2008. This new volume consists of studies of innovations at media companies in the region. The success of these media companies shows the dynamism in the region, and reflects its potential for growth. Each chap
...
ter covers various forms of media, including online newspapers and broadcast outlets. Every couple of weeks a new chapter will be published online." (KAS website)
more
"Mit geschätzten 400 Millionen Internetnutzern (Juni 2010) ist die VR China vor den USA der größte nationale Internetmarkt. Nach den USA und Japan bildet China den weltweit drittgrößten Markt fur Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien. Die drei an der US-amerikanischen Nasdaq-Borse gehand
...
elten chinesischen Web-Portale Sina.com, Souhu.com, Netease.com, das Web-Portal Tom.com, das zu mehr als 50 Prozent dem reichsten Mann Asiens, dem Hongkonger Tycoon Li Ka-shing, gehört und Chinas führender B2BPortalbetreiber Alibaba.com unter Leitung von Jack Ma, sind die wichtigsten Akteure des chinesischen Internet. Im Jahr 2018 will China 70 Prozent seines gesamten innerchinesischen Handels uber E-Commerce abwickeln. Der chinesische Internetnutzer ist jung, wohnt in der Stadt, verfügt als Student über eine gute formale Ausbildung, aber nur ein kleines Einkommen. Das ländliche China, das nach wie vor zwei Drittel der Bevölkerung umfasst, ist bislang vom Internet so gut wie ausgeschlossen. Kulturelle Besonderheiten des chinesischen Internet sind die weit verbreitete Online-Spielsucht, die intensive Nutzung des Netzes fur Poesie und virtuelle Friedhöfe." (Zusammenfassende Thesen, Seite 27)
more
"The protests unleashed by Iran's disputed presidential election in June 2009 brought the Islamic Republic's vigorous cyber culture to the world's attention. Iran has an estimated 700,000 bloggers, and new media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were thought to have played a key role in spreadin
...
g news of the protests. The internet is often celebrated as an agent of social change in countries like Iran, but most literature on the subject has struggled to grasp what this new phenomenon actually means. How is it different from print culture? Is it really a new public sphere? Will the Iranian blogosphere create a culture of dissidence, which eventually overpowers the Islamist regime? In this groundbreaking work, the authors give a flavour of contemporary internet culture in Iran and analyse how this new form of communication is affecting the social and political life of the country. Although they warn against stereotyping bloggers as dissidents, they argue that the internet is changing things in ways which neither the government nor the democracy movement could have anticipated." (Publisher description)
more
"Web 2.0 for development (Web2forDev) is a way of employing web services to intentionally improve information-sharing and collaborative production of content for development. It is about how development actors can relate and connect to other stakeholders, produce and publish their own material, deci
...
de on levels of access to information and redistribute pieces of content released by others. This publication, a result of the Web2forDev conference at the FAO headquarters in Rome in 2007, shares learning and reflections from practice and considers the ways forward for using Web 2forDev. Eight case studies are presented and discussed. For instance, one interesting experience is the Kenyan website 'Ushahidi' (meaning 'witness' in Kiswahili) as an example of 'crowdsourcing' crisis information: people who witness acts of violence report the incidents they have seen, the incidents are placed on a map-based view on the website for others to see and in most cases are verified by local groups working on the ground. At the post-election violence in Kenya in early January 2008, local radio stations used Ushahidi as an information source. It is also expected to serve in other countries as a tool from early conflict warning to tracking a crisis situation as it evolves. A practical section called "tips for trainers" provides descriptions and links to further information ("where to get started") on blogging, twitter, wikis, social networking, RSS feeds, tagging and social bookmarking. In addition, various articles discuss lessons learnt and challenges identified." (CAMECO Update 4-2009)
more
"Through case studies of blogs written in English, Chinese, Arab, French, Russian, and Hebrew, this book explores the way blogging is being conceptualized in different cultural contexts. The authors move beyond the most highly trafficked sites to shed light on larger developments taking place online
...
, calling into question assumptions that form the foundation of much of what we read on blogging and, by extension, on global amateur or do-it-yourself media. This book suggests a more nuanced approach to understanding how blogospheres serve communication needs, how they exist in relation to one another, where they exist apart as well as where they overlap, and how they interact with other forms of communication in the larger media landscape." (Publisher description)
more
"This study explores the structure and content of the Arabic blogosphere using link analysis, term frequency analysis, and human coding of individual blogs. We identified a base network of approximately 35,000 active Arabic language blogs (about half as many as we found in a previous study of the Pe
...
rsian blogosphere), discovered several thousand Arabic blogs with mixed use of Arabic, English and French, created a network map of the 6,000 most connected blogs, and with a team of Arabic speakers hand coded over 4,000 blogs. The goal for the study was to produce a baseline assessment of the networked public sphere in the Arab Middle East, and its relationship to a range of emergent issues, including politics, media, religion, culture, and international affairs. We found: a Country-Based Network: We found that the Arabic blogosphere is organized primarily around countries [...] Who are Arabic Bloggers? Demographic coding indicates that Arabic bloggers are predominately young and male. The highest proportion of female bloggers is found in the Egyptian youth sub-cluster, while the Maghreb/French Bridge and Syrian clusters have the highest concentration of males. Personal Life and Local Issues are Most Important: Overall, the writing of most bloggers is centered on personal, diary-style observations. Those that write about politics tend to focus on issues within their own country and are more often than not critical of domestic political leaders." (Key findings, page 3-4)
more
"Blogs are more or less controllable for those who want to keep them under surveillance. Governments that are most up to do date with new technology use the most sophisticated filtering or blocking techniques, preventing them from appearing on the Web at all. But bloggers don't just sit back and let
...
it happen. The essential question becomes how to blog in complete safety. With a normal IP address, a blogger can be tracked down and arrested. Anonymity allows them to keep their freedom.
In countries where censorship holds sway, blogs are sometimes the only source of news. During the events in Burma in the autumn of 2007, pitting monks and the people against the military junta, bloggers were the main source of news for foreign journalists. Their video footage made it possible to gauge the scale of the protests and what demonstrators' demands were. For more than two months, marches were held in the streets, then a massive crackdown was launched against opponents that only the Burmese were able to show, so hard did it become for the few foreign journalists who managed to enter the country to get back out with their footage. And bloggers could not get the footage out without getting round online censorship imposed by the government. This handbook seeks to help every blogger to fill in the "black holes" In news. The second part is devoted to techniques which can thwart filtering technology." (Page 4-5)
more