Citizen Media Watch

Interesting piece over at TechnoKimchi on the protests against president Lee Myung-Bak in Korea and how it all came about through citizen journalism:

How did it happen so quickly? This is the fun part. Lee is a very conservative guy, who still believes in “control”. What he did was, when numerous protests broke out around the country, he basically ordered the media companies “not to report” to the people about what’s happening. There were police at work, trying to stop the “peace candlelight” protests, or vigils now called; some police went quite violent, but none to be reported by major broadcasters, newspapers, Internet news sites, or magazines.

But we’re living in the age of Web 2.0. Now people are in control. People that were there became citizen journalists - thousands and thousands. And the force of citizen journalism has grown so immense that basically nobody can stop it now.

One site gathered a stunning 1.5 million signatures to an online call for impeachment. Read the full piece here.

Going through old posts on Beta Alfa’s blog, I found a post about YouTube’s new Citizen Media channel, Citizen News. They’ve appointed a News Manager and aim to collect news from citizen sources in one place, as a citizen news and interviews channel.

News Manager Olivia M calls out:

So here’s where I turn to you guys for help! If you see examples of fellow YouTubers doing great work in journalism and reporting, please let me know. If you’re a citizen journalist yourself, tell me how YouTube could better serve you. I want to hear how you guys envision news on YouTube and what you’d like to see. My ultimate mission is to make the site a go-to destination for news on the web.

A good ambition, for sure. But after 18 text replies, Olivia hasn’t yet got back to the users commenting her post. And with comments as this one, dated May 26, I feel it’s urgent that she should, if she wants this effort to be taken seriously:

We are very concerned about YouTube’s implementation of geolocational censorship in Thailand and elsewhere. How do you intend to distribute real news to its intended audience without being compromised by YouTube’s secret agreement with Thai government? Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT)

Wishing Olivia and the YouTube the best of luck with the initiative, and hoping to see a bit more interaction with the users.

Excellent clip from WAN in Gothenburg, provided by Medievärlden. Pierre Haski of Rue89.com on how to take your readers seriously and get good quality comments and a good debate.

More at Medievärlden (in Swedish).

The Canadian defence department has sent a memo to soldiers, urging them not to use social networking sites like Facebook, writes CBC News. The reason is said to be that terror organizations like Al Qaeda are monitoring these sites and any details revealed by soldiers might compromise missions and potentially threat the safety of the soldiers and also their families.

There are many areas where transparency is a good thing. In some ways, this isn’t one of them. At the same time, social media or indeed citizen journalism is one of the few ways to really find out what’s happening in troubled areas like Afghanistan or Iraq. Wherever wrongs are being committed by either side, I for one hope the soldiers are brave enough to go public with it through the media - citizen or traditional - so that we don’t get another Abu Ghraib scandal.

(via IDG.se)

Living in Sweden, and especially taking an active part in covering and exploring social and citizen media, I take many things for granted. One is the right to take photos in public areas, another to report about what I see and opinions and thoughts I have on any thinkable subject.

In other parts of the world, however, those simple actions can get you into serious trouble. I recently read an article in AsiaMedia about the situation in Sri Lanka. The country is the world’s third most dangerous place for journalists to operate, with only Iraq and Somalia being more deadly. Seven journalists were killed there in 2007.

Pedestrians who use their cellphones to film bomb attacks or even everyday events get questioned by police, and it’s not only authorities that pose a threat to reporters or anyone with a camera. There’s a trend of citizens not turning to the tools of citizen media to improve their situation, but instead turning against anyone trying to do this, or anyone remotely suspected of it.

Anyone with a still or video camera in public is immediately suspected as a “trouble-maker.” This endangers our right to click and shoot for personal or professional purposes.

Despite this, however, there is a movement of citizen journalism, though it’s a lonely and vulnerable job, especially with a decrease in democracy in recent years. New media activist Sanjana Hattotuwa is interviewed, and says:

- In Sri Lanka, the significant deterioration of democracy in 2006-2007 has resulted in a country where anxiety and fear overwhelm a sense of civic duty to bear witness to so much of what is wrong. No amount of mobile phones and PCs is going to magically erase this deep rooted fear of harm for speaking one’s mind out.

The article writer, Nalaka Gunawardene, brings up an example which clearly shows the poor state of democracy and the hardship for bloggers in Sri Lanka.

A fellow blogger recently wrote a moving piece about a 65-year-old woman who sells fruits and vegetables at her local market in Colombo. The story behind the story was how the blogger had been surrounded and questioned by four men and the police, who demanded to know whether she had “permission from the municipality to photograph.”

Luckily, the vegetable sellers came to her rescue. “They… said they asked me to come with the camera to take some photographs of them,” she wrote.

But she posed the question: “Do we have to have a camera license like a gun license of yesteryear?”

(via Social Media)

Per Mosseby of Pixbox says at Hubbub 07 he thinks the developing countries is where the mobile revolution will truly happen.
When mobile applications have been developed, the laptop is better than the cellphone in all aspects of the services that were going mobile. That is however changing, Per Mosseby says.
- Things are really starting to happen. The iPhone is a small revolution in this field. This means that everyone has to think about mobility.
- In my eyes it all comes back to what I think is going to be the big revolution in the mobile space.
When the bottom of the pyramid population can afford cellphones - all these 4 billion people who don’t have a digital identity - there’s going to be a lot of turnover.
- They do not have an alternative device to go back to.

Dan Gillmor has put together a ten point report of the state of citizen media today.
While both a general audience and traditional media now pays attention to citizen media, there have been backlashes and we are still struggling with the business models and trust issues, Gillmor writes. Many start-ups have failed, yet there are a few examples of successful sites. Gillmor mentions Scoop and NowPublic as good examples. And he’s optimistic about the future of journalism, encouraging people to experiment more.

not only don’t you need permission, but you don’t need much money, either

In finding new ways for citizen media to develop, Gillmor has a philosophy. This is his advice:

* Openness: Use open technologies, and be open with others about what you are doing. Now, a truly spectacular idea may be such a hot business project that one should work in stealth mode, but most ideas will find more traction with the help of others who care about what you’re doing.
* Use tools that already exist: Reinventing wheels is rarely a productive use of time in the cheap-experiments arena. Chances are that many if not all of the tools you need are already available.
* Collaboration: Work with anyone and everyone.
* Take risks: This is by far the most important. Silicon Valley, where I’ve lived for more than a decade, has taught me a crucial truth, that a culture of risk-taking is a precondition for wider success. The low cost of trying, and correspondingly low cost of failure, is removing virtually all reasons for not taking chances.

The last point is about trust, and is well worth reading in its entirety.

A year ago, Danish newspaper Politiken moved their newsdesk online. Now Berlingske Tidende is taking it one step further. ALL journalists are to work for the web edition as well as for print. Stories will be published online first.

Behind the move is Berlingske’s new editor-in-chief, Lisbeth Knudsen. According to New Media Trends, she says the new strategy has “earthquake” like dimensions.

As Jon Lund at New Media Trends points out, there are a number of challenges to face for Berlingske.
Having traditional journalists refocus on web publishing takes time and energy. One important aspect is that the print journalists will find out what it’s like to get instant feedback within seconds of writing an article, and they’ll learn to start to think of publishing as communication. The result will hopefully result in better products, both online and in print.

Sriram Krishnan talked about media landscapes in Singapore. It was meant to be a joint presentation with his friend Justin Lee in Singapore, but that didn’t quite work out. Probably because the internet connetion here really sucks.
Anyway, Singapore is interesting because of it’s small size yet prominent position online. Sriram showed that out of the top ten search terms on Technorati, two were individuals from Singapore.
The reason? Part of the explanation is that Singaporeans are early adopters, they have good infrastucture, pick up trends from Japan and Europe.
The younger generation want to express themselves more. There are more blogs than youths in Singapore, Sriram Krishnan said.
The government, “Gahmen”, is revamping schools with tablet pcs, podcasts and other high-tech stuff. But they also set limits to what you can say and do both irl and online.
- The sedition act says you can’t speak your mind. If you do and it’s considered to be dissatisfactory to the governement, you’ll be put in jail.
Krishnan showed a site called Stomp, which is the gahmen’s answer to web2.0 for young people.
- In my opinion it’s failed miserably. It’s a bad site.
There’s also content regulation online. The govenment wants to preserve traditional Asian values. Political bloggers needed to register prior to the elections in 2006, and podcasts were banned altogether.

To check out all my photos from Podcamp, check out to my Podcamp Flickr set.

Interesting Washington Post piece on law enforcement in virtual worlds like Second Life or the game World of Warcraft.

Two years ago, Japanese authorities arrested a man for carrying out a series of virtual muggings in another popular game, Lineage II, by using software to beat up and rob characters in the game and then sell the virtual loot for real money.

The key question is whether for instance rape, child abuse, mugging and killing online should be compared to these acts in the real world. And if so, which country’s laws should the crimes fall under.

Philip Rosedale, the founder and chief executive of Linden Labs, said in an interview that Second Life activities should be governed by real-life laws for the time being. He recounted, for example, that his company has called in the FBI several times, most recently this spring to ensure that Second Life’s virtual casinos complied with U.S. law. Federal investigators created their own avatars and toured the site, he said.

In coming months, his company plans to disperse tens of thousands of computer servers from California and Texas to countries around the world in order to improve the site’s performance. Also, he said, this will make activities on those servers subject to laws of the host countries.