Information Policy

OhmyNews appeals to readers for cash

The founder of the South Korean citizen journalism site, OhmyNews, has appealed to readers for financial contributions to keep the business afloat in the global economic downturn. In an open letter published on the OhmyNews site Wednesday, Oh Yeon-ho disclosed that the site lost KRW 50,000,000 (EUR 28,209) this year amid fears of heavier losses as advertisers keep slashing their marketing budgets. "For a news media to remain healthy, it will have to earn at least 50 percent of its income from the sales of content or paid subscriptions. Despite our best effort, OhmyNews still relies on advertisers for more than 70 percent of its revenue," Oh said. He added that if 100,000 readers joined the venture contributing KRW 10,000 a month, OhmyNews would be able to survive without relying on advertising revenues. Founded in 2000, OhmyNews proclaimed a new model of journalism with the motto "every citizen is a reporter". Most of the content for OhmyNews comes from ordinary citizens and only about a third comes from the 55-person staff.

http://www.ejc.net/media_news/ohmynews_appeals_to_readers_for_cash/

Guerrilla Techniques For Online Activism

IFEX often reports on journalists who have been violently attacked or killed while on the job, or who have been slapped with defamation suits - two of the greatest threats to free expression. So how do you, as a reporter, escape unscathed and write without fear or favour?

The Southeast Asian Centre for e-Media, a partner of the Netherlands-based foundation Free Voice, has come up with "Guerrilla Techniques for Online Activism" for online journalists and bloggers to freely "pursue their advocacy goals."

Using examples from Malaysia during its election year, the centre outlines some "common guerrilla techniques," such as using multiple anonymous identities, or teaming up with a ghost writer in another (safer) country who will publish articles as if s/he is the one writing them. The guide also offers tips on how you can protect yourself from government detection, including by getting circumvention software from Sesawe.net.

Read more Guerrilla Techniques for Online Activism (English only):

http://www.freevoice.nl/weblog/view/425/

China Blocks Access To Twitter, Facebook After Riots

by Robin Wauters

Following last weekend’s deadly riots in its western region of Xinjiang, China’s central government has taken all the usual steps to block citizens from accessing foreign web services: aside from crippling Internet service in general, the authorities have blocked Twitter, removed unapproved references to the violence from search engines and has now apparently moved to bar its citizens from accessing Facebook from most parts of Mainland China just now. Two weeks ago, the government had already blocked just about every Google service, including communication tools like Gmail, Google Apps and Google Talk.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/07/china-blocks-access-to-twitter-facebook-after-riots/?awesm=tcrn.ch_5JG&utm_campaign=techcrunch&utm_content=techcrunch-autopost&utm_medium=tcrn.ch-twitter&utm_source=twitter.com

Report on the public consultation on European e-Inclusion Policy

A public consultation was launched on 4 March 2009 through the European Commission’s interactive Internet platform “Your voice”. It closed on 6 April 2009 and its main objective was to gather views on the role of e-Inclusion in the future European strategy on the information society that will succeed the "i2010" initiative. The survey was also aimed at gathering opinions on European programmes and activities supporting e-Inclusion and cooperation modalities between European Commission services and relevant stakeholders regarding e-Inclusion activities.

Overall, 103 responses were received. They represent various stakeholder groups, including public authorities (26,2%), non-for-profit academic or research organisations (26,2%), individual academics or researchers (19,4%), commercial operators or industry associations(11,7%), users organisations (5,8%), private individuals (4,9%). Some stakeholders also sent position papers (please see below).

Among those who responded to this consultation, there was a general understanding that European policy on e-inclusion is useful and should be continued and enhanced in post 'i2010' initiative. There was an overwhelming consensus that in a context of financial and economic crisis greater e-Inclusion also generates systemic innovation, new business models and new modalities for service delivery. Respondents provided valuable inputs defining the future possible e-inclusion policies and dissemination activities.

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/einclusion/survey/index_en.htm

Australia Invites Public Comment on National Broadband Network Project

The Australian government today called for public comment on how its planned national broadband network (NGN) should operate, including issues of access, ownership and control of the network Dow Jones reports. Submissions are due by 30 July. The Labour government in April scrapped a tender process to build the network and instead plans to back the A$43-billion (US$34 billion) high-speed fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network itself, with some investments from the private sector, as the global financial crisis dashed hopes of a single company completing the project. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said it is important that, in laying the ground work for the single biggest national-building infrastructure in Australia's history, the government gets legislation governing the proposed national broadband network company right.

The government is planning to form a new company for the NGN roll out and operate the new company on a wholesale-only, open-access basis with oversight by competition watchdog the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission. It is asking for comment on how to achieve its goals, including how to set price and non-price terms for services, which services to offer, the nature of any private-sector ownership restrictions, arrangements for the government to ultimately sell its stake, and the role the ACCC should play in regulating the network. Telstra, SingTel's Australian unit Optus, and Canada's Axia NetMedia have indicated they are interested in participating in the NGN project, potentially by selling existing assets into the network in exchange for equity in the new company to be formed for undertaking the project.

https://communicationsdirectnews.com/do.php/140/36138?7649

Online Activism Isn’t Dead

by Leslie Harris

The social and political impact of the Internet is growing at a rapid pace. After all of the successes credited to President Obama’s social media campaign network in last fall’s election, we still find ourselves at the earliest stages of development of the social layer of the Net. Still, some are quick to dismiss the activist power of the Internet and still are not convinced that this medium will continue to change the way the world organizes around issues.

Take a piece in today’s Washington Post by Monica Hesse, which commented on the “trendiness” of online activism and discounted these “click to join” groups as nothing more than numbers on a Facebook page. This completely misses the impact that social networks have had on increasing the awareness of many issues and building communities around these issues. As we gear up for our nation’s 233rd birthday, we are reminded of how colonists planted seeds of activism and organized against oppressors from abroad. Instead of Facebook fan pages, they had militiamen; instead of asking others to click a link, they asked them to help gather supplies; instead of Twitter feeds, they used horses to get messages across. From top to bottom, they created organization that allowed supporters to thrive in any role or level they chose. The mother who allowed soldiers to sleep in her cabin, was as vital to their success as the soldiers themselves. It didn’t matter what a supporter of the revolution was doing, their support alone was enough.

Today there are groups on Facebook aimed at gathering supporters for just about any cause. Just like any other advocacy effort, supporters join for a variety of different reasons. That’s where the Hesse piece really misses the mark. The assumption is made that to participate in any activism online, one must be willing to fight hard and organize physical results to be “worthy” of being a supporter. This claim ignores the power of community building and the very essence of grassroots advocacy. My support of a specific issue is not measured by how much I donate or how many rallies I attend. To discount followers of causes on social networks engaging in conduct that is a “trendy and easy virtue” ignores the impact that supporters have on social networks at every level of involvement. The person simply receiving message updates on the issue is just as vital to the success of the cause as the top-level organizer who sends tasks and ideas to the group’s followers.

It’s especially disheartening to read about Anders Colding-Jorgensen and his little social experiment of creating a fictional Facebook cause and group just to “prove” how little the followers of a social media group matter. The time spent on rounding up supporters for a fake issue could have been better spent organizing supporters for a real global issue.

While not all social media activist campaigns are built with the same number of leaders and organizers, every level of involvement in these mediums is important. These networks are valuable at even the base level of getting information to hundreds of thousands of new supporters, regardless of how involved those supporters might ultimately be.

Rather than simply dismiss the power of social network organizing, we should focus on developing its use further as we have only begun to explore the possibilities of organizing masses online around global issues. If several thousand people can use a Facebook group to save an outdoor movie festival in Washington and one man can organize millions to take to the streets in Columbia against the FARC then there’s no telling what the future holds for social networking.

http://blog.cdt.org/2009/07/02/online-activism-isnt-dead/

Political Participation Through Social Media

While many traditional newspaper publishing companies are loosing their clients to the internet, social websites such as Facebook or MySpace are capturing new members every second. It appears that such websites are becoming the most effective means of distributing private or public information.

Indeed, citizens can express their political opinions by being supporters of different political parties or presidents on Facebook pages. As for instance, the pages of the French president Nicolas Sarkozy have 95 724 members. His pages provide access to all relevant news from the government. Members can read about the laws and re-forms that the government intends to implement, speeches that have been delivered on different occasions or official visits made by the president. By leaving positive or negative comments, people can create pressure on the decision makers to revisit certain legislation proposals or they can influence political views of other readers.

This system permits people to identify with different political believes. There are however a few drawbacks. Some individuals do not want to join these groups on principle of discretion as their membership is visible to all. Some people think that joining a specific political group could lead to a conflict at their workplace or community.

If we take the example of Barak Obama, who built his political campaign on the Internet by using means such as Facebook and YouTube, we can see how the new technology can directly change voters participation and election turnouts. Through internet, Obama established connection with otherwise inaccessible groups and become the most popular president in the world.

On his Facebook pages, we can find videos of his speeches, his agenda, projects he is planning to organize and various newspaper articles about his presidency. Moreover, his pages include some personal photos. This particularity made Barack Obama known as the “human” or “family” president.

The power of social networking is even greater in France where people are known for their political activity. There are thousands of groups and blogs discussing, opposing or supporting the French laws. We take an example of one group against the Law “DARCOS” created and named after the minister of education in December 2008. The group has already 21 664 members with a total of 541 comments. Law Darcos plans to re-form the French high school diploma (Baccalaureate). Prepared in four years at present, the Minister plans to reduce this time to one year. The Facebook group represent the discontent students and the many political slaps that France has suffered this year.

The Internet opened a new wave of political participation reaching more people than ever before. Youngsters use groups on social networking websites to read and comment on certain laws but also to organize public gatherings and protests. This social networking trend may lead to a greater political transparency and public inclusion. As a result, one may wonder if Facebook and blogs are good ways to etablish sustainable relationship between the government and citizens. That is a question that only time can answer.

http://pep-net.eu/wordpress/?p=545

Mobile Phones as a Tool for Civil Resistance - Case Studies from Serbia and Belarus

Author: Fabien Miard

The recent so-called “Twitter Revolutions” in Moldova and Iran have created a renewed interest in the role of new communication technologies in civil resistance and social protest activities. It is a new example in a growing list of events where such technologies played an important role in facilitating protests. Twitter and other microblogging platforms represent a new phenomenon because they easily work across different types of communication technologies such as instant messaging, blogging, and text messaging. This convergence also draws attention to the wide-spread use of mobile phones in civil resistance, a factor often overlooked by Internet enthusiasts. This R@D product summarizes some key insights from interviews with civil activists in both Serbia and Belarus that were part of a master thesis project on mobile phone usage in protest movements, and it links them to insights gained from the recent “Twitter Revolutions”. Although the cases of Serbia and Belarus might initially seem similar because of their geographic proximity, struggles with dictatorial leaders, and historical Communist dominance, mobile phone use by activists in these countries is markedly different. Mobile phones were a critical tactical tool in bringing down Milosevic in 2000. However, only 8 years later, mobiles are less useful to anti-Lukashenka Belarusian activists in the present day because of the state’s increasingly effective surveillance of mobile communication. http://www.digiactive.org/wp-content/uploads/research3_miard.pdf

WordPress blocked in Guatemala

Guatemala's ongoing political crisis, which began with the murder of lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg and has been fueled largely by YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and blogs, reached a new level over the weekend when several ISPs began blocking access to WordPress.com.

Reports of the blocking first reached Twitter on June 26, when user @demuxer noted that some Internet users in Guatemala were unable to access WordPress and wondered if Chapintocables, a political blog created after Rosenberg's death, was somehow involved: http://opennet.net/blog/2009/06/wordpress-blocked-guatemala

The Iranian Election on Twitter: The First Eighteen Days

The political events that transpired during and after the 2009 Iranian election garnered global attention, particularly due to the purported importance of Twitter. As a platform-independent service for communication, Twitter has become a preferred vehicle to broadcast unfolding events in Iran both within the country and to an international audience. The use of Twitter to communicate about these events is a striking instance of the memetic spread of behaviors and ideas online. Our report serves as an initial assessment of the Twitter web ecology -- that is, users interacting with their technological environment -- to sketch out the broad anatomy of discourse on Twitter by providing a novel perspective with quantitative data. Our servers continue to collect data, and we plan to publish a follow-up report that comprehensively explores the structure of the events from additional perspectives and depths.

Key Findings

* From 7 June 2009 until the time of publication (26 June 2009), we have recorded 2,024,166 tweets about the election in Iran.

* Approximately 480,000 users have contributed to this conversation alone.

* 59.3% of users tweet just once, and these users contribute 14.1% of the total number.

* The top 10% of users in our study account for 65.5% of total tweets.

* 1 in 4 tweets about Iran is a retweet of another user’s content.

http://webecologyproject.org/WEP-twitterFINAL.pdf